Arizona asserts that, while the Federal Government as a proprietor may own the lands abutting the dam sites and the lands that will be overflowed, the State of Arizona, as a sovereign, owns the land in the bed of the stream, upon which the dam will be erected and the water in the stream and that it reserves the right to tax and derive revenue from any development in the river in whatever manner the laws of this State may devise.

Any decisions made should first of all stipulate that as between the United States Government and the Mexican Government no water rights will accrue to Mexican lands resulting from any storage facilities provided on the Colorado River or any of its tributaries.

Mr CHAIRMAN, may I file, on behalf of the desert entrymen of the Palo-Verde and Chuckawalla district a petition to this committee?

The CHAIRMAN: Yes.

(The petition referred to is as follows:)

BEFORE THE HONORABLE UNITED STATES SENATE COMMITTEE ON IRRIGATION AND RECLAMATION

In the matter of the relief of the lands and desert entrymen of the PaloVerde and Chuckawalla district, petition

To the HON CHARLES L. McNARY, Chairman, and Members of the Senate Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation in Conference at Los Angles,

Calif.

GENTLEMEN: The Polo-Verde and Chuckawalla Entrymen's Irrigation Association, a voluntary organization comprised of some 800 entrymen. respectfully submit to your honorable body their petition for recognition as a benefactor under possible legislation and governmental irrigation and reclamation, and respectfully represent:

(a) That your petitioners hold under their respective desert land entry in Riverside County, Calif, lands approximating 217,000 acres; that said lands are arid in character and exceptionally attractive for agricultural and horticultural purpose by virtue of superior soil and climate conditions; that said lands depend for their reclamation upon waters of the Colorado River.

(b) That said entries were made in good faith by the respective claimants and constitute the last opportunity to exercise the right of land entry to these claimants; that the expenditure incident to the compliance with the Federal laws has aggregated more than $700,000; that incident to the reclamation of said lands preliminary work, maps, contours, etc., including the expenditures made incident to the requirement of the War Department on the Colorado River more than $100,000 have been expended, the whole of the same being virtually lost under existing unavoidable circumstances.

(c) Your petitioners respectfully represent that they are now in a position to submit to any department requiring the same, efficient details, maps, contours, and other valuable data omitted at this time, under the belief that they are all of general knowledge to your committee, and the important instruments incident thereto are now on file with the Secretary of the Interior. report of James Dix Schuyler, formerly engineer of the department of engineering, Panama Canal.

(d) Your petitioners respectfully pray that they be recognized as the proper applicant for benefits under the flood control, reclamation, or power projects incident to the Government improvement on or along the Colorado River, and to be justly entitled to their necessary and requisite amount of water and power for the reclamation of said lands.

(e) That your petitioners be noted and recognized as unqualified supporters

First. Of the Colorado high dam project,

Second, That the All-American Canal as a reclamation project is a necessary adjunct to American developments,

Third, As indorsers of the apparent efforts, objects, and purposes of the Swing-Johnson measure and any necessary and proper amendments thereof, in keeping with efficient engineering advice,

Fourth, That this organization be considered dependent upon and at the mercy of governmental improvement and the reclamation incident to the Colorado high dam project.

(f) Your petitioners respectfully pray for the consideration of your honorable committee and for your support and recommendation of the present contemplated or subsequent legislation conducive to and effective in the reclamation of said lands and the rights of these entrymen to continue and hold upon these lands, and that thereby they be permitted to exercise a right thereto, which, if destroyed, the same con not be exercised subsequently by virtue of the rapidly passing of the eminent domain; that your committee make such recommendations as will best subserve the Nation, the State, and these respective claimants.

Submitted with appreciation of this opportunity.

Attest:

THE PALO-VERDE AND CHUCKAWALLA DISTRICT ASSOCIATION, By LYMAN FARWELL., President.

FRANK U. SHERMAN,
Secretary and Treasurer.

Address: 307 Western Mutual Life Building, Los Angeles, Calif.
The CHAIRMAN. Is Mr. H. B. Hovland here?

STATEMENT OF H. B. HOVLAND, MINING ENGINEER, TUCSON,

ARIZ.

The CHAIRMAN. What is your occupation?

Mr. HOVLAND. Mining engineer. I qualified before the committee in March, 1924. I have a telegram from Governor Hunt in which he asked me to appear before this meeting and represent Arizona in respect to some matters. I have been here two days and I have been struck by one great big outstanding fact. There have been discussions of the great development in this river, and almost all point to the great value of the properties involved in this development, namely, water and power. No exact figures have been set, but no doubt they run up into hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps into billions of dollars, these values that are being discussed. That has an interest to me in just this way at this moment: Arizona is interested, and California is interested, and other States are interested. These values can scarcely be divided up between the States without issues arising.

Then, it occurred to me at this meeting, and within the five minutes allotted to me, I might set before you 10 points for your consideration, not for our benefit any more than for your benefit. I desire you to consider those 10 points and study them out, because I believe that the issue will come along those lines in the near future.

First. The outstanding part of the Colorado River now in controversy is in the State of Arizona.

Second. The law of prior appropriation and beneficial use as applied by and within Arizona upon waters of the Colorado River within Arizona is controlling as against any other State.

Third. Every major dam hitherto proposed for storage and power, if built, would be set upon Arizona terrain subject to jurisdiction of the State of Arizona.

Fourth. The State of Arizona with due dilligence over years of time has exercised its rights and filed upon Glenn-Spencer-Bridge Canyon sites for the unappropriated waters and power of the Colo

rado River and upon the Arizona highline canal system for convey. ing the waters to 3,000,000 acres of Arizona agricultural lands.

Fifth. Arizona asserts its right to proceed with this development of the Colorado River undisturbed, under the law of prior appropriation and beneficial use.

Sixth. If interfered with in this development of the River Arizona will resist to the utmost through the last resort of the courts, if necessary, to the end of establishing its rights to the waters and power of the Colorado River within Arizona.

Seventh. Arizona requires that other States of the Colorado River Basin concede the aforesaid rights of the State of Arizona to the waters and power of the Colorado River within Arizona as a condition precedent to desired negotiations between the Colorado River Basin States to the end of solving the Colorado River problems without long drawn out litigation.

It rests with States other than

Ninth. Arizona does not desire litigation. Tenth. Cool heads are needed. Arizona to keep the Colorado River issues out of litigation. The present course of other States plainly drifts toward litigation, for Arizona will not be dispossessed of the water and power of its Colorado River without a struggle.

I submit those for consideration, because the value involved will undoubtedly raise these issues.

I

The CHAIRMAN. Is Mr. Bingham C. Wilson in the room? promised Mr. Wilson yesterday that he might have a very few minutes to discuss one phase of the subject. And, Mr. Wilson, try and confine your remarks to about 10 minutes.

STATEMENT OF BINGHAM C. WILSON

Mr. WILSON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, most everybody who comes before you has a tendency to tell you how great southern California is, but I am going to talk to you primarily about how small California is, and how dry we are. The condition of our country is a uniform condition over southern California, and if any gentlemen appeared before this committee and offered any suggestion relative to anything detrimental as to the construction of this dam he would go home persona non grata with the entire community. But I do think, gentlemen, that whatever subject you are discussing, it is worth being considered from every angle, and it seems to me that if this committee were to pass favorably upon a project that afterwards proved to be disastrous and detrimental for them financially and to the country in general, the committee would be largely susceptible to criticism. I want to that I pin a great faith, like Abraham Lincoln, to the United States Government, and for that reason this afternoon I want to call your attention to a bulletin here which was issued, No. 669, entitled "Salt resources of the United States."

The CHAIRMAN. By whom was that bulletin issued?

say

Senator SHORTRIDGE. Bulletin 669, Department of the Interior, Franklin K. Lane Secretary, issued in 1919, Government Printing Office.

Mr. WILSON. I happened for some years to be associated with Mr. Burbank, and was general manager of the Luther Burbank Co., and while in that position I was practically in touch constantly with a number of inquiries relative to the resources-agricultural resources of the United States, and among many were salt.

The CHAIRMAN. For the use of the committee and information for the record, with whom are you associated now?

Mr. WILSON. I am president of the Wilson Farming Tool Syndicate. I manufacture farm tools. I am a rancher at Salina, Čalif. I live on a ranch.

During the course of investigations I found something very interesting-which appeared to me, at least, to be very interesting, which was brought up by this discussion. It appears, in looking over the Virgin River, which is one of the most available arms and most important arm in the Boulder Dam project, that the eminent gentleman who went through this country and wrote up this report tells us that there are salt beds for 12 miles in extent, in solid cliffs 72 feet in thickness on both sides of the Virgin River for 12 miles. It seems to me if we are going to build a dam at Boulder Canyon that will inclose all that immense body of salt, after we spend all of our money, we had just as well go down to the people of Imperial Valley and say, "Irrigate your lands from the Salton Sea," and you gentlemen from Los Angeles, "Get your water from the ocean.

With your kind permission, I am going to read you something that will suprise you. For some reason this matter has never been brought out. After a careful investigation of years, I find these reports are absolutely infallible. It has been my good fortune to go through a good many reports on horticulture that were made by the United States, and I have found that their accuracy is absolute to a fault. I have never found one statement that did not qualify perfectly with the judgment of the best horticultural authorities in the United States. I want to read this to you.

Virgin Valley is mostly in the valley. The cliffs of salt, which are perfectly remarkable, are exposed in natural outcroppings along the valley of the Virgin River. The salt ledges are exposed in several places on both sides of the Virgin River Valley, between St. Thomas and the mouth of the Virgin at the Colorado, and the outcroppings extend in distance for more than 12 miles on each side.

If these facts are true, ladies and gentlemen, and if the United States Government is not in error in printing this and sending it out to the public, then I think it is something serious to consider before we contemplate the construction of a dam at an enormous cost, especially if such construction can be made above the Virgin River and thereby save such loss as would be sustained by this condition. It has been said to me-and I have consulted with many gentlemen on this subject; I have been informed by geologists who have gone in there for different salt concerns-to the effect that this statement, whil: accurate, is inadequate, and that the salt resource : of that country are very much greater and that the salt is very much greater in extent than is here represented in this book. One place in particular up in the Virgin River Valley, near the town of St. Thomas, is a salt mountain, which is solid salt.

Gentlemen, I do not bring this to you with any spirit of criticism. I am for the dam; we must have water. We have the most resourceful and marvelous country in the world, and without water it is a desert. For that reason I do ask that this matter be given careful consideration before the tax money is expended and our citizens find that they get brackish water to drink and salt water in their tea. I am an orange grower, and we fre:ze them about three times in succession in this country, and when we get salt water on them I know we will grow oranges.

I wish to thank you gentlemen very kindly for the opportunity of presenting these facts.

Senator JOHNSON. Now Mr. Chairman, if the committee is particularly interested in this subject, the engineers are here and they can answer it, or we can go on with the program and they can do that subsequently.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; they will have plenty of opportunity later. Mr. R. P. Peters, let me state for your information and others that may be called, that I am advised that we will have to give up this room at 5 o'clock, as the hotel desires to use it, and if you will permit me to follow out the scheduled time allotted, we can finish up and hear everyone. You are allowed 10 minutes.

Mr. R. P. Peters.

STATEMENT OF R. P. PETERS, RANCHER, SAN BERNARDINO

COUNTY, CALIF.

Mr. PETERS. Mr. Chairman and Senators, I speak somewhat from the point of view of a rancher, but San Bernardino County, as you will see on this map, is a rather large county. It has nearly 100 miles where the Colorado River meanders along its eastern boundary. The part that we are especially interested in is this little corner here under this map. I think it is well recognized that we have reached, as has been pointed out very ably by Mr. Sonderegger, the peak of agricultural development in southern California without more water supply. We do not hope to receive any water for agricultural purposes from the Colorado River. All we can hope for is that the cities themcely s may get water from the Colorado River, thereby releasing for the use of the ranches a continual agricultural program for this part of the country. I think it is well recognized that it is only a question of a very few years when slowly, acre by acre, we will have to drop out of agricultural production in order that the cities may impound the water. They have the first right to the use of water-we can not question that. But that which San Bernardino County is very much interested in is that we may somehow, some way, g t an additional supply of water, which is impossible at the present time, as we see it, from our own natural resources. Senator SHORTRIDGE. Where would you get it if not from the Colorado?

Mr. PETERS. That is the only place we can get it. It is possible to make some small conservations; but, as I see it, agriculture is simply doomed in southern California if we do not get the Colorado River water for the cities.

The CHAIRMAN. The next witness is Mr. S. H. Finley.