APPROPRIATION BILL FOR 1933 HEARINGS BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE SEVENTY-SECOND CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON H. R. 14769 A BILL MAKING APPROPRIATIONS TO SUPPLY DEFICIENCIES ENDING JUNE 30, 1933, AND JUNE 30, 1934 161773 Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations UNITED STATES WASHINGTON: 1933 SECOND DEFICIENCY APPROPRIATION BILL FOR 1933 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1933 UNITED STATES SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, Washington, D. C. The subcommittee was called to order by Hon. Frederick Hale, chairman, presiding, at 10.10 o'clock a. m. Present: Senators Hale, Keyes, Hayden, and Broussard. LOWER COLORADO RIVER BASIN STATEMENT OF HON. PHILIP D. SWING, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Mr. Swing, you have a matter that you would like to present? DESILTING WATER OF COLORADO RIVER Mr. SWING. The matter on which Doctor Mead and I are both here is the question of $100,000, all of which is reimbursable for the study of the silt problem, with reference to what heading should be used in diverting water from the Colorado River in order to desilt at the head. The CHAIRMAN. Did you take that matter up with the House committee? Mr. SWING. We did. They allowed $25,000. The details of that will be explained by Doctor Mead, as to why that is entirely inadequate and will not enable him to do the thing which they thought evidently should be done, for which they made an inadequate allow ance. WATER RIGHTS BETWEEN UNITED STATES AND MEXICO Briefly, what is the issue is the question of water rights on the Colorado River between Mexico and the United States? A river of gold which flows continuously from the United States into Mexico. But to-day it is unregulated and the lower flow of the river determines the amount of use in Mexico. With the building of the dam in Boulder Canyon, the river will be regulated and, from a minimum of sometimes less than 1,000 secondfeet, the minimum thereafter will probably be in the neighborhood of 20,000 second-feet, and there are millions of acres of land in Mexico that are capable of being highly developed for agriculture. There are more demands in the United States in these seven Colorado River Basin States than there is water, even after the river 1 is regulated. Of course, that will not be put to immediate use, but the question is, whether Mexico, by putting this water to beneficial use, shall be permitted to greatly expand her claim against the United States for water when we come to negotiate the treaty with them. We have been in negotiations with them. Doctor Mead was on that commission. After more than a year's negotiations, they could get nowhere, because Mexico claims one-half of the flow of the river; not one-half of the surplus, but one-half of the flow. If they should get anywhere near that amount, it would mean that great areas in these seven States would have to go, forever, desert, and without water. It is of interest to the upper basin States, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, because, in the Colorado River compact, which I will not take the time to quote, it provides that any water furnished to Mexico under treaty shall be out of surplus, and I have already indicated that there is not any surplus, and if the surplus is not sufficient, it should be drawn equally from the upper basin allotment and the lower basin allotment. I will ask permission to have this extract quoted. (c) If, as a matter of international comity, the United States of America shall hereafter recognize in the United States of Mexico any right to the use of any waters of the Colorado River system, such waters shall be supplied first from the waters which are surplus over and above the aggregate of the quantities specified in paragraphs (a) and (b); and if such surplus shall prove insufficient for this purpose, then the burden of such deficiency shall be equally borne by the upper basin and the lower basin, and whenever necessary the States of the upper division shall deliver at Lee Ferry water to supply one-half of the deficiency so recognized in addition to that provided in paragraph (d). Mr. SWING. This matter was very ably presented, to both the House and the Senate, by an able representative from the State of Arizona, and I desire to quote it in making my words brief. The CHAIRMAN. Very well. Mr. SWING. This is a very brief extract which, I think, should be incorporated in this hearing, of a statement made by a very distinguished Member of both the House and the Senate, who happens also to be a Member of this committee. This gentleman, in a statement before the Rules Committee, stated: Mr. HAYDEN. Yes. There is now under irrigation in Mexico about 200,000 acres of land, and that takes about half of the minimum flow of the stream. There is no immediate prospect of any immediate increase in the irrigated area either in Mexico or in the Imperial Valley of Californie, until the Colorado River is equated. When that is done there will then, according to this bill, be placed under irrigation 785,000 acres in the United States and water provided for a million more acres of land in Mexico. There are a million acres of irrigable land in Mexico, according to this unpublished report of the United States Reclamation Service which I hold in my hand. He said further: The United States will furnish water to a million acres of Mexican land upon which crops grown by cheap labor will compete with those grown by American farmers. He said further: Mexico has the same law that we have that the first in use is the first in right, and that land will be put in cultivation just as fast as possible. And then later, when the State of Arizona or any other part of the United States wants to use the water, the Mexicans will say, "You sent this water to us and nothing was said about it. We were the first to apply it to beneficial use. It is ours. The argument made by Senator Hayden, the gentleman whose words I quoted, is absolutely true. The only place in which I differ from him was that he had taken the position that by enacting the Swing-Johnson bill, we could show that that was notice to Mexico and that would be sufficient to protect our rights. Under my knowledge of western irrigation law, and the law of beneficial use, there must be definite, positive, action taken; there must be those successive steps taken toward putting the water to beneficial use. This, to-day, is the initial step, asking for an appropriation which will determine what type of heading shall be built for the All-American Canal, when we are ready to build. No appropriation is asked for the All-American Canal at this time. The CHAIRMAN. Why do you need $100,000 for that purpose? Mr. SWING. I will now conclude by just submitting that it is necessary, in my opinion, that another year should not go by without some definite action, or condition, some definite action, some definite steps, no matter how small they may be, but some definite steps be taken immediately. The CHAIRMAN. Do you not think that $25,000 would be sufficient to take the definite action that you speak of? Mr. SWING. That would, but Doctor Mead will show that it is not enough. The CHAIRMAN. How much will the project cost? Mr. SWING. The whole project, the whole All-American Canal? The CHAIRMAN. The whole project, the All-American Canal. Mr. SWING. $38,000,000. The CHAIRMAN. $38,000,000? Mr. SWING. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. And would this be a part of that? Mr. SWING. NO. We are not asking anything. This appropriation may save, many times over the amount of the appropriation, if we determine what the right type of desilting work is. If we get the wrong type, the expense involved in remodeling would remain a charge, or an unending cost, upon the communities depending upon it-would go on forever. The information acquired by the building of this model and testing it out for its efficiency in desilting, will be valuable, not only to the people in the Imperial Valley, but to the people of every other State on the Colorado River that uses water that is so heavily silted as the Colorado River. So, in closing I say this: The Colorado River is the third most important river in the United States. It is in the quantity of water, and in the West water is not only king, but king of kings. Without it there could not be any commerce. If we let this great asset, originating on our soil, the part of it over the surplus, escape and become affixed to the soil of Mexico, where we are morally bound under some treaty or some arbitration of the future to give away the water which falls upon American soil, and which can be used at the present time, which we have a right to use in the development of our own communities, then we will be charged with criminal negligence for failure to protect the race of future generations. |