OCR Text |
Show 1 A lawyer who helped frame the Colorado Compact told me that it was the most controversial doc- l.ument ever written; that it would be fought out in the courts, debated de-bated in the halls of congress, and finally go to the supreme I court for a decision. I have come to the conclusion this fellow was more of a prophet than an attorney. attor-ney. And while the fight goes on, we here in Duchesne act like sitting sit-ting ducks, just waiting to be plucked. Should the Upper Colorado Colo-rado succeed in securing the right to the water which we all hope they will, it gives us no assurance assur-ance of any more water; and if Los Angeles wins, we will be" left high and dry. There is a law universally uni-versally decreed that the area in which the water rises and through which it flows has the first right to the water and can retain that , right through beneficial use. So, what ' are we waiting for? Take for example, Blue Bench. Seventy-five Seventy-five dollars an acre will put water wat-er on this valuable area and when water is there the land-worth will increase to $200 an acre. Beautiful Beauti-ful homes, surrounded by productive produc-tive green fields could replace this barren waste. The best we can hope for is 15 years through the present plan. Then, if and when Green River water is sufficient suf-ficient for the water we now possess, pos-sess, the change can be made over. There will be nothing lost and everything gained. Don't get me wrong. I am for Central Utah if and when they will definitely allocate and ' set aside a sufficient amount of water to take care of the Basin. But, I am decidedly opposed to one area building itself on the ashes of another. And to my way of thinking, that is what the development develop-ment plan amounts to. John P. Madsen, Duchesne |