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<br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />3 <br /> <br />Numerous meetings were held in southwestern cities where <br />resolutions were passed urging the federal government to assist in <br />controlling the refractory Colorado River through storage and flood <br />control projects. <br />The Reclamation Service was delighted to comply, but the upper <br />basin states balked at the possibility of a large dam on the lower <br />Colorado River. They argued that the first works should be <br />constructed on the upper Colorado in order to prevent adverse claims <br />by California and Arizona where agriculture and population <br />settlements were more advanced. Friction developed, exacerbated by <br />Reclamation Director, Arthur Powell Davis, who confidently expressed <br />his opinion that an excess would remain in the river even after the <br />seven river basin states took all the water they needed. He wanted to <br />build a dam at Boulder Canyon. <br />By 1920 it was apparent that California's desire for rapid dam <br />construction was clashing with the upper basin's fear of future <br />restrictions on their own development. The West's general adherence <br />to litigation in matters of interstate water conflict was based on the <br />doctrine of prior appropriation. If California got its dam, and put to <br />beneficial use large quantities of water, slower growth in the upper <br />basin states would always be subject to already established rights <br />along the lower river. This is what the upper states referred to as an <br />intolerable "servitude." <br />When the League's members met in Denver in 1920, they were <br />looking for a way out of the stalemate. Colorado Governor Oliver <br />Shoup asked his interstate water commissioner, Delphus E. <br />Carpenter, to come up with a plan that would secure protection for the <br />upper basin states to develop water at their own pace, and set the <br />stage for a construction plan that would please the lower river. What <br />Carpenter presented to delegates was his idea of using the states' <br />treaty making powers, as defined in the Constitution, to draw up an <br />interstate compact that would determine how Colorado River water <br />would be distributed prior to construction of works. <br />This was a watershed moment. Delegates approved Carpenter's <br />suggestion unanimously, probably because there appeared to be no <br />other way out of their dilemma. The concept of a congressionally <br /> <br />3 <br />