Pacific Southwest Water Plan - Report August 1963

Document: Pacific Southwest Water Plan "Printed Copy" Chapter II, August 26 ,1963 page 2The first irrigators on the Colorado River were Indians. To provide for the settlement of these tribes, Congress in 1865 established the Colorado River Indian reservation which is divided by the river and lies partly in California, but mostly in Arizona. The Congress also made the first appropriation for irrigation development in 1867 by authorizing funds for the construction of an irrigation canal. Four additional Indian Reservations, smaller in size, have been established along the Colorado River--the Fort Mohave, Yuma, Chemehuevi, and Cocopah. Probably the first irrigation diversions from the river by white settlers were made in the Palo Verde Valley during the 1870's, with other diversions following at Yuma and Imperial Valley, all prior to 1900. Many problems beset these early irrigators. Undulating flows at high stages provided water for irrigation but were heavily filled with sediment. As the flows receded each summer they fell below the diversion works, and the pumps which were used to reach low flows were subject to inundation from summer storms. The Imperial Valley canal system, which flowed through Mexico, was successively threatened during the 1905-1909 period when the river deserted its course to the Gulf of California following floods on the waershed, and created the present Salton Sea. In 1911 the river was finally returned to its course when a series of levees were built to contain the river. The annual loss and destruction caused by the uncontrolled Colorado River created pressures for some type of control to be placed on its flows. This led to the Kinkaid Act of 1920 which directed the Secretary of the Interior to study the problems of the Colorado River. To allay the fears of the Upper Colorado River Basin States that they would lose their water rights on the river, the Congress in 1921 passed an act which authorized the affected Colorado River Basin States to enter into a compact dividing the waters of the River. This action resulted in the Colorado River Compact of 1922. The Compact divided the water of the Colorado River between the Upper and Lower basins with the division point established at Lee Ferry in northern Arizona. The Compact, however, did not attempt to divide the waters apportioned to each Basin between the various States. Between 1922 and 1928 six of the seven Basin States approved the Compact by legislative enactment. Arizona, however, refused to ratify the Compact because of its belief that California, through existing and proposed diversion facilities, could effectively put to use all water available to the Lower Basin before Arizona could construct facilities for uses of its own. A number of bills were introduced in Congress seeking approval of the Compact. Congress, however, II-2Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 1,178,479 byte