COLORADO RIVER BASIN

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1925

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON IRRIGATION AND RECLAMATION,

Washington, D. C.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10.30 o'clock a. m., in the committee room of the Committee on Commerce, Capitol, Senator Charles L. McNary presiding.

Present: Senator Charles L. McNary, of Oregon (chairman); Senator Wesley L. Jones, of Washington, Senator Lawrence C. Phipps, of Colorado; Senator Frank R. Gooding, of Idaho; Senator Ralph H. Cameron, of Arizona; Senator Tasker L. Oddie, of Nevada; Senator Samuel M. Shortridge, of California; Senator Morris Sheppard, of Texas; Senator Thomas J. Walsh, of Montana; Senator John B. Kendrick, of Wyoming; Senator Key Pittman, of Nevada; Senator Hiram W. Johnson, of California; Senator Furnifold M. Simmons, of North Carolina; Senator C. C. Dill, of Washington; Senator Henry F. Ashurst, of Arizona.

Present also: Representative Swing, of California.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will resume its hearings. At the request of the committee, I have asked Mr. Merrill, executive secretary of the Federal Power Commission, to appear before the committee.

Mr. Merrill, will you have a seat at the far end of this table, if you please, and state your official connection and the time you have been with the commission.

Mr. MERRILL. I am executive secretary to the Federal Power Commission, and have occupied that position since the creation of the commission in July, 1920.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Merrill, the committee has been making a study of the development of the Colorado River Basin, has made a personal investigation, and held hearings in Washington, of which these are a continuation. Without desiring to propound to you specific questions leading in their nature, the committee would like to have you make such general statement as you may desire covering the subject matter.

STATEMENT OF 0. C. MERRILL, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF THE FEDERAL POWER COMMISSION, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. MERRILL. I assume, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, that it is hardly necessary for me to go into details about the project. Your committee has seen it as it appears on the ground, and the statements that I have made, as well as the statements of other representatives of the commission before the House committee

of last year are available. They may be found in the reports of the hearing of the Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation of the House of Representatives.

I wish, however, to make just a brief general review of the situation, and first to call your attention to what you already know-the different characteristics of what we may call the three sections of the Colorado River. It is a situation that has a bearing on the nature of the development of the river.

We may call those sections in their order:

1. The upper section, extending from the headwaters down to the vicinity of Lees Ferry. In this section originate, as I recall, about 86 per cent of the volume of the waters of the Colorado River. It is in this section that all, or nearly all, of the irrigable lands lie. This is the section that can be developed for power and for irrigation, but in most of the parts the development must be coordinated so as to get the best utilization for both purposes out of the individual development.

2. The middle sections, from the vicinity of Lees Ferry down to, we will say, the mouth of the Williams River. It yields something like 7 or 8 per cent, I believe, of the total run-off coming primarily from the Little Colorado and the minor tributaries of the main river. There is practically no possibility of irrigation in this section of the river, both because there are no irrigable lands immediately adjacent. and because the river is so far down in the canyon, some 3,000 or 4,000 feet, rendering practically impossible any taking of waters out of the river. There is, however, about 3,000 feet drop through this section of the river, and its development will be almost exclusively a matter of power.

3. In the lower section of the river, from the mouth of the Williams down, you again have a situation where there must be correlation of uses.

The physical situation makes the general problem of development of the Colorado River simpler than in the case of most other large rivers; it does not, however, make the solution of the problem or provision for the comprehensive development of the river, any less

necessary.

The Colorado River is the major resource of the southwestern part of the United States from the standpoint of supplying water for irrigation and supplying water for power. It is the only stream with extensive power resources yet undeveloped. It is the only stream from which waters can be had for developing some 4,500,000 acres, as I recall in number, in the upper basin States and from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 acres, or possibly more, in the lower basin States.

The problem is, however, complicated in a way it is not on some other streams by reason of the physical characteristics of the California delta or the Colorado delta and the necessity of flood-control measures to protect not only the lands along the river itself in California and in Arizona but the larger and more important area contained in the Imperial Valley in California. So far as I know everyone who has approached the problem of the Colorado River has agreed that the primary consideration and the one that needs most immediate attention is flood protection. I need not repeat any of the happenings of past years which make this situation acute. Nor

need I repeat what seems to be a generally accepted fact, that the present methods of flood control are not adequate to insure the desired protection, and that the only way in which the problem can be satisfactorily and safely met is by flood-control storage on the Colorado River itself. The differences of opinion that have arisen have not been over the fact that flood control is necessary, but over the extent and the location of the reservoirs for that purpose.

It is the opinion of those who have investigated the water resources of the Colorado Basin that there, at least, is not any surplus of waters for the necessities of irrigation, and that, therefore, in any general scheme of development of the river care should be exercised not unnecessarily to waste waters which, though not needed in this generation, are almost certain to be needed in the future.

While the resources of the Colorado River approximate from 4,000,000 to 6,000,000 horsepower, way beyond present-day requirements of the Southwest, and including in the Southwest the southern half of California, there is no reasonable doubt that within the next half century at the outside there will be demand for all the hydroelectric energy that the lower Colorado River at least can supply, and care must, therefore, be taken in any scheme of development of the river to see that we do not sacrifice, unless for outstanding reasons, any future possibilities of power.

It seems to me that these are the two considerations that must be taken into account in any scheme of development or in comparing the different proposed schemes of development.

There are numerous dam sites all the way from Parker, Ariz., into the headwaters. It is not a situation where we are confined to certain definite and limited locations. There are enough practicable sites, or appear to be from the investigations already made to permit the adjustment of the uses for the river and locations of dams in such positions as to give complete flood control, full use of the water for irrigation, without any wastage of head or of water for power development.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I do not care myself to go into the details of these various schemes of development that have been proposed. There is in the record of the hearings of a year ago before the House committee the testimony of Colonel Kelly, formerly chief engineer of the Federal Power Commission, concerning a proposed outline of development drafted after extensive studies which he made upon the Colorado River. Furthermore, there has been published in the last few months a report by Mr. La Rue on the Colorado River, in which he gives a suggested scheme of development. There is no essential difference between the scheme proposed by Colonel Kelly and the one proposed by Mr. La Rue; both of them admittedly are dependent upon determination at any individual site whether the foundation conditions are satisfactory for the building of a dam. The general outline of both schemes is for a flood-control dam low down on the river, either at Mohave City, if that should prove satisfactory, or lower at Black Canyon, or in that vicinity.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you a definite opinion where the dam should be located?

Mr. MERRILL. No; and I do not think that anyone can say, more than that the exterior physical conditions appear to give this scheme