system is on an area basis, for example from Weslaco, I can dial tollfree, Mercedes, Elsa, Edcouch, and Donna.

Residents of Edinburg, as another example, can dial Mission, McAllen, Pharr, San Juan, Alamo, Donna, and Elsa. The point I am making is that our economy is completely interlocked, and we are a metropolitan area, recognized by Sales Management, businessmen, in fact, by everyone except the Census Bureau of the Federal Government. And we believe they, too, will recognize our area in the forthcoming census. Many of our cities, of which there are 18 principal and approximately 40 minor ones have city limits that are contiguous. Now, a word about retail trade. The four valley counties retail sales increased 23.3 percent from 1954 to 1958 according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Sales were $227,864,000 in 1954 compared to $268,766,000 in 1958. Our effective buying income will amaze you. It totals $426,498,000. Our gross cash farm income as estimated by the county agent of the four counties to be in 1958, $16,975,770.

In our compact area there were registered in the county tax assessors' offices for the year, up to July 1, 1959, 102,023 motor vehicles. Bank deposits as of the close of business December 31, 1959, were $173,560,394. Our cotton production in 1959 according to the Texas Department of Agriculture in the four counties was 467,670 bales. Our area is a large winter vegetable production area. The principal crops are cabbage, onion, spinach, carrots, beets, spring string beans, new potatoes, tomatoes; in fact, our winter and spring vegetable list includes over 40 commodities. Up until the freeze of 1951, the lower Rio Grande Valley was one of the principal citrus-producing areas, Our peak production was 28 million boxes of grapefruit and oranges, Over 11 million trees were lost in the disastrous freeze and of the remaining trees, production was naturally decreased. Since then citrus is being replanted at a very rapid rate as a later witness will graphically testify. With the great variety of vegetable production in the area, as well as our citrus production, we have 26 canning plants and quick freezing plants in the four-county area. The story of the valley thus is the story of agriculture and water.

The lower Rio Grande Valley has a total land area of 4,226 square miles which constitutes 1.6 percent of the total Texas land area. Under normal conditions, though, we produce approximately 11 percent of the total Texas farm cash income.

Texas has long been recognized as a leading mineral producing State and the lower Rio Grande Valley shares in the limelight. Petroleum products have steadily increased since oil was discovered in 1930, and the valley is a principal supplier of natural gas to the Nation.

Hidalgo County, which is our most densely populated county, ranks 3d in farm cash income in the State and 25th in the United States. Cameron County, 2d largest in population is ranked 4th in Texas and 30th in the United States. In Texas, the lower Rio Grande Valley is ranked as the fifth Texas metropolitan area, exceeded only by Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, and San Antonio. Our rank is 57th in the Sales Management U.S. metropolitan ranking.

I might add Hidalgo and Cameron Counties were consistently Texas' first and second farm cash income counties before the freeze. Of all of our cities in the four-county area only two, Mercedes and

La Feria, rely on well water. The remainder of our cities and communities depend upon the Rio Grande for their domestic water supply. Under present conditions, the water master releases for domestic, industrial and livestock use, each 4-week period, approximately 9,740 acre-feet of water, or 3,173,637,000 gallons, or 2,500 acre-feet per week (this is 115 million gallons). I have used the regular 325,850 gallons as the equivalent to 1 acre-foot of water.

The agricultural needs of the valley, waterwise, will be defined for you by another witness.

The Bureau of Business Research of the University of Texas has broken down the basic and service employment in the lower Rio Grande Valley into industrial groups. But for the sake of brevity, I will give you, at this time, the totals only. In 1950 the total dependent and basic employment was 56,784; in 1954 the figure stood at 60,980; in 1975 they project a figure of 107,635, and in the year 2010, 155,902.

(The document referred to is as follows:)

Basic and service employment in the lower Rio Grande Valley, with basic broken down into industry groups

From Bureau of Business Research, the University of Texas, "Water for the Future."

Mr. DRAKE. The lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas provides an ideal climate from the standpoint of training military personnel to maintain our national defense. I refer to the Harlingen Air Force Base, in Harlingen, Tex.; the Naval Air Station at Port Isabel, Tex.; and Moore Air Base at Mission, Tex., where the Air Force has a modern jet school for jet fighters. Then, further north, we have the

Technical Training Command radar defense station, and of course, in our planning we recognize the station at Port Isabel for the Coast Guard and the valley has two battalions of the National Guard.

In the last 15 years, the lower Rio Grande Valley has become a tourist playground. Originally, we had only the tourists from the Midwest who wanted to escape the rigors of winter. Today, the valley is a 12-month vacation land, attracting tourists from all over the Nation.

In our four counties, there are four principal ports of entry into Mexico and four minor ports for a total of eight. It is natural, then, that the area is ranked high, collectively, as very important in the flow of commerce and tourists between the United States and Mexico. Highways on the Mexican side from both Brownsville and McAllen are on the Pan American Highway system.

The lower Rio Grande Valley has been growing at a faster rate than schools, hospitals, libraries, and houses could be provided, and as the committee will recognize, as cities become larger in needs, it is necessary for them to collect more total tax revenue-and the services a city must offer its citizens cost more per capita. Due to the area's semitropical climate, its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and to our neighbors in Mexico on the south, our abundant gas supply, to the fine quality citrus produced in the area, to our ability to supply to the Midwest a major part of their winter vegetables, the valley's future and its present existence is dependent entirely upon an adequate supply of water. Speaking of the future, only time can tell what it holds and the Creator determines what time brings.

As a chamber of commerce executive for nearly two decades with State and National businessmen, I have had some experience in guessing—some bad, some good. I believe these experiences have given me a bit more ability for predicting the future than the average man. To look into the future, we must look at the past. Guesses are made on experience. Valley growth continued and was steady during the last decade. Population increased 28.9 percent from 1950 to 1959. Bank deposits increased 29.4 percent for the same period. Effective buying was up 48 percent, retail sales up 42.5 percent, farm cash income up 39.4 percent, utilities up 50.7 percent-all in the last decade. By 1969, with water, it is conservatively estimated our population will increase by 50 percent to around 650,000. Valley spendable income will increase also. My guess is 75 percent to $746 million, round figures. Retail sales, 100 percent, because of tourist trade increase and the rapid expansion of the population of Mexico adjacent to our area. Agriculturewise, though, I cannot predict such spectacular increases. Based on the increase in the past 10 years, I can only see agricultural increases up 20 percent. Improved strains and new techniques will help the situation, but we cannot escape the natural fact there is only so much water for so much land. Industrial increases should rise 50 percent. Our oil and gas production should show a 50-percent increase. It would be hard to estimate the tourist increase in the next 10 years. This, I think, will depend to a great extent on what happens with our water supply. The entire future of the area, in my considered opinion, depends on the assurance of an adequate water supply.

I appreciate greatly your kind attention and your allowing me to reappear before this important committee, and your courteous attention. I thank you gentlemen, kindly.

Mr. SELDEN. We are glad to have you, Mr. Drake. Thank you very much for your fine statement.

Congressman Kilgore, will you introduce your next witness?

Mr. KILGORE. Col. Kenneth M. Smith, of McAllen. Colonel Smith appears here as an individual testifying for the Valley Water Committee and not in his capacity as water master of the 93d District Court.

Mr. SELDEN. Colonel Smith, we are very pleased to have you with us again, and we will be glad to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF KENNETH M. SMITH, MCALLEN, TEX.

Mr. SMITH. Your kind and generous consideration in allowing me to appear before you to present facts and recommendations to justify your action on H.R. 8080 to provide in the proposed Amistad Dam project at Federal cost, conservation storage and regulation for the greatest quantity of the annual flow of the Rio Grande, as provided under the terms of the 1944 treaty obligation with Mexico, is sincerely appreciated.

I am employed by the 93d District Court of Texas as Special Water Master in the four-county area in the United States below Falcon Dam on the lower Rio Grande. It is the duty of the Special Water Master, under orders of the court, to prorate the U.S. share of waters belonging to Texas, determine the total daily needs, order adequate releases from Falcon Reservoir to satisfy the total daily needs, and report to the court apparent violations of orders of the court for prompt action resulting in fine, jail sentence, or both, if the alleged violator is determined by the court to be guilty.

I am appearing here before you as a private citizen of the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas with permission of, and at no expense to, the court with the understanding that I refrain from any water law of Texas discussions or remarks.

In 1913, the U.S. Government completed construction of Elephant Butte Dam on the Rio Grande above El Paso, Tex., in an effort to quell serious international border troubles between water users of the Ünited States and Mexico in El Paso-Juarez region. This trouble was chiefly caused by upstream diverters on the Rio Grande in Colorado and New Mexico increasing their diversions therefrom in major proportions. Construction of Elephant Butte Dam reduced the drainage basin of the lower Rio Grande by nearly 26,000 square miles and, for all practical purposes, owing to subsequent total retention and consumption of all flows above Fort Quitman, Tex., approximately 80 river miles below El Paso, Tex., became the headwaters of the lower Rio Grande. The El Paso-Juarez serious international border problems were thereby transferred to the lower Rio Grande Valley. Following the completion of the construction of Elephant Butte Dam in 1913, serious border incidents occurred between the United States and Mexico. Not until exhaustive hearings were held in 1924 before the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives was it decided by the act of May 13, 1924, to appoint commis

sioners to cooperate with Mexican representatives in a study of flood control and the equitable use of available waters of the lower Rio Grande below Fort Quitman, Tex.

Mexico, in the meantime, was constructing large reservoirs on the Conchos, Salado, and San Juan tributaries to the Rio Grande below Fort Quitman, thus further depleting the available flow of the lower Rio Grande Valley and by 1940 Mexico had constructed canal headings to divert the entire low-water flow of the Rio Grande, causing grave concern to irrigators in the United States.

Plans for flood control and conservation of Rio Grande waters are closely related to the problem of division of waters between the two countries. The flood disaster of 1922 resulted in interested counties in the lower Rio Grande Valley of the United States voting bond issues on a tax remission basis in order to build levees. The flood disaster of 1932 proved that these levees causing additional flooding on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, could not, without reservoir storage, provide adequate protection. Therefore, in times of flood as well as in times of water shortages, serious troubles develop between the United States and Mexico.

The treaty of 1944 between the United States and Mexico was designed to alleviate these long-continuing border troubles. However, there remains unfulfilled obligations of the United States in the 1944 treaty upon which friendship between our two countries depends. These obligations of the treaty herein referred to are:

Article 8. The two Governments (United States and Mexico) recognize that both countries have a common interest in the conservation and storage of waters in the international reservoirs and in the maximum use of these structures for the purpose of obtaining the most beneficial, regular and constant use of waters belonging to them*** (a) Storage in all major international reservoirs above the lowest shall be maintained at the maximum possible water level, consistent with flood control, irrigation use, and power requirements * * * (c) In any reservoir the ownership of water belonging to the country whose conservation capacity therein is filled, and in excess of that needed to keep it filled, shall pass to the other country to the extent that such country may have unfilled conservation capacity, except that one country may at its option temporarily use the conservation capacity of the other country not currently being used in any of the upper reservoirs * * *.

To demonstrate to this committee that the International Boundary and Water Commission gave full consideration and recognition of the provision of the 1944 treaty with Mexico that the two countries have a common interest in the conservation and storage of waters in the international reservoirs and in the maximum use of these structures for the purpose of obtaining the most beneficial regular and constant use of waters belonging to them, Senate Document No. 65, "Proposed Amistad Dam and Reservoir," contains in part the following statements:

Page 2, paragraph 3:

*** (2) the reservoir capacities required at such site to provide, in conjunction with the Falcon Dam and Reservoir, completed in 1953, optimum conservation regulation and flood control of the river, * *

Page 31, paragraph 46:

*** For the optimum feasible control and utilization of the waters of the river, the Governments of the United States and Mexico agreed in the 1944 Water Treaty to construct jointly, through their respective sections of the In