By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
Juab County Commissioners, on behalf of county residents,
will probably be forced to enter a lawsuit against the
Central Utah Water District if the county is to get any
water from the project.
David Leavitt, county attorney, obtained a court order
allowing him to sift through records dealing with the water
district, CUP, and the contracts the district has made with
member counties over the last 40 years.
After reviewing the records, he said, he came away with
five file boxes full of material concerning CUP history.
"In 1964, all original members of the district were sold
on the idea they would get water from CUP and the idea of
imposing a tax levy on the counties was placed on the
ballot," said Leavitt.
The question passed with a high majority&emdash;967 votes
in favor to 17 in opposition&emdash;and Juab County had been
paying that tax ever since, he said.
"Our legal stand is that the vote and the next 38 years
of paying the tax levy constitutes a contract," said
Leavitt.
The Central Utah Project (CUP) is part of the Colorado
River Storage Project (CRSP) which was passed by Congress on
April 11,1956. In 1922, seven states of the Colorado River
Basin drew up a Colorado River Compact allocating water
rights to the river.
In 1944 a treaty was signed with Mexico stating that 1.5
million acre feet of water would be left to flow to
Mexico.
"It was in 1956 that President Ike Eisenhower signed the
bill that was the inception of the Colorado River Project
and 1967 the first unit in Utah was begun," said
Leavitt.
Leavitt said that the Central Utah Water District was
created to serve the member counties.
The Senate Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation
under the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs in May
of 1948 discussed CRSP and, in the same year, the House also
discussed water rights on the Colorado in subcommittee.
It took nearly twenty years before the committees were
able to actually pass the bill which would later help
establish CUP.
The strength Utah had in the entire committee process was
that CUP was one phase of CRSP, therefore, the seven western
states formed a good sized coalition who were able to move
bills out that were very expensive.
A Water Commission was established to take care of
administration of CRSP that was passed a month later.
"The truth is, unless we put their (water district) feet
to the fire, metaphorically speaking, in the form of a
lawsuit, we will not get water," said Leavitt.
Leavitt said the stand, in regards to CUP water, taken by
Millard and Sevier Counties, when they withdrew from the
project had hurt the prospects of Juab County.
"Unfortunately, we are now considered just an
insignificant county at the end of the line," said
Leavitt.
It was assumed that the five-foot diameter pipe laid
through Nephi a few years ago was a good-faith action on the
part of the Central Utah Water District to honor previous
year's worth of promises, he said. That had proved not to be
the case.
"We do not want the money back paid in taxes over the
years, we want the water," said Leavitt. "We need the water
for the future of our county."
Back in 1967, Representative Aspinall and other members
applied pressure on as many members as they could to ensure
favorable passage. Representative Morris Udall set up a very
efficient whip system to count votes. Some members contacted
those Congressmen who entered the same year they did to find
out leanings and persuade their vote.
Udall's whip system was the reason the bill passed. In
fact, by the time House floor action began, the whip system
was so highly organized that at a signal on the House floor,
180 phone calls could be made to colleague's offices within
six or seven minutes.
Currently, Utah's Washington delegation are supporting
bills that would allow the transfer of water from Southern
Utah and Juab Counties to the larger, and more politically
significant, Salt Lake County.
The testimony given and the visits made to Congressmen
when the commissioners and Leavitt visited Washington D.C.
have not been all that county government has been doing to
bring the promised water to Juab County.
Leavitt said he had accumulated a great deal of evidence
of how the project had been intended to work and of signed
documents also indicating the thrust of the early CUP.
"We think we have a good case," said Leavitt.
Back in the early days of CUP, water was considered an
important issue for the western states as can be seen in the
number of members from the Committee on Interior and Insular
Affairs who were members of the subcommittee, 24 out of 27
members were on the subcommittee.
"The water is just as important to Juab County today as
it was then," he said.
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