COLORADO RIVER BASIN HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON IRRIGATION AND RECLAMATION SIXTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON S. 727 A BILL TO PROVIDE FOR THE PROTECTION AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE ON IRRIGATION AND RECLAMATION CHARLES L. MCNARY, Oregon, Chairman WESLEY L. JONES, Washington. SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE, California. MORRIS SHEPPARD, Texas. JOHN B. KENDRICK, Wyoming. KEY PITTMAN, Nevada. FURNIFOLD MCL. SIMMONS, North Carolina HENRY F. ASHURST, Arizona. H. K. KIEFER, Clerk COLORADO RIVER BASIN WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1924 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: Senators McNary (chairman), Phipps, Oddie, Shortridge, Walsh of Montana, Ashurst and Kendrick. Present also: Senators Johnson of California and Representative Swing. The committee thereupon proceeded to tue consideration of the bill S. 727, which is here printed in full, as follows: [S. 727, Sixty-eighth Congress, first session] A BILL To provide for the protection and development of the lower Colorado River Basin Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That for the purpose of regulating the lower Colorado River and controlling the floods therein, providing storage of water for irrigation and other beneficial uses, securing the development of electrical power, and providing homes for honorably discharged men and women of the United States Army, Navy, and Marine Corps who served therein during the war with Germany, the war with Spain, or in the suppression of the insurrection in the Philippines, the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized and empowered to construct a dam and incidental works for the purpose of providing a reservoir at or near Boulder Canyon on said river, adequate for the purposes aforesaid, and to acquire by proceedings in eminent domain or otherwise all lands and rights of way necessary for the said reservoir and incidental works; also to construct a main canal and appurtenant structures located entirely within the United States, connecting the Laguna Dam on said river with the Imperial and Coachella Valleys, in California; also to construct such other canals and structures as may be required for the delivery of water from said reservoir and said river to lands in the States of Arizona, Nevada, and California, which said Secretary may find practicable of irrigation and reclamation therefrom, and to acquire by proceedings in eminent domain or otherwise all rights of way necessary for such canals and structures: Provided, however, That no expenditures for the construction of canals or appurtenant structures authorized hereunder shall be made until the lands to be irrigated thereby shall have first been legally obligated to repay their proper portions, as may be determined by the Secretary of the Interior, of the total costs thereof to the United States in accordance with the terms of repayment prescribed in the act of Congress approved June 17, 1902, entitled "An act appropriating the receipts from the sale and disposal of public lands in certain States and Territories to the construction of irrigation works for the reclamation of arid lands," and acts amendatory thereof or supplementary thereto, hereinafter referred to as the reclamation law. SEC. 2. That the Secretary of the Interior is empowered to receive applications for the right to use for the generation of electrical power portions of the water discharge fro msaid reservoir and available for the generation of 1 |