Statement of Governor Edmund G. Brown of California on S. 1658 and the Pacific Southwest Water Plan

Document: Statement of Governor Edmund G. Brown of California on S. 1658 and the Pacific Southwest Water Plan, April 9-10, 1964, page 1April 9-10,1964 STATEMENT OF GOVERNOR EDMUND G. BROWN OF CALIFORNIA ON S. 1658 AND THE PACIFIC SOUTHWEST WATER PLAN Delivered by Hugo Fisher, Administrator Of the Resources Agency of The State of California* My name is Hugo Fisher. I am the Administrator of the Resources Agency of the State of California and am appearing at the direction of Governor Edmund G. Brown to express the opposition of the State to S. 1658 in its present form, that is to a separate Central Arizona Project, and to express the approval of the State of a regional solution to the continuing water problems of the Pacific Southwest. Among the several departments and boards in the Resources Agency is the State Department of Water Resources. I am accompanied today by William E. Warne, Director of the Department of Water Resources, B. Abbott Goldberg, Chief Deputy Director and Wesley E. Steiner, one of the principal engineers of the Department and who is intimately familiar with the problems of the Colorado River. These gentlemen and I had the primary responsibility for preparing the State's comments on the original version of the Pacific Southwest Water Plan, which Secretary Udall released last summer. These comments have been well received by the Department of the Interior and followed to a gratifying degree in its report of January 1964. I offer, as an exhibit to this statement, copies of our comments so that the Committee may see the parallels between our views and those of the Secretary. The Pacific Southwest (i.e., the Lower Colorado Basin, and the area dependent on the water of the lower Colorado River) is growing at a more rapid rate than any other region in the Nation. It is a desert area not extensively arable and not habitable by large populations except as the works of man make it so. Paradoxically, while the population is increasing, the water supply is decreasing due not only to the legal requirements that the river be shared with the Upper Basin and with Mexico, but also to the failure of nature to live up to man's expectations. Let us look at a few facts. The Colorado River Compact, the Boulder Canyon Project Act, and the works dependent thereon were planned on the assumption that the water supply in the main stream of the Colorado would average in excess of 16 million acre-feet annually. But since 1930, the main stream supply has averaged but 13 million acre-feet. The California projects also were planned on the assump- * Prepared for presentation to the Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, United States Senate, April 9 and 10, 1964.Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 1,933,928 byte