Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1921-06-03
BILL PRESENTED FOR FORMING WATER
 WAY COMMISSION

gress by Senator Bursam, of New Mexico providing for the creation of a waterway commission to be compos- ed of representatives of eleven states to have charge of the daming and control of the distribution of power and water of the Colorado river. This bill is a peculiar feature of the angles of the controversy over the distribu- ton of the waters of the Colorado, and is the outgrowth of the meeting of the League of the Southwest at Denver, last August. At that meeting there was loud protest against the policy of the government in building dams for the impoundment of water and the creation of power, several of the stat es claiming that they were not consid- cred in the general program as it was actually completed. Wyoming was one of the states to make the loudest protest against governmental control of the waters of the country, because that state did not get what it thought it was entitled to in the building of the Pathfinder dam. This dam was so built that large area of country in Nebraska was benefited, and as the government does not know state lines in the benefits to accrue from irri- gation there is reason to believe that the same condition will obtain in the handling of the waters of the Colo rado river. And why should they rec ognize state lines in matters of such large moment as the conserving of the waters of stream as potential as the Colorado river? Results. is what the reclamation service of this govern ment is after and not just what bene- fits one state or another is, to se- cure from any dam building program they may put on. The fact that the water shed of the Colorado river has wide ramifications does not preclude some other locality getting some bene- fit from the flood waters of that stream, especially when these waters are flowing uselessly to the sea. If the claims of the various states were conceded and each one was doled out its proportion of waters from its par ticular watershed, what would they do with it. We will take New Mexico, as, an illustration. That state is entit- ley to one per cent of the water of the Colorado river, just enough to wet a good Szed ditch a mile or so during the warm spell. Yet New Mexico was one of the loudest ranters at the convention for it's proportiopate rights in the Colorado river waters. Colorado furnishes the greater part of the flood waters that make up the flow of the, river, but that state is so geographically situated that it cannot take advantage of only>a small part of the rivers waters. And the only states that can make dam in the river worth while are Arizona and California, as we'll as Sonora and BaJa California, Mexico. And these states furnish but a small amount of the rivers water from their watersheds. Are the states on the upper reaches of the Colorado river to play dog in the manager with the states than can use the waters and will their repre- sertatives fight any measure that goes to the appfapriating of money to build dams in the canyons along the lower reaches of the stream? We doubt 1t, because these western men recognize the needs for larger interpretation of the rights of states in the distri- button of water.
 We have a reclamation service that has been in the hands of real men the past twenty years and this service is fjll functiQping. It has built many
 Artant dams in the west that have
 yht under cultivation millions of
 $ of desert land and gave to the .drrounding country an enormous ben eft in created hydro-electric power. It would be unfair to take these great projects out of the hands of men wing have made a lifelong study of the building of dams, looking to the pro lection lof the thousands of lives dwelling below them, and to>the just and economical distribution of the waters of the various reservoirs creat- ed by them. This service is function ing,-i it knows its business, and it will give the people results. Why turn it over to bunch of men who have been untried in matters of this kind and who would have to call in the same group of men that now have the sub
 ject in hand to make the building ot these great dams possible. We are eternally opposed to either new bureau or private enterprise getting a finger in the dam building pie on the Colorado river. The government is doing good work getting it's data prepared and only awaiting the oppro- priation of the necessary funds to put the project through. 4,E s-y-
 None of the fellows seeing things now could be induced to even listen to a proposition two years ago, every one of them declaring it not to be feasible, but they are now among the Stold you so" people today.
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