WSP08221

• File Number: 8271.200.10
• Description: Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program - Development and History- Committee of 14
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 11/26/1973
• Author: Herbert Brownwell
• Title: The Agreement for a Permanent and Definitive Solution to the Colorado River Salinity Problem with Mexico -- A Presentation before The Colorado River Water Users Association
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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of its waters
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and the inescapable consequences of its downstream position

In the circumstances, however, the United States negotiators had to

consider whether the United States should assist the Mexican people in

some way in improving the irrigation and land management system in the

Mexicali Valley where the Colorado River water is used. We concluded that

it was incumbent on the United States, where the salinity problem originated,

to offer help to Mexico in the financing of a program of rehabilitation

. already under way, so that Mexico could make optimum use of its Colorado

River water. The agreement accordingly provides that the United States

will support Mexico's efforts in obtaining a loan under favorable terms to

meet a part of the cost of an improvement and rehabilitation program, and

also will provide non-reimbursable assistance, on a basis mutually acceptab14

to both countries, exclusively for those aspects of the Mexican rehabilitation

program related to the salinity problem, including tile drainage.

These are the principal obligations undertaken by the United States in

the agreement. In accepting them, we were determined to obtain commitments

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from Hexico needed by the United States and particularly the Colorado River

Basin States. Most importantly, we asked Mexico to accept as a part of

its treaty deliveries the drainage tvaters entering the river below Imperial

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Dam, other than untreated Wellton-Mohawk District drainage waters. Mexico I

agreed to accept permanently 140,000 acre-feet of its annual treaty deliverie~

on the Arizona-Sonora land boundary and in the limitrophe section of the

Colorado River below Morelos Dam. This water will consist of drainage and