That the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized, under such general gulations as he may prescribe to contract for the storage of water in said servoir and for the delivery thereof at such points on the river and on said nal as may be agreed upon, for irrigation and domestic uses, and generation electrical energy and delivery at the switchboard to States, municipal corrations, political subdivisions, and private corporations of electrical energy nerated at said dam, upon charges that will provide revenue which, in addion to other revenue accruing under the reclamation law and under this act, 11 in his judgment cover all expenses of operation and maintenance incurred the United States on account of works constructed under this act and the yments to the United States under subdivision (b) of section 4. Contracts specting water for irrigation and domestic uses shall be for permanent service ad shall conform to paragraph (a) of section 4 of this act. No person shall ive or be entitled to have the use for any purpose of the water stored as 'oresaid except by contract made as herein stated."

Under the directions of this statute, the water users of the Gila project will › required expressly to contract, in order to obtain water for the irrigation their land, that their rights are subject to the provisions of the Colorado iver compact, one main purpose of which is to protect, to the extent stated in he compact the irrigation potentialities of the upper basin from impairment y reason of the earlier use of water downstream.

Very truly yours,

JOHN C. PAGE, Acting Commissioner.

Mr. FARMER. I want to offer some testimony of Mr. R. F. Walter, hief engineer of the Bureau of Reclamation. It appears in this ook. It is hearings before the subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations of the United States Senate, on H. R. 10630, under late of February 14, 1936.

I would like to offer the testimony of Mr. Walter at this point in he record.

Mr. JOHNSON. You mean all of those pages?

Mr. FARMER. There are several pages, just his testimony.

Mr. JOHNSON. If there is any special point to it, I have no objection, but I do object to putting in page after page of testimony into this record. We have already exceeded more than 4,000 pages, and that is more than we had last year.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Give the reference to it.

Mr. FARMER. It is less than two pages, and it states the position of the Bureau of Reclamation, and contains answers given as to the Gila project, as to its effect upon the upper States.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. All of that testimony is germane to it?

Mr. FARMER. Yes, sir. It occurs at pages 61 to 63 of the hearings on the Interior Department appropriation bill for 1937, before the Senate Committee on Appropriations.

I want to say this, that I hope that any of these records that I offer, if they are not printed in the record, will at least be referred to, that they were included in the record.

Then, here is the statement of Mr. John C. Page, Acting Commissioner of Reclamation, made at the supplemental hearings before the subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, in charge of the Interior Department bill for 1937, Seventy-fourth Congress, second session, commencing at page 129 thereof, the testimony of Mr. John C. Page, Acting Commissioner of Reclamation, on the Gila River project of Arizona.

Now, gentlemen, I want that to be considered in the record, but it does not necessarily have to be published but I want due reference made to it, and to be considered by this committee.

(The testimony of Mr. John C. Page, Acting Commissioner of Reclamation, occurs on pp. 129 to 141. both inclusive, of the sur plemental hearings on the Interior Department appropriation bi 1937 (H. R. 10630, Senate amendments, 24, 53-54), which record hearings is filed as a part of this record).

Mr. FARMER. We have developed there that this unit that we asking appropriation for is a unit of 139,000 acres of mesa lar and 11,000 acres of valley land, which is mostly all unentered publi lands of the United States, for which there is a contemplated epense of $20,500,000, at a cost of $134 per acre for the mesa la and $74 per acre for the valley lands.

I want to say, gentlemen of the committee, that I cannot understand why the gentlemen of the upper States are here contendir against the Gila Valley project, and I cannot understand why there should be any fear in their minds that the irrigation of this 15016 acres of mostly Government land would in any way affect the rig of the upper basin States.

We want the development of the river. We say that the way that this can be developed is by appropriations from the Fe eral Government, which are wholly within the control of the Amer ican Congress.

We say we have a small State. It is the baby State of the Union It has a population of about 406,000 people.

It has an area, set forth here from the United States Land Office. of 72,838,400 acres, of which there are 49,936,155 acres of federally owned lands, or more than two-thirds of the area of the State is public domain of the United States, which have been taken from entry in the form of Indian reservations or parks and put under the cor trol of the Federal Government.

Mr. RICH. Would you be willing to take the lands that the Federal Government has and then do your own development if the Federal Government would give you those lands?

Mr. FARMER. I do not suppose they would give them to us. Mr. RICH. I am asking you the question: Would the people in Arizona be willing to take those lands and do their own development if we would give you the lands?

Mr. FARMER. Perhaps, Congressman Rich, you were not here awhile ago; but I cannot bind the State, as I said. I am only representing the Gila district, and I cannot speak for the State; but I can call your attention to the facts as they exist.

Mr. RICH. I am an advocate of giving all of these States every bit of land that the Government owns, as far as I am concerned.

Mr. FARMER. I wanted to develop this thought, if you would let me, just a little further, Mr. Congressman, that we are not financially in any condition to do any harm to the upper States, and also that the State of Arizona, no matter what it might want to do, is not physically, financially, or in any other way able to raid the river. I would like to read to you from section 5, article IX, of the Arizona State Constitution, which reads as follows:

The State may contract debts to supply actual deficits and failure in revenues or to meet expenses not otherwise provided for; but the aggregate amount of such debts, direct or contingent, whether by virtue of one or more laws, or at different periods of time, shall never exceed the sum of $350,000, and the money arising from the creation of such debts shall be applied to the purpose for which it was obtained, or to repay the debt so contracted, and to no other purpose.

hat is part of the Constitution of the State of Arizona, which its the State indebtedness to the sum of $350,000.

Ar. RICH. Well, but you are a young State, and if the Federal vernment gave all of this land to you, do you not think your own ple out there in Arizona would develop it better than the Federal vernment?

Mr. FARMER. I do not know, Mr. Congressman; I do not know. I do say this, that that precludes the State of Arizona from issuing ids of the State to make a raid on the Colorado River, or to put a diversion dam, or anything of that kind, as these gentlemen ve expressed a fear might happen.

Mr. RICH. You could change your constitution.

Mr. FARMER. Yes; but it is a rather difficult matter to change the stitutions of States, or to change the Constitution of the United ates. It is a rather difficult matter.

These gentlemen admittedly say that some of the water will flow wnstream which will not be taken by the upper States and it ll not be used by them. Gentlemen, the position that they take eans that they would rather see these lands developed down in exico than our American lands, which are national resources of e United States.

Our position is that we are trying to develop a national resource, d we want to show you by the record that Arizona itself cannot jure the upper States, and that this development will not injure

em.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. We will interrupt the reclamation hearings now nd hear Mr. Snyder of Pennsylvania.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Snyder is chairman of one of the most imortant subcommittees in Congress. He is a very busy man, and we are glad to hear him at this time.

STATEMENT OF HUGO FARMER-Resumed

Mr. FARMER. With reference to the proposed amendment which was handed me by Congressman Rich, I want to call your attention to the fact that we want to be included, and we are willing that our district be bound by the terms and conditions of the Colorado River compact, that our water be delivered to us under a compact of that kind.

We do not see the justice, that is, I do not personally, and I am speaking just personally for myself, of having the Imperial Valley and Coachella being delivered water from the Boulder Reservoir free, and our district being charged 25 cents per acre-foot for it. I do not want to have gone on record here as agreeing to that charge. However, we are perfectly willing to agree to anything that our Senators or Congressmen here want to put in there, and we are willing to abide by any provision of law that will protect the upper basin States in any way in having their 7,500,000 acre-feet per year.

However, I do not want to appear here to have done something that my people would condemn me for doing. I would like to have a little time to work that out as to the charges for that water. That is the only exception I take to it.

I am willing to sit across the table and try to work out our problem, but I do want to clarify the record inthat respect.

TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 1957.

UNDERGROUND WATER SURVEY

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE H. MAHON, A REPRESENTATIVE I CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

Mr. SCRUGHAM. We have with us Representative Mahon, of Te We will be glad to hear your statement at this time, Mr. Mahon. Mr. MAHON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I wa to talk to you about a probable appropriation of approximate $15,000 for a more intensive underground water survey of the regio of the United States known as the High Plains Area, which is a se tion of the United States embracing portions of five States, inclu ing most of my district, and all of Marvin Jones' district, in Texas: much of New Mexico, and some of Colorado, Kansas, and Oklabora Mr. SCRUGHAM. Has this matter been presented to the But Mr. MAHON. It was not.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Why was it not presented?

Mr. MAHON. I have talked with Dr. Mendenhall repeatedly about i trying to get them to help to get it through the Budget. It wa always difficult, of course, to get the approval of the Budget. Ü course, Dr. Mendenhall cannot recommend it to you without the ap proval of the Budget, as I understand it; and so I have taken ths method of presenting it to you.

This area of which I speak is composed of about 45,000 square mile. with a population of about 1,000,000 people. It is a semiarid country. and on much of the land the underground-water resource is approx mately the only water resource that the people of this section have.

A reconnaissance survey was made by the Geological Survey of the underground-water sources of that area in 1934, and I believe some little work has been done from time to time and is being done now but no comprehensive effort has ever been made to determine the underground-water resources of this area.

Now, you might say that we are not particularly interested in this item at a time when we are endeavoring to retrench a little. The point is simply this: That in four of those States-Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas-considerable underground water s being used for irrigation purposes. They have wells in the main area there that produce 1,000 gallons of water per minute, and they use the water for irrigating cotton, feed, vegetables, and alfalfa,

There is one county here referred to-Floyd County-that already has 400 wells that have that capacity, or greater, and they are preparing to put down approximately 200 more wells. These people, however, do not know whether that will deplete the undergroundwater resources of this area, and they may be left there without any water. Of course it would probably mean that the people would have to move out of that section if this water supply should be de pleted, because those farmers would not have available the necessary water supply for dry farming. The water levels have been reduced in some places. The water formation is a little different in the Portales, N. Mex., area. Near that area is a city called Hope, now called Ghost City, because the irrigation waters have failed and the people have left the area.

Ar. FITZPATRICK. What do you want-a survey? Ar. MAHON. Yes; we want the Geological Survey to utilize more n, which, of course, requires more money. In fact, it would rere about two men. Dr. Mendenhall, Chief of the Geological Sur7, has given me an estimate indicating that $15,000 would be ample intensify and improve the study that is now being made of the derground water in this area. We are rapidly increasing the num· of irrigation wells. If we do not have an abundant water supply, want to know it.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. They have an appropriation for these studies, t I suppose they did not include this.

Mr. MAHON. As I understand it, the Bureau of the Budget recomended for the Geological Survey approximately $600,000 for the idy of water supplies throughout the Nation, on a cooperative sis. That includes only a small part for these underground water sources studies I am referring to. I do not know how much it ould be, but it would be a very small part. You provide for that cooperation with the States, the States putting up half the money id the Federal Government putting up half; but under the present timate of $600,000, you would lack $140,000 of having enough to atch what the States have agreed to put up during the coming scal year, as I understand it. Of course, if you should increase this › the full sum requested by the Geological Survey, my portion of he country would get but a small pro rata part of it. This being the nature of an interstate problem, I think it might be best to lace it in a separate item, with a sufficient amount to pay two men ho know the business, so that a very intensive study of the underround resources of that section could be made in the next fiscal

ear.

Mr. LEAVY. Does this relate to Texas?

Mr. MAHON. To Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, and a part of Oklahoma.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. This situation is covered at page 29 of the justifiations, for the Geological Survey. There $20,000 is allotted for a Government water investigation in New Mexico.

Mr. MAHON. That is $20,000.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Yes. In 1936 Texas had $12.740 allotted. In the Budget recommendation there was an increase of something like $5,000 for last year, making $17,740 allotted. I think you had something to do with bringing the matter to their attention, and this year they have provided an additional $3,000 to be allotted to Texas, making $20,740. The State is to put up $20,000 and $20,000 is to be put up by the Federal Government, making $40,000 for the State of Texas.

Mr. MAHON. For underground water investigations?

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Yes; for surveys of water resources in Texas. There is included a survey of surface waters. There are $80,000 all together provided, $20,000 by the State and $20,000 by the Federal Government for surface waters investigations, and $20,000 by the State and $20,000 by the Federal Government for underground water investigations. That provision has been increased steadily. Every State in the Union is interested in this, or, at least, all the arid States. There are 27 States that are interested in this.