made of this bill, but I do not feel that you gentlemen should come in here at this time and ask that this bill be delayed for over a year when my people down there are having to move away from the most fertile farms there are in the South, where we can show beyond question that we will be able to pay every dollar of this money back to the Federal Government. I do not feel that you gentlemen should come in here and ask us, when you ratified this compact unanimously by your house and with only six dissenting votes in your Senate, and it was vetoed not upon the request of the Texas Water Users' Association, but, as I understand, upon the request of the gentlemen in the Carlsbad section. Why can't you gentlemen settle your differences without coming here and asking that the bill be delayed for over a year? We were not taking one drop of your water away from you, but we are giving you 110,000 acre-feet less than the compact gave us that was signed by you gentlemen after much discussion and by your representation there. I want to ask you gentlemen if you think it is tair at this time to come in and hold up this bill?

I offered a bill last year, Mr. Morrow, what was known as a doubleheader bill, creating a reservoir at Red Bluff and one somewhere in the vicinity of Carlsbad, and I got no assistance from the State of New Mexico. That showed I wanted to do the fair thing by the State of New Mexico, and yet I got no assistance whatever from the State of New Mexico.

I ask you gentlemen of the committee, is it fair to deal with me and my people in this way and ask that this bill be held up for over a year until you gentlemen at Carlsbad and Fort Sumner and somewhere else get together and settle your family troubles in New Mexico? That is the situation. If this committee feels otherwise, of course, I shall yield to my colleagues on this committee, as I always do, but I do not feel that when you gentlemen said by the act of both of your houses there and by your State engineer, Mr. Neel-and you can read the letter of Mr. Neel, gentlemen-all through it, it runs in the vein that New Mexico is getting the best of the compact, and that they had better ratify it. Take the letter that the governor transmitted, and you will see that even Mr. Neel himself felt that in this compact the State of New Mexico was getting the lion's share of this water.

That is the situation. I would like to see my good friend Morrow and his representatives get together and get an agreement among themselves. Why should you bring Texas into that kind of a quarrel? The Legislature of Texas will ratify any compact that you gentlemen up there get together on as between yourselves, that does not alter the compact already ratified and agreed upon by the commissioners appointed from each State, and by the legislatures of the two States. We will say that in advance. We will ratify your amendment. It is immaterial to the Texas Legislature, Brother Morrow, as to what kind of an amendment you put on to protect Brother Edwards, and his Fort Sumner people, or the Carlsbad people, and, as a Representative, I want to help you.

If you will bring in a bill, I will help you, and my Senators over there will help you, but I do say, in all kindness, that I think it is a little out of the ordinary for you to come here and ask us, after we have made and ratified the compact-if it had never been submitted to the representatives of your State and in the legislature and the discussion there, and if it having passed and been agreed upon by them,

then I would certainly not ask you gentlemen here to pass a bill in conformity with a compact that was one-sided, but it was not onesided, gentlemen. It was not a one-sided compact. It was a compact that was agreed upon and ratified by the legislatures of two States, and our people down there, as we have shown conclusively to this committee, have been suffering ever since 1912, Brother Morrow, when you established your reservoir at Carlsbad, taking our water away from us, and we have been suffering there ever since. We were prosperous up to that time. If you had been here and followed the testimony, you would have seen that the Texas people and the Pecos Valley were prosperous until they built these reservoirs above us. We let you build them. Now, we only come in and ask for a share of the water that was agreed upon by your representatives. That is all we ask for. We do not ask to take away any right you have. The majority of that water that we get in this reservoir will never touch a single project that you have. It comes through the Black River and the Delaware River, and it is way below your projects, the majority of it. At times, as I have seen, and as Senator Sheppard testified he had seen, I have seen enough water coming down the Black River to irrigate every acre of land along the Pecos River from the head to the mouth.

I do not think you should ask us to delay this bill here until the Legislature of New Mexico meets, over a year hence. I do not think you should do so. We stand ready to help you in Texas in every way, and will help you, but, I can not consent, as far as I am individually concerned-I don't know how the gentlemen of the committee may feel about it-to delay the bill for over a year and prohibit us from bringing these different sections of the project into one project so that we can guarantee-I take it what is in the mind of this committee from the questions they have asked, whether or not if this reservoir is built the Government will be paid back. We have to convince the Secretary of the Interior that we will pay every dollar back. If we do not, then our bill absolutely fails, and we rest our entire case upon that.

Mr. MORROW. Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen, I do not want to inflict myself upon you too much

Mr. SINNOTT. I would like to ask Mr. Hudspeth a question first. You say, after we pass this bill the question is still open for the Secretary to say whether the reservoir is safe?

Mr. HUDSPETH. Whether he will initiate it, yes, sir. We have got to convince him that we can refund the money.

Mr. SINNOTT. He has already passed to the contrary.

Mr. HUDSPETH. Well, I don't think so, Mr. Sinnott. I have a letter from the Secretary to Senator McNary, which I will read into the record, which shows conclusively to my mind that he is convinced at this time that we will pay back every dollar of this money, because he says that is the sole thing to be considered in this letter. I ask Mr. Chairman to have this letter put in the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the letter will be inserted in the record.

(The letter referred to is printed herewith as follows:)

Hon. CHAS. L. McNARY,

INTERIOR DEPARTMENT, Washington, January 28, 1926.

Chairman Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation,

United States Senate.

MY DEAR SENATOR MCNARY: I have received your letter of January 11, inclosing copy of S. 2321, entitled "A bill to provide for the storage of the waters of the Pecos River," with request for report.

The bill authorizes an appropriation of not to exceed $3,000,000 to be made from the reclamation fund, or, as an alternative, from the General Treasury, for the construction of a storage reservoir on the Pecos River below Delaware Creek and Black River, with necessary incidental works, for the irrigation of lands in the Pecos Valley, the funds to be reimbursed under the act of June 17, 1902 (32 Stat. 328), and acts amendatory thereof or supplementary thereto.

The location of the mouth of the Delaware Creek is immediately above the Texas-New Mexico State line. From this it follows that the dam would, of necessity, be constructed at or below the State line, and the water impounded would be available for the irrigation of lands in Texas.

No specific storage reservoir is designated, nor is the location of the irrigable lands fixed, except as determined by the physical conditions already stated; therefore, no data are available by which the estimated cost, or the amount of appropriation needed for this purpose, may be determined.

During 1913 and 1914 the Bureau of Reclamation made a reconnoissance from the confluence of the Pecos River with the Rio Grande upstream, to ascertain the possibility for storage sites to be used for impounding water to irrigate lands in Texas and New Mexico. This resulted in a report by Engineer P. M. Fogg, of the Bureau of Reclamation, made in 1914, indicating that the only storage site discovered below the Carlsbad project in New Mexico is the Red Bluff site near the New Mexico-Texas State line. During 1923 and 1924 several sites for dams for this reservoir were drilled, and examination of the reservoir site was subsequently made by geologists of the United States Geological Survey, who reported unfavorably on the tightness of the proposed reservoir, on account of the large amount of soluble material in the form of gypsum and the cavernous limestone encountered.

As the rights of the Carlsbad project and other prior appropriators from the Pecos River have exhausted the normal flow, storage is necessary for any further irrigation development.

It appears that there are about 38,000 acres of land below the proposed reservoir settled, cultivated, and having a partial water supply for irrigation. The purpose of this reservoir would be to supplement the existing supply. Therefore there are no questions of settlement or of farm development. There is involved simply a question of the security to be given for the repayment of the money expended if the reservoir is built.

All the reports agree as to the existence of layers of gypsum within the reservoir site, and that leakage to a greater or less extent would occur. The effect of the reservoir would be not to hold back the water indefinitely until needed, but to retard the flow temporarily and distribute the waters available from the floods over a longer period. The length of time during which the flood waters could be thus temporarily stored or the flow retarded would determine the value of the reservoir. If built, the hazard and responsibility for the successful operation of a storage work of this character should be assumed entirely by the water users, and guaranty of payment should be required to assure the return to the Government of the funds expended even though the reservoir should fail to function properly.

Irrigators on the river in Texas, below the site of the proposed reservoir, claim that their water supply has been seriously impaired by the construction and operation of storage works in connection with the Carlsbad project in New Mexico, now operated by the Bureau of Reclamation, and by the use of water elsewhere on the stream system in New Mexico.

The bill has been submitted to the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, who reports that it is contrary to the financial plans of the President.

Very truly yours,

HUBERT WORK.

Mr. SINNOTT. I understood the reason that we are considering this was that they had declared it not to be

Mr. HUDSPETH. He declared there was a doubt. He said the question was that there was a doubt as to the reservoir holding, and that therefore Congress should take the responsibility.

Mr. SINNOTT. Is the Secretary free from that doubt now?

Mr. HUDSPETH. Well, I think from this letter he has changed his mind considerably.

The CHAIRMAN. Is this letter based on the identical bill as introduced by you?

Mr. HUDSPETH. Yes, sir.

Mr. SINNOTT. Why does he not go ahead through the regular channels, then?

Mr. HUDSPETH. As I stated, there is a doubt, and we were frank to state to you gentlemen at the beginning of this discussion as to whether this reservoir would hold or not. We think it will hold water to sufficient extent that we can restrain the water and irrigate our project to a success.

Mr. SINNOTT. Of course, if the Secretary is free from any doubt

Mr. HUDSPETH. I do not say he is absolutely free, but I think his mind is in such state that we can convince him that the Government will be paid back; that we can put such security behind it that he will be convinced and that he will initiate the project. Of course, if he was free from doubt, we could go ahead through the present law and initiate the project, but the engineer's report shows there is a doubt and that was stated to the committee. We were absolutely frank. We said the reservoir might leak. The borings and tests show that it might leak, and it might not leak, but notwithstanding the fact that it might leak, we are willing to take all the chance. We can build other dams below, holding dams to catch the water that will supply our 40,000 acres. We are not asking to put in a single additional acre to what is now already attempted to be irrigated down there. We have that much confidence that if you gentlemen give us a favorable report, we can get the bill through and we can convince the Secretary of the Interior that we have such value of property there that we can put behind this loan that will guarantee the Government, beyond any question.

The CHAIRMAN. The original bill that you have produced did not contemplate the formation of an irrigation district and the bonding of all of the property to repay the Government? I mean your first bill? Mr. HUDSPETH. No, sir, but this bill does.

The CHAIRMAN. I suggest that this bill, instead of being offered as a substitute, be offered as the original bill, and let it go through the usual channels, so that we might have the Secretary's opinion on this new plan as proposed in this bill.

Major BURGES. I submitted it to Doctor Mead, and I may say that I do not believe, however-this is simply to conform more to the department's ideas-what we conceive from the state of the record to be the department's idea as to the way the bill should read at this time. It does not change the intrinsic question. The original bill, if I might be allowed to say, did contemplate a contract with a district to be organized. That part of it is unchanged. There is no difference in that in this bill. The only difference in this bill and the

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original draft of the bill is in the limitation of the acreage to be irrigated in Texas, in conformity with the compact, and with a statement as to prescribing the method of payment, and exempting the Secretary from classifying the lands, in view of the fact that they are already settled, but it contemplates a contract with the Secretary, exactly as the original bill did. There is no doubt about that.

The CHAIRMAN. In the interest of orderly procedure and for the record, to show that the Secretary has expressed an opinion on this particular bill, I should think it would be to your interest to have it introduced as a new bill, and we will have the hearings note that the arguments apply to this bill as well as to the original bill introduced. Mr. HUDSPETH. It was just a question in my mind as to which could be expedited, whether to offer this as a substitute for the other bill and have the committee consider the other bill, or whether or not to introduce it as a new bill. I discussed that with Congressman Hayden, and his idea was to offer it as a substitute bill. It is just a matter of trying to get the proposition before the House at the earliest time possible.

Major BURGES. I do not know that I am so optimistic about the Secretary changing his point of view. I think he said that they would not assume the responsibility of building another reservoir on the Pecos Valley unless there was legislation on the subject; that that was really up to Congress; that all indications indicate that the reservoirs built on the Pecos River would leak, and they would not assume that responsibility, but if Congress thought they should proceed, Doctor Mead's testimony indicated that the department was willing to abide by that.

Mr. HUDSPETH. What I mean to state is, from a conversation I had with Doctor Mead, in which he requested that probably it would be better for me to get this report that had been sent to the Senate committee and present it to the House committee the morning we were down there discussing projects that you gentlemen were interested in.

Mr. MORROW. Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen, I do not intend to keep you any length of time at all. We are not injecting any quarrel into this matter, between two irrigation projects in New Mexico. We have not brought any quarrel here. There is no indication of it. We have not taken up the time of this committee on any extended hearings. You have given us two hours this morning. That is all that our people of New Mexico have ever been before you.

The CHAIRMAN. That is all you have ever asked for.

Mr. MORROW. That is all we have asked for, yes, sir; so that all we expect is for you to consider this matter in the proper light.

An irrigation proposition in a Western country is a most important subject to the average State, at this time, to protect their waters, and to protect them properly and legally and equitably to the State's interest.

Now, I am not going to convey to you that we are here for the purpose of any quarrel with the State of Texas. Every drop of water that the State of Texas has apportioned and utilizes she is entitled to, but she is not entitled to come in and take the heritage that belongs to future generations of New Mexico, just the same as other States all through that arid region have to protect their rights.