The Colorado Rive;r and Its Development 541 



Reclamation Service that the water supply is ample and adequate for 

 all of the irrigable lands of both upper and lower basins have not 

 served to allay the fear. Another cause of alarm in Colorado is the 

 doubt as to whether that State will be allowed to divert 310,000 acre- 

 feet of water per year from the Colorado basin, through tunnels at 

 narrow places in the watershed, for use on the plains north and east 

 of Denver, as is desired. 



The upper states therefore are demanding a guarantee of unre- 

 stricted irrigation development in the upper basin, before they will 

 lend their support, or consent, to a federal project in the canyon region. 

 The lower basin states are asking for an allotment of the water supply 

 among the seven states. 



The wisdom of a perpetual guarantee or of an allotment of the 

 waters of the river is questionable. On no other river basin has 

 either been attempted. It is not possible to forsee conditions a hun- 

 dred years ahead, or even thirty years ahead. All irrigators who are 

 putting the water to beneficial use should be protected, but in prin- 

 ciple it may be exceedingly dangerous to reserve a valuable water 

 supply for a project which may prove to be of doubtful feasibility. 

 If an allotment of the water is attempted, most of the seven states 

 will advance extravagant claims to water. Some of the states most 

 involved have no adequate conception of the feasibility of their 

 projects, and no just allotment can be made without thorough surveys 

 of all proposed irrigation lands. It is unlikely that any allotment can 

 be proposed which will not be held up in some legislature for many 

 years, and meanwhile the ruin of the Imperial Valley may be ac- 

 complished. 



There is no necessity for a distribution of the unused water rights 

 at this time. If the act to appropriate money for a Colorado River 

 project shall state as follows, "Provided, that nothing in this Act shall 

 be so construed as to afifect in any way the rights to the use of the 

 waters of the Colorado Basin of any state or any part of a state," then 

 the upper states cannot be affected adversely by the project. 



The average annual discharge of the river into the Gulf of Cali- 

 fornia is 13,000,000 acre-feet. The projects of the upper basin are 

 such that probably no more than 3,000,000 acre-feet of water addi- 

 tional can be consumed in those projects, and the balance of 10,000,000 



