Need an act of Congress?

Dear Editor,

Large urban cities, many of which are located on rivers, need cheap water.

Floods along these rivers damaged the cities, so federal flood control reservoirs were built to protect them. Before these projects could be built, Congress required multi-state compacts to be written. The states where these cities are located are now suing the upstream states and using the compacts to get the cheap water they need.

These poorly worded compacts, which use terms such as "virgin water supply," "activities of man" and "beneficial consumptive use" are now being used to accomplish this.

If we debate this as an irrigation issue, the irrigators will lose, because the cities can pay more for the water.

This issue must be debated for what it is.

The downstream states are using the courts to get cheap water while asking the taxpayer to pay for the irrigated acres being shut down.

This already is happening with the CREP and EQIP programs.

this tend is occurring all across the U.S., where the federal flood control projects were built that required multi-state compacts. It may take an act of Congress to fix this!

Dale Helms,

Holbrook