The Coconino sun., 1922-06-23
Page Seven

I rightfully call for relief against
 the action of Colorado, its corpor-
 ations and citizens, in appropria-
 ting the waters of the Arkansas
 for irrigation purposes"
 Arizona is in the same position as Kansas. The building of the Boulder Canyon dam, with all the waters which it stores being diverted to the California side and possible Mexico, would leave Arizona high and dry, by the establishment of priority rights such as are now recognized in the Im- peIial valley and the Yuma and Palo Verde valleys.
 Colorado, Utah and Wyoming can not prevent 60 per cent of the waters which fall upon it's water shed from crossing the Arizona line. l say this ! advisedly. It is common gossip among themselves that they cannot use 1 fifty per cent of the water for the reason that they have not the impounding reservoirs or basins. This is a simple thing. Their maps are dotted with reclamation projects and storage reservoirs; investigate a | few of these, as l have done, and see the limitation of their capacities. I say that S5 per cent of the wa teTs of the Colorado river enter the Arizona line. l say to you that these waters belong to you if you can use them. It is an admitted fact that you can use all the power there is in this water from the $500 to the 500 feet elevation. This is a drop of 5000 feet. It would mean an annual rev enue of more than $175,OO0,OO0 on the basis of $50 per horse power of B. 500,000 horse power.
 The building of the Glen Canyon dam will impound all the waters that enter Arizona; it will enable the river flow to be regulated to a normal of Tot less than 12,000 second feet which is only three-fourths of the recorded flow at Yuma; it will provide perfect river control; it will enable the sub sequent construction of power dams over this 5000 foot drop without dan ger of flood menace; it will impound the tremendous run-Off during May, June and July and allow power dams to be constructed all the way to and including the Boulder Canyon dam, which at some future time may be built for storage for reclamation pur- poses and for impounding the slight additional accretion which the direc- tor of the reclamation service feels is such an awful menace to the Im- perial valley from those three small streams mentioned.
 Again I say to you that Arizona's acquiescence in the Boulder Canyon dam project would be calamity from which we would never recover.
 I am minded of the fable of the great Aesop:
 A man came into the forest and made a petition to the trees to pro- vide him a handle for his axe. The trees consented to his request and gave him a young ash tree. No soon- CT had the man fitted to it a handle for his axe, than he began to use it, quickly felling with his strokes the noblest giants of the forest. An old oak, lamenting when it was too late, the destruction of his companions, said to a neighboring cedar: "The first step has lost us all; if we had not given up the rights of the ash, we might have retained our privileges and have stood for ages"
 For Gods sake let us not take the first step, to the end that we, as we'll as California, may endure for ages.
 JAMES B. GRAND.
 Engineer Girand points out the ul- terior purposes of the Swing-JOhn- son bill now under consideration in congress as follows:
 A bill was recently introduced in the house and senate known as the Swing-Johnson bill. It proposes an appropriation of S70,000,000 for the construction at Boulder Canyon, to- gether with certain canals. But the bill further provides that the govern ment shall reserve to itself the eX- elusive right to construction, provide and control dams, reservoirs or di- version works on the Colorado river below the mouth of the Green river. As the Green river is north of Ari- zona in Utah, this would mean that if Arizona is ever to obtain any bene- fits from the Colorado river, through development of power or otherwise, she must depend solely upon the gov ernment to provide same. In other words, this bill proposes that never at any time, or at any place within the state of Arizona, can any private util- ity company develop power on the Colorado river. Just why the states of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming or any other states to the north should be left free to obtain any power devel- opment or other beneficial construc- tion on the Colorado river and Ari- zona be denied the same right is not clear. Obviously the discrimination is unfair. From the Arizona view point competition is to be desired. Arizona interests will best be served through competition, rather than through monopoly of the river, by either the government or private cap- ital.
 Arizona does not propose to be de- prived of any of its right in or to the Colorado river. The Swing-Jo Johnson bill discriminates against Arizona. EpTSTnpAI, THITRTH