Pacific Southwest Water Plan - Proposed Draft Letter of Transmittal

Document: Pacific Southwest Water Plan- Proposed Draft Letter of Transmittal- Secretary to the President, December 1963, page 2to the most careful husbandry of its existing water resources and to new sources of supply if it is to continue to expand and prosper. Careful and imaginative planning backed by positive forceful action on a broad front of coordinated local, State and Federal endeavor can and must meet the challenge. The alternative is economic stagnation and retrenchment. Decades ago men of vision foresaw the growth potential of the Pacific Southwest. They foresaw as well the great underlying importance of the waters of the Colorado River Basin to this growth. To assure that this great resource potential did not become dedicated to the benefit of any one area or State they instituted a series of actions which led to interstate compacts, an international treaty, state and Congressional legislation, and Supreme Court decisions which today, in the aggregate, constitute the "Law of the River." Major benchmarks in the "Law of the River" began in 1922 with approval by representatives of the Colorado River basin states of the Colorado River Compact. The Compact apportioned the waters of the Colorado River system between the Upper and Lower Basins but did not divide the waters among the States. The Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 approved the Compact and authorized the construction of Hoover Dam and the All-American Canal. This Act and the Boulder Canyon Project Adjustment Act of 1940 vested certain key responsibilities in the Secretary of the Interior relative to the comprehensive and coordinated development of the Colorado River and the marketing of water and power from Lower Basin 2Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 2,725,045 byte