Statement of Floyd E. Dominy, Commissioner of Reclamation, Before the Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, U.S. Senate on S. 1658

Document: Statement of Floyd E. Dominy, Commissioner of Reclamation, Before the Subcommittee on Irrigation & Reclamation, Committee on Interior & Insular Affairs, U.S. Senate on S. 1658, page 6Reclamation in February 1945 initiated its investigations which culminated in the Bureau of Reclamation's Central Arizona Project report of 1947. The plan proposed in the 1947 report provided for pumping water from Lake Havasu behind Parker Dam and conveying it through a canal system to the central part of the State. Bills to authorize the project passed the Senate in 1950 and 1951, but in 1951 hearings before the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs were postponed until such time as Arizona's right to the use of Lower Colorado River water was adjudicated or settled by other means. Following postponement of the hearings by the House Committee, the State of Arizona filed suit against the State of California in 1952 to confirm its water rights, and litigation has been in progress since that time. Following the filing of the Supreme Court suit, Arizona v. California, et al., in 1952, the Bureau of Reclamation suspended further work on investigations of the Central Arizona Project and on all other proposed diversions of mainstream Colorado River water in the lower basin pending settlement of the litigation. During the 1950 decade, when activity on the Central Arizona Project was dormant, Arizona experienced the fastest population and economic growth in the Nation. The original Central Arizona Project report documented the fact that Arizona in 1946 had an estimated population of 660,000. 6Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 1,029,149 byte