P:ARCHIVEHISTORY - ARCHIVEORAL ... · WEINBERG, EDWARD, ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS. Transcript of...

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS

Edward Weinberg

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STATUS OF INTERVIEWS:OPEN FOR RESEARCH

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Interviews Conducted and Edited by:Brit Allan Storey

Senior HistorianBureau of Reclamation

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Interviews conducted–1994-1995Interviews edited and published–2011

Oral History ProgramBureau of ReclamationDenver, Colorado

SUGGESTED CITATION:

WEINBERG, EDWARD, ORAL HISTORYINTERVIEWS. Transcript of tape-recordedBureau of Reclamation oral history interviewsconducted by Brit Allan Storey, Senior Historian,Bureau of Reclamation, in Washington, D.C. Edited by Brit Allan Storey. Repository for therecord copy of the transcript is the NationalArchives and Records Administration in CollegePark, Maryland.

Record copies of this transcript are printed on 20lb., 100% cotton, archival quality paper. All other copiesare printed on normal duplicating paper.

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Oral history of Edward Weinberg

Table of Contents

Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Statement of Donation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

Oral History Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Born in 1918 in Whitewater, Wisconsin . . . . . . . . 1Completed High School in Three Years and

Graduated Third in His Class . . . . . . . . . . . 1Attended the Whitewater State Teacher’s College

for Two Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Had a National Youth Administration Job at the

Teachers College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Transferred to the University of Wisconsin in

Madison for His Bachelors and LawDegrees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

“I had always intended to become a lawyer . . .”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

“I graduated from law school in 1941. I was fifthin the class of 150-some students. I wouldhave been higher but I flunked a coursebecause the professor couldn’t read myhandwriting. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

“I was a member of the Board of Editors of theWisconsin Law Review and I was elected tomembership in the Order of the Coif . . .”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Worked in His Brother’s Law Firm in Milwaukeefor Almost Two Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

In December of 1942 Joined the Office of PriceAdministration in Washington, D.C. . . . . . 5

“The job paid $2,600 a year, which was quite astep up from $75 a month, which I was

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Bureau of Reclamation History Program

making. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Worked on Writing Regulations for Rationing Fuel

Oil and Firewood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Found the OPA Job Boring and Trying . . . . . . . . . 6John Frank Helped Him Transfer to a Job in the

Department of the Interior . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7“‘I’ll take the Bureau of Reclamation, sight

unseen. By the way, what do they do?’”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Went to Work for Reclamation in January of 1944. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

In 1942 Took a Nationwide Civil Service Exam inMilwaukee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

“This office was stacked with files, must have beensix feet, six feet of files, all involvingMarshall Ford Dam. I set out to read all ofthose files, and that was the best educationI could have had in how the governmentworks . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

“It took me six weeks to go through that file, and Iwas inquisitive, I asked a lot of questions ofother lawyers, the older lawyers in theBureau, and when I got through, I knew theBureau of Reclamation backward andforward. I knew the congressional process. . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Worked on the Flood Control Act of 1944 WhichAuthorized the Pick-Sloan Missouri BasinProgram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Worked on the Mexican Water Treaty . . . . . . . . . 14Senator Hiram Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15“. . . the Pick-Sloan Plan came along at a time and

under circumstances that couldn’t possiblybe duplicated today. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Lower Missouri Floods in 1942 and 1943 . . . . . . 18Navigation Legislation on the Lower Missouri

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Reclamation Had Been Working on Projects on the

Upper Missouri and the Corps of EngineersWas Working on Lower Missouri Studies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Concerns about Navigation Establishing a PriorityHigher than Irrigation on the MissouriRiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Developed a Legal Opinion on Priority ofNavigation in Relation to Irrigation . . . . . 19

Dynamics in the Political Scene at the TimeRegarding the Corps of Engineers andReclamation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Reconciling Reclamation and Corps Plans for theMissouri River Basin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

“. . . ‘Mr. President, you’ve got to do something. You’ve got to knock some heads togetherand get these two agencies to agree.’. . .”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Chicago Meeting Where the “Shotgun Wedding”Resulting in the Pick-Sloan Missouri BasinProgram Occurred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

John Page and Harry Bashore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Creation of Reclamation’s Regions . . . . . . . . . . . 28“. . . the commissioner concerns himself with high

policy and relations on the Hill, and the realdecisions, the real implementation is donein Denver and not in the regions, as I see it.. . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

“. . . the district counsels’ offices became the siteof the Bureau’s regional offices. . . .” . . . 29

“The regions were being created because . . . theycould foresee . . . after the war. There wasgoing to be big development, and itcouldn’t all be run out of the chiefengineer’s office. The job was just too big.

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. . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Leslie N. McClellan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34“The Bureau of Reclamation had a worldwide

reputation and deservedly so. The Bureaudesigned the high dam on the PanamaCanal . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Attended the Hearings for the Mexican WaterTreaty and Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

“The big issue in the Mexican Treaty hearings onthe Colorado was . . . all of the other Basinstates were very, very concerned about howin the hell the Mexican Treaty demand wasgoing to be met, and they could see that itwas going to be met from them and notfrom California. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Arizona’s Differences with California over theColorado River Compact . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

“. . . I somehow or other found favor with mysuperiors and I was promoted. I keptgetting promotions. I think I was the onlyfloater in the Bureau. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Reclamation Marketed Pick-Sloan Power in theEarly Days of the Program . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

“Well, if you know anything about reclamationprojects, you know that the water usersdon’t begin to pay for the cost of theprojects; power picks up most of the tab. . ..” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

“In terms of Pick-Sloan, most of the power wasdeveloped at the Corps projects . . . Well,the question arose, could the revenues fromthe Corps projects be figured in . . . pickingup the irrigation subsidy, the cost that wasbeyond the ability of the water users torepay. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

“. . . Bill Burke . . . took the view that it [Pick-

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Sloan] was all one project and had to betreated as one project for payout purposes. .. . submitted to the solicitor of thedepartment . . . held that Pick-Sloan was, ineffect, two projects and you couldn’tinclude the power revenues from the Corpsprojects in the payout study. . . . MikeStraus . . . and Bill Warne . . . went toOscar Chapman . . . They had sense enoughto see that the Sloan part of Pick-Sloan, thewhole Bureau of Reclamation was dead ifthe solicitor prevailed, so that they ignoredhim. They went ahead on the theory that itwas all one project. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Oscar Chapman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44“In 1956, there was an extensive hearing before

the Senate Public Works Committee andthe Senate Interior Committee on theproblems of the Missouri River Basin. There was a concern then that the Armywas favoring navigation contrary to theO’Mahoney-Milliken Amendment. . . .” . 45

“They were getting concerned about the cost ofthese [Pick-Sloan] projects and that theBureau was, in effect, writing its ownticket. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

“I testified for a whole day, and I had exactly oneday’s notice of this, too. And I testified . . .on the legal basis . . . including the Armypower and the payout . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Concern in Congress about Why Reclamation DidNot Submit its Power Rates on Pick-Sloanto the Federal Power Commission ForApproval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

“They were astounded . . . to learn that Congress,in these few lines in Section 9 of the Flood

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Control Act of 1944, had authorized theSecretary of the Interior to spend $6 billionbuilding this project without anycongressional oversight. . . ” . . . . . . . . . . 49

“That testimony of mine became the basis later onfor what’s known as the Holum Report of1963, which was accepted by Congress inreauthorizing the Garrison Project in 1965,as the basis for Pick-Sloan power rates. . ..” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Left the Solicitor’s Office in February of 1969 andBecame Counsel to Midwest ElectricConsumers Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

“I have continued my professional interest in Pick-Sloan through representation of Midwest. .. .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

“The . . . philosophy [of various administrations] .. . was to regard the sale of power as a cashcow to raise money for generalgovernmental purposes, in other words, toapply against the deficit . . .” . . . . . . . . . . 51

Protecting the Repayment of Pick-Sloan Projectswith Corps of Engineers Power Revenues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

McGovern-Meeds Amendment “. . .says, insubstance, that there can be no change inthe cost allocations of any project thenunder way or completed without furtherauthorization of Congress. . . .” . . . . . . . . 52

“. . . power rights . . . have gone up 300 percentsince 1950, but they are still based on cost. Costs have gone up. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Legal Issues Related to Hoover Dam and the All-American Canal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Allocating Power from Hoover among California,Arizona, and Nevada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

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During World War II the Federal GovernmentCommandeered Power from Hoover andthe Issue Later Became Where theResponsibility Lay for Payment of ExtraCosts Caused by That Action . . . . . . . . . . 55

Worked on Acreage Limitation Issues on theCentral Valley Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

“The acreage limitation was, however, a centralfeature of the reclamation law, and thereclamation law would not have beenpassed without it. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Acreage Limitation on the Imperial IrrigationDistrict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Development of the Southwest Water Plan andAuthorization of the Central ArizonaProject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

“. . . the question arose, why wasn’t the excessland laws applicable to the ImperialIrrigation District, which was the biggestsingle user of irrigation water in the wholeColorado River Basin . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

“We concluded that the excess land laws indeedapplied to the Imperial Irrigation District. We had this opinion ready in December ofthe year in which John Tunney . . . waselected to Congress from the ImperialValley, and John was a Democrat. So thequestion was, my God, if we release thisopinion out of the blue, why, JohnTunney’s career in the House ofRepresentatives is going to be over beforeit starts. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

“The government lost before . . . the federal judgein the Imperial Valley. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Ben Yellen and Acreage Limitation on theImperial Irrigation District . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

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“. . . the United States Supreme Court reversedbasically on the ground that too many yearshad intervened . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Why He Wanted to Be an Attorney . . . . . . . . . . . 66Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66Creation of Regions in Reclamation . . . . . . . . . . 68The Work of Reclamation’s Legal Offices . . . . . 70The Legal Offices Handled Claims Against

Reclamation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70District Counsels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70“Under the original Reclamation law, the contracts

were entered into with the individualfarmers. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

“. . . the repayment period, fixed by law, was tenyears. . . . It turned out that ten years wasmuch too short. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Reclamation Extension Act of 1914 . . . . . . . . . . 76Reclamation Project Act of 1939 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77The Issue of Ownership of Water Rights on

Reclamation Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78Work on the Flood Control Act of 1944 . . . . . . . 83Mexican Water Treaty and Protocol of 1944 . . . . 83Negotiating the Repayment Contract for Marshall

Ford Dam on the Colorado River in Texas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

“When I came along, they had gotten to the pointwhere it was time to begin negotiations onthe repayment. Into my office weretrundled about eight or nine feet of files, allthe files on the Marshall Ford Dam, and thefirst two months I spent on this project wasreading those files. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

“That . . . was the best education in reclamationlaw and practice and . . . how Congressappropriates money, that anyone couldhave had, and by the time I got through

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reading those files, I knew how Congressappropriated money for public worksprojects . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

“These negotiations dragged on for several years. Naturally the local people wanted to pay aslittle as possible, and we wanted to get outas much as possible. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

“Unbeknownst to me at that time when I firststarted working with this, the MarshallFord people were pretty hefty inDemocratic politics. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

“By 1948, . . . I had become an assistant chiefcounsel in the Bureau. I had a rathermeteoric rise in the legal staff of theBureau of Reclamation. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . 88

“. . . I’m not given to false modesty. It was ability.. . . I’m a faster learner. . . . I was veryyoung and I became the superior of lawyerswho had been there much longer than I hadand had much more to do. . . .” . . . . . . . . 89

Assistant Chief Counsel for Power andProcurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

“Each bureau in those days had its own legal staff,and the solicitor of the department had asmall staff handling mainly appeals andpolicy and legal advice to the secretary, andprofessionally supervising the chief counselof each bureau. The bureaus couldn’t hirea lawyer without the approval of thesolicitor. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Implementation of the Mexican Water Treaty andProtocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

“At that time . . . they thought that there were 18 to20 million acre-feet of water, virgin flow,of the Colorado, and that was the basis inwhich the [Colorado River] compact was

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negotiated. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92“California fought the Mexican Treaty tooth and

nail, because they figured the day wouldcome when that surplus wouldn’t be there,and the million [and one-half] acre-feet forMexico was going to come out of theirhide. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

“The Texas delegation . . . were hot for the treaty. The Upper Basin supported the treaty, too. .. .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

“The United States negotiators assured the SenateForeign Relations Committee that therewas no guarantee of quality . . . TheMexican negotiators were assuring theMexicans of exactly the opposite. . . . thatthey would get the same quality of water asthe Imperial Irrigation District, which wasthe last [U.S. irrigation water] divertedfrom the Colorado. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Reclamation’s Gila Project Caused the Quality ofthe Water Delivered to Mexico in theColorado River to Become an InternationalIssue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

“. . . we would periodically release water fromParker Dam and from Hoover Dam to flushout the river. This caused the senators fromthe Colorado River Basin states to raise hellthat we were giving this water to Mexico. Well, the excuse we used was that we hadto flush the channel in the United States . ..” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

“. . . the United States undertook to build what wasthe world’s largest desalting plant in Yumato desalt the Wellton-Mohawk water, aboondoggle if there ever was one. TheWellton-Mohawk project should never

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have been built . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98The Mexicali Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98“. . . rather than building this desalting plant, it

would have been cheaper to buy up thefarms in Wellton-Mohawk project, but . . .the Arizona congressional delegation,wouldn’t hear of that, and the chairman ofthe Senate Appropriations Committee wasSenator Hayden of Arizona . . .” . . . . . . . 99

Became More Involved in the Mexican WaterTreaty and Protocol When Mexico Raisedthe Issue of Water Quality on the ColoradoRiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Construction of Hoover Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101Purposes of Hoover Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101Disputes Between Arizona and California over

Dividing the Waters of the Lower ColoradoRiver Basin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

“The governor of Arizona called out the NationalGuard and threatened to arrest the Bureauof Reclamation engineers and thecontractor who started to work on ParkerDam. Well, to everybody’s surprise, thegovernment sued to enjoin Arizona’s[unclear]. To everybody’s astonishment,including, I suspect, Arizona, the SupremeCourt held that Parker Dam had not beenauthorized properly under the reclamationlaw, and therefore it was being constructedin violation of several federal laws . . .”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Issues Regarding the Hoover Dam PowerContracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

“I was a quick study, and I didn’t undertakeanything without knowing what the hell Iwas doing and what the project consisted of

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and why, so on and so forth. So I becamean expert. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Boulder Canyon Project Adjustment Act of 1940. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

1940 Power Contracts for Hoover DamPowerplants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

The Original Power Contracts for Hoover ExpiredMay 31, 1987, and He Worked for Nevadain Negotiating the New Power Contracts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

“When the contract expired . . . It took about sixyears. We began that effort in 1981 or ‘82.. . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Work on the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

“. . . the legal staffs were consolidated in theOffice of the Solicitor, when theEisenhower Administration came in. Ithink it was 1953 or ‘54, when we were allmoved to the solicitor’s office. . . .” . . . 110

Served as an Attorney Advisor and Then as theAssistant Solicitor for Power in theSolicitor’s Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

“. . . I became, in effect, the deputy associatesolicitor. . . . although others had the sametitle, and I always had a higher grade thanany other assistant solicitor. . . .” . . . . . . 111

Became the Associate Solicitor and Then theDeputy Solicitor in 1963 or 1964 . . . . . 111

Became Solicitor in 1968 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111“After . . . maybe a year, the Eisenhower

Administration got over their antipathy togovernment development, and some of thebiggest projects in the Bureau wereauthorized during the EisenhowerAdministration . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

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Eisenhower, “. . . tried to, in effect, sell TVA . . .That was a bad move. Because politicallythe country wouldn’t stand for it . . .” . . 113

Foundation of the Midwest Electric ConsumersAssociation and the Basin Electric PowerCooperative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Ken Holum Founded the Midwest ElectricConsumers Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Goodrich W. Lineweaver, Oscar Chapman, andMike Straus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

William E. Warne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117“Goodrich . . . was canned, actually, when the

Eisenhower Administration came in. Hewas persona non grata to the Republicans. He went to work for Senator [James E.]Murray [D] on the Senate InteriorCommittee. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

“. . . the California regional director of the Bureauof Reclamation at the time, Richard Boke,not an engineer, believed very deeply in theconcept of the excess land laws . . .” . . . 119

“it got to the point where Senator [Sheridan]Downey, otherwise a far-out left-wingerfrom California, took up the cudgels for thebig landowners in Central Valley, and heactually got the appropriation to pay thesalary of Boke and Straus cut off. He got arider on the appropriation act that said thatnone of the funds appropriated herein canbe used to pay the salary of a commissionerof Reclamation and a regional director ofReclamation who are not engineers. . . .”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

“Straus, with legal advice, by the way, came upwith the policy that if you paid up yourconstruction charges, your water charges in

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advance, paid them all, the excess landlaws would not apply, a legal propositionwhich I later, in the sixties, found to be notsupportable. . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

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Statement of Donation

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Introduction

In 1988, Reclamation began to create a historyprogram. While headquartered in Denver, the historyprogram was developed as a bureau-wide program.

One component of Reclamation’s history programis its oral history activity. The primary objectives ofReclamation’s oral history activities are: preservation ofhistorical data not normally available throughReclamation records (supplementing already availabledata on the whole range of Reclamation’s history);making the preserved data available to researchers insideand outside Reclamation.

The senior historian of the Bureau of Reclamationdeveloped and directs the oral history program. Questions, comments, and suggestions may be addressedto the senior historian.

Brit Allan StoreySenior Historian

Land Resources Division (84-53000)Policy and AdministrationBureau of ReclamationP. O. Box 25007Denver, Colorado 80225-0007(303) 445-2918FAX: (720) 544-0639E-mail: [email protected]

For additional information about Reclamation’shistory program see:

www.usbr.gov/history

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1


Oral History InterviewsEdward Weinberg

Storey: This is Brit Allan Storey, Senior Historian atthe Bureau of Reclamation, interviewingEdward Weinberg on November the 23rd,1994, in his offices at 1615 “M” Street,Northwest, in Washington, D.C., at about teno’clock in the morning. This is tape one.

Mr. Weinberg, I’d like to ask, first ofall, where you were born and raised andeducated, and how you ended up involvedwith the Bureau of Reclamation.

Born in 1918 in Whitewater, Wisconsin

Weinberg: I was born on September 5, 1918, a WorldWar I baby, in Whitewater, Wisconsin, atown of 3,000 or so people in southeasternWisconsin, fifty miles from Milwaukee andforty-five miles from Madison, and twentymiles from Janesville. That orients thelocation.

Completed High School in Three Years and GraduatedThird in His Class

My father was the town junk dealer. Iwas educated through grade school and highschool in Whitewater. I did high school inthree years, principally because one of mybrothers had done high school in three years,so that I regarded as a challenge, and I did it. I was third in my high school graduatingclass. He beat me; he was second.

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Whitewater had a teachers college,one of ten teachers colleges in the state. [Tape recorder turned off.]

Storey: You were talking, I believe, about theteachers college.

Attended the Whitewater State Teacher’s College forTwo Years

Weinberg: Yeah. Whitewater had a teachers college. Originally it had been a normal school, but inthe twenties, the normal schools wereconverted to teachers colleges. Their nameswere converted to such and such “stateteacher college” instead of such and such“normal school.”

Had a National Youth Administration Job at theTeachers College

This being in the Depression, Igraduated from high school in 1935, Ienrolled at the teachers college because itwas located in my home town, there wouldbe no board and room to pay, and this was animportant consideration. I also managed toget a National Youth Administration job as apart-time janitor at the teachers college andearned a few dollars a month also–thathelped.

Transferred to the University of Wisconsin in Madisonfor His Bachelors and Law Degrees

“I had always intended to become a lawyer . . .”

3


I had always intended to become alawyer, and the teachers college was aconvenient way-stop to get in most of mypre-law. After two years I transferred to theUniversity of Wisconsin in Madison. Incidentally, all the teachers colleges are nowbranches of the university. What wasWhitewater Normal School, and thenWhitewater State Teachers College is nowthe University of Wisconsin dashWhitewater. When I was enrolled inWhitewater, it had about 600 students. Today it has 10,000 students.

The town, aside from the studentpopulation, really hasn’t grown much. Students aside, there were about 3,000 peoplethen, and maybe there are 3,500 or 4,000people in the town now.

After two years at Whitewater, Itransferred to the University of Wisconsin atMadison, as I say, and enrolled as a junior. Imajored in economics. I had only had onecourse, the basic course in economics, atWhitewater, so I had to get in my wholemajor in one year, because the fourth year Ientered the law school, and the first year inthe law school counted toward my bachelor’sdegree as the fourth year for the bachelor’sdegree, bachelor of arts degree.

I had a pretty fair record in my thirdyear at Madison–my first year at Madison. Icompiled a 2.8 grade point average on a scale

4


of 3.00. The fourth year, I entered lawschool, which was then, and now, a three-year course. At the end of the first year inlaw school, I received my bachelor’s degreefrom the University of Wisconsin, withhonors.

“I graduated from law school in 1941. I was fifth in theclass of 150-some students. I would have been higherbut I flunked a course because the professor couldn’t

read my handwriting. . . .”

I graduated from law school in 1941. I was fifth in the class of 150-some students. I would have been higher but I flunked acourse because the professor couldn’t readmy handwriting. I have notoriously badhandwriting, and he admitted to me that hehad misread my paper, my exam, in lawschool. Then, the whole grade was what youdid on the exam; nothing else counted. Soflunking an exam was a very, very seriousproblem. Anyway, he refused to change thegrade, so instead of finishing third, I finishedfifth, which wasn’t bad.

“I was a member of the Board of Editors of theWisconsin Law Review and I was elected to membership

in the Order of the Coif . . .”

I was a member of the Board ofEditors of the Wisconsin Law Review and Iwas elected to membership in the Order ofthe Coif, the certificate of which you can seeon the wall there. The Order of the Coif is anational honorary legal fraternity and

5


membership is limited to the upper 10percent of the class, with a minimum grade. In other words, if some of the 10 percentwere below the minimum grade, then theminimum grade set the standard. Anyway, Iwas elected to the Order of the Coif.

Worked in His Brother’s Law Firm in Milwaukee forAlmost Two Years

Upon graduation, I went to work formy brother’s law firm in Milwaukee, and Istayed there for two years, until December,not quite two years, ‘til December of ‘42.

In December of 1942 Joined the Office of PriceAdministration in Washington, D.C.

I left my brother’s law firm to take a positionwith the government in Washington, D.C.,with the O-P-A. It happens that a professorof mine in law school was with the O-P-A,and he came through Wisconsin on arecruiting trip, and he offered me a job.

“The job paid $2,600 a year, which was quite a step upfrom $75 a month, which I was making. . . .”

The job paid $2,600 a year, which was quitea step up from $75 a month, which I wasmaking.

Storey: O-P-A is?

Weinberg: The Office of Price Administration, theagency that administered prices and rationing

6


during World War II. I was not taken in thedraft because I had a physical condition thatput me in 4F, and they wouldn’t even takeme for a clerical job, because the Armyfigured that if you weren’t capable offighting trench warfare, why, you weren’tsuited to Army life.

Worked on Writing Regulations for Rationing Fuel Oiland Firewood

Anyway, I came to Washington inJanuary of 1943 to take this job in the fuelrationing division of the O-P-A. Turned outwe rationed fuel oil and, believe it or not,firewood in Oregon, Washington, and thePanhandle of Idaho.

Storey: What was the logic behind rationing fuelwood?

Weinberg: Firewood? There was a shortage. Therewasn’t enough to go around, because thelumber men apparently were off fighting thewar and you couldn’t get supplies. So that itwas a principal fuel in that part of thecountry, and it was in short supply, so it wasrationed.

Storey: Okay. Interesting.

Found the OPA Job Boring and Trying

Weinberg: I found it so. My principal job was writingregulations under the fuel oil rationingprogram, and auditing reports from the field

7


offices, and handling appeals, which I foundnot only boring, but very trying, because youwere dealing with some really heart-wrenching horror stories of people runningout of oil and they, for some reason or other,fell afoul of the regulations. You know howthe bureaucracy functions. So I was nothappy there.

One day my wife and I–incidentally, Igot married, after I came to Washington, tomy fiancee, to whom I became engaged inWisconsin, making $2,600 a year, plus 600because we worked on Saturday, so that thepay was $3,200 a year. I was able to getmarried. My wife was a homemaker, shewas not employed, and we put money in thebank. Shows you the difference in pricesthen and now.

John Frank Helped Him Transfer to a Job in theDepartment of the Interior

Anyway, my wife and I were over atthe Jefferson Memorial, which was nearlycompeted, and I ran into John Frank. JohnFrank had graduated from the University ofWisconsin Law School two years ahead ofme, and I knew him. He had been a SterlingFellow at Yale after he left the law school fora year, and then he went to work at theInterior Department. He was, at the time, theconfidential assistant to Abe Fortas, who, attwenty-nine, was the Under-Secretary of theInterior.

8


And John asked me what I was doing,and I told him, and he asked me if I wouldlike to come to the Interior Department. Isaid I indeed would like to come to theInterior Department, because I found this O-P-A stuff not satisfying. So he said, “Well,you will get a phone call from the solicitor ofthe Interior Department.”

I forgot about it, but about a monthlater, I did get a phone call from the solicitorof the Interior Department, a man by thename of Fowler Harper. Fowler Harper wasa name well-known to law students all overthe country, because he had been a professorat Yale and he wrote the leading treatise thatstudents read on tort law. Harper on Tortswas a very famous work to any law student.

So I came over and he interviewedme. And he then sent me to Felix Cohen, thedeputy solicitor, C-O-H-E-N. Felix Cohenwas the son of a very famous professor ofphilosophy at City College in New York; hisname was Morris Raphael Cohen. Felixhimself was probably the leading authorityon Indian law in the United States, I was tofind out later. Anyway, he interviewed meand he sent me back to Fowler Harper, andHarper said, “Okay, we’ll give you a jobhere. You can have your choice. One, youcan stay in the immediate office of thesolicitor and write regulations under theNational Explosives Act, and the other is youcan go to work for the Bureau ofReclamation in the chief counsel’s office.”

9


“‘I’ll take the Bureau of Reclamation, sight unseen. Bythe way, what do they do?’”

Well, I said, “I’ve been writingregulations since I’ve been here, and that isnot my cup of tea. I’ll take the Bureau ofReclamation, sight unseen. By the way, whatdo they do?” I had never heard of the Bureauof Reclamation.

Well, he said, “Have you ever heardof Grand Coulee Dam?”

I said, “Well, everybody’s heard ofGrand Coulee Dam.”

“Have you heard of,” what he called,“Boulder Dam?” which is now Hoover Dam.

I said, “Everybody’s heard of BoulderDam.”

Well, he says, “Who do you thinkbuilt them and runs them?”

I said, “Well, I assume that’s theBureau of Reclamation, but why are theybuilding dams?”

So he proceeded to tell me that thebasic work they did was to build theirrigation projects in the western part of theUnited States, which was really a desert orsemi-desert. I’m from Wisconsin, as I say,and I grew up from Wisconsin, which is nottoo far from the 100th Meridian, or the 98th

10


Meridian, where the arid country begins. Ihad never realized that there was anorganization out there that was irrigating thedesert and, in fact, I had not realized thatthere was a desert, although I knew about themountains and the cattle ranges from theTom Mix movies, but I’d never thought thatmuch about it.

Went to Work for Reclamation in January of 1944

Well, I joined the Bureau ofReclamation in January of ‘44, one year afterI came to Washington, and I stayed there fortwenty-five years in the department. I wentthrough all of the chairs and the legal staff. In those days, as I suggested, each bureau ofthe department had its own legal staff,headed by a chief counsel. The solicitor’soffice was a rather small office that handledappeals, supervised professionally in terms ofprofessional standards and approving hiring,but had no line authority over the bureaus,the various bureaus’ legal counsel. So Ifound myself in the Bureau of Reclamation.

In 1942 Took a Nationwide Civil Service Exam inMilwaukee

Incidentally, one other thing. In 1942,there was a nationwide Civil Serviceexamination for lawyers, which I took inMilwaukee. In 1943, Congress put a rider onthe Civil Service Appropriation Bill whichprohibited the Civil Service Commissionfrom spending any money to certify lawyers

11


under the Civil Service Standards, so I wasnot appointed off the Civil Service roster. The Interior Department, when they wereconsidering whether to hire me, inquired ofthe Civil Service Commission where I stood,and it turned out I was number one in thestate of Wisconsin on that exam, but I wasnot hired off it.

For a lawyer, it was, to my mind, asilly exam, because it was all multiplechoice, true or false. There was no essayquestions. I guess today a lot of law schoolexams are that way, but not in my day. Ithought the whole thing was kind of a joke.

Anyhoo, I was put to work in theBureau of Reclamation, taking the place of aman who retired and who, incidentally,stayed in Washington and never came backto the Bureau, and never came back to thedepartment, even to visit. I knew him onlyfrom a picture.

“This office was stacked with files, must have been sixfeet, six feet of files, all involving Marshall Ford Dam. I

set out to read all of those files, and that was the besteducation I could have had in how the government

works . . .”

The first job that I had–well, I had anumber of assignments. One of them turnedout to be an education in how the governmentoperates and how the Bureau operates. TheBureau had gotten involved in building adam in Texas, not through a conventional

12

1. “The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA),also known as the Wheeler-Rayburn Act, was a law that was passed bythe United States Congress to facilitate regulation of electric utilities,by either limiting their operations to a single state, and thus subjectingthem to effective state regulation, or forcing divestitures so that eachbecame a single integrated system serving a limited geographic area. . ..” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_Holding_Company_Act_of_1935

The act is (P.L. 74-333).


authorization, but because the congressmanfrom that district was the chairman of theHouse Appropriations Committee. Thecompany that had been building the dam wasan Insull company. I don’t know whetheryou have ever run across the name SamuelInsull, but Samuel Insull was one of theutility tycoons in the country whose downfallled to the passage of the Public UtilityHolding Company Act.1

Anyway, they had gone bust whilethey were building this project calledMarshall Ford Dam on the Lower ColoradoRiver in Texas, near Austin. The terms ofthe appropriation act authorized the secretaryto enter into a contract to build this dam withthe Lower Colorado River Authority ofTexas, and to do it essentially on such termsas he might agree upon, including repayment.

The problem was what should they berequired to repay and when should therepayment start. I was shown into an office. You know the offices over in the InteriorDepartment. This office was stacked withfiles, must have been six feet, six feet of files,

13

2. The House Committee Investigating Un-American Activities(HUAC).


all involving Marshall Ford Dam. I set out toread all of those files, and that was the besteducation I could have had in how thegovernment works, how Congress works,because I learned what the appropriationprocess was, I learned how the House andSenate operate, I learned for the first timethat there was something called the HouseRules Committee, because later on theyneeded a little bit of corrective legislation,and in the legislative file was theCongressional Record excerpt that said thatMr. [Martin] Dies [Jr.], of the RulesCommittee, moved that bill number so and sobe brought up, and so I looked into that andfound out what the Rules Committee was.

The Dies, incidentally, CongressmanDies, later became famous as the chairman ofthe “Dies Committee,” the predecessor of theMcCarthy Committee.2 He was the first oneto start chasing Communists or people hethought were Communists, or people hedidn’t like that he called Communists,probably more the latter than the former.

“It took me six weeks to go through that file, and I wasinquisitive, I asked a lot of questions of other lawyers,

the older lawyers in the Bureau, and when I gotthrough, I knew the Bureau of Reclamation backward

and forward. I knew the congressional process . . .”

I also learned how the Bureau of

14


Reclamation designs a project. I read all theengineering reports. It took me six weeks togo through that file, and I was inquisitive, Iasked a lot of questions of other lawyers, theolder lawyers in the Bureau, and when I gotthrough, I knew the Bureau of Reclamationbackward and forward. I knew thecongressional process of getting billsintroduced and passed. I knew how theappropriation committees worked. It was, asI say, the best education that I could havehad.

Worked on the Flood Control Act of 1944 WhichAuthorized the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program

Also pending at that time was theFlood Control Act of 1944, of which youmay have heard, the Pick-Sloan Plan, inwhich the Bureau was vying with the [U.S.Army] Corps [of Engineers] to getauthorization to undertake the Missouri BasinProject. I was put to work on some facets ofthat. The Bureau and the Interior Departmentwere in a hell of a fight with the Corps tomake sure that the irrigation power matterswould be handled by Interior and not by theCorps. I did some work on that and wrotesome memoranda, carried the chief counsel’sbriefcase back and forth to the hearing, and Iaudited the hearing.

Worked on the Mexican Water Treaty

At the same time I was also put towork on matters involving the then pending

15

3. “The Mexican Water Treaty and Protocol is a treaty relating tothe utilization of the waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and ofthe Rio Grande. (Signed at Washington, February 3, 1944; Protocolsigned at Washington, November 14, 1944; ratification advised by theSenate April 18, 1945, subject to certain understandings; ratification bythe President November 1, 1945, subject to said understandings; ratifiedby Mexico October 16, 1945; ratifications exchanged at Washington,November 8, 1945; proclaimed by the President November 27, 1945,subject to said understandings; 59 Stat. 1219.) Source: United StatesDepartment of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation.” FederalReclamation and Related laws Annotated, Volume II of IV, 1943-1958. ed. Richard K. Pelz. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government PrintingOffice, 1972, p. 750 et. seq.4. It is 1.5 million acre feet of water.


Mexican Water Treaty, what became theMexican Water Treaty, which was thenpending before the Senate.3 It divided thewaters of the Colorado River between–itprovided, I think, a million acre-feet, or itmight have been more,4 of Colorado Riverwater to Mexico. It also dealt with the RioGrande and with the Tijuana, which is asmall stream in the San Diego area whichcrosses and recrosses the border between theUnited States and Mexico.

Senator Hiram Johnson

That was another education, because Ilearned what the treaty process was. Thiswas a case in which all the Colorado Riverstates, except California, were in one camp,they wanted the treaty. California opposedthe treaty. Senator Hiram Johnson ofCalifornia was still in the Senate, he was onthe Foreign Relations Committee. By thattime he was in his eighties, which I then

16


looked upon as approaching the age ofMethuselah, a view I no longer have since Iam seventy-six years old myself. (laughter)

Storey: You’re my mother’s age almost exactly.

Weinberg: And I have a brother who is a retired lawyer. As I said, I worked for him. He now lives inCalifornia in Leisure World near LosAngeles. He is going on eighty-seven. So Idon’t look upon the eighties as old anymore,but at that time I was twenty-six years oldand Hiram Johnson was way past his prime. Everybody treated him with the utmostrespect and, of course, he had been a greatpolitical power in his day. He is reputed tohave cost Hughes the 1916 election in whichWilson was re-elected, because he was theRepublican candidate and later the chiefjustice of the United States Supreme Court,went to California and did not pay a courtesycall on Hiram Johnson, who ran the state ofCalifornia. (laughter) Perhaps that story isapocryphal. Anyway, Wilson carriedCalifornia by an eyelash and the snub ofHiram Johnson is credited with Johnson nottaking an active part in the presidentialcampaign. Johnson was also the father, whenhe was governor, of this wacky initiativesystem they have in California, under whichyou can get almost anything on the ballot. And Proposition 187, or whatever, is anexample of that.

Storey: Those kinds of things were very popular inthe West in those days.

17


Weinberg: Yeah, and Johnson was a leader of theprogressive movement, as was La Follette ofWisconsin, Borah of Idaho, Wheeler ofMontana. They called them the Sons of theWild Jackass because they voted more oftenwith the Democrats than with theRepublicans, although they were ostensiblyRepublicans.

Anyhoo, I am probably the lastsurvivor of people who actually worked onthe Pick-Sloan authorization. I knew GlennSloan. I got to know him later on.

Storey: What did you see of the compromises thatwere made? You know Marc Reisner wrotea story about how all this happened.

Weinberg: Yes. Well, they called it the ShotgunWedding. I know Marc. Marc writes from aperspective of an extreme environmentalist. While I consider myself an environmentalist,I don’t consider myself as far out as Marc. He interviewed me for his Cadillac Desertbook.

Storey: That’s one of the places, of course, where Ifound out about you.

“. . . the Pick-Sloan Plan came along at a time andunder circumstances that couldn’t possibly be

duplicated today. . . .”

Weinberg: Yeah. (laughter) Well, I tell you, the Pick-Sloan Plan came along at a time and undercircumstances that couldn’t possibly be

18


duplicated today. There had been two recordfloods in the Lower Missouri. . . .

END SIDE 1, TAPE 1. NOVEMBER 23, 1994.BEGIN SIDE 2, TAPE 1. NOVEMBER 23, 1994.

Storey: You were saying that there had been twomajor floods.

Lower Missouri Floods in 1942 and 1943

Weinberg: Two major floods in the Lower Missouri in1942 and 1943. The House Committee eitheron Flood Control or on Rivers and Harbors,there were two different committees, directedthe Corps to review its previous reports witha view to determining what could be done toimprove the flood control on the LowerMissouri.

Navigation Legislation on the Lower Missouri

At the same time, there was pending beforethe–that was the House Flood ControlCommittee. There was pending before theHouse Rivers and Harbors Committee forchanneled navigation a proposal to increasethe then-authorized navigation channel on theLower Missouri from Sioux City, Iowa,down to St. Louis, from six feet to nine feet,or maybe it was nine feet to eleven feet. I’dhave to go back and refresh my recollection.

Reclamation Had Been Working on Projects on theUpper Missouri and the Corps of Engineers Was

Working on Lower Missouri Studies

19


Anyway, the division engineer of theCorps at Omaha was in charge of theseinvestigations, and that was Lewis Pick. Atthe same time, the Bureau had been workingfor several years on a Missouri Basin Planfocused really on irrigation, on upstreamdevelopment. Pick was focusing on the floodcontrol in the Lower Missouri, and Pick’sproposal was that there be a series of largestorage dams built in South Dakota andNorth Dakota which would add to theprotection that was already provided by FortPeck Dam in Montana.

Concerns about Navigation Establishing a PriorityHigher than Irrigation on the Missouri River

The Bureau saw the Pick Plan as, one,having no room for irrigation development,and yet it would store all this water. And,two, because of the constitutionalpreeminence of the commerce clause, theBureau was concerned that once a navigationchannel was authorized, that the waterrequirements [for navigation] would takepreeminence, would take priority overbeneficial consumptive uses in the Upperbasin states, and that was not an idle concernof the Bureau.

Developed a Legal Opinion on Priority of Navigation inRelation to Irrigation

One of the things that I had written in1944 was a legal opinion reviewing the

20


authorities under the commerce clause asthey might impact beneficial consumptiveuses that were developed under state law, andconstitutionally it’s not even a doubtful issue,it’s not a close call. An authorizednavigation project has first call on the water,and because of the preemption clause and thefederal Constitution that this Constitution andlaw is made in pursuance thereof shall be thelaw of the land, the Constitution and laws ofany state to the contrary notwithstanding, thatwas a real threat, and it wasn’t only theBureau that was concerned, it was theBureau’s constituencies, the water users thatwere concerned.

Dynamics in the Political Scene at the Time Regardingthe Corps of Engineers and Reclamation

And it wasn’t only in the MissouriBasin because the same problem was arisingin Idaho where the Corps had designs, or hadplans to build a Lower Snake Rivernavigation channel project which would haveused running water rather than storage, and itwould create the same problem.

At the same time, in the New Englandstates, in Vermont, of all places, the Corpshad managed to get on the wrong side ofSenator Austin of Vermont, later the UnitedStates representative at the United Nations,and other Vermont politicians, because theCorps had plans to build a flood controlproject which would have benefitted, otherNew England states, principally, I think,

21


Massachusetts. And, they weren’t payingmuch attention to the outraged cries of alarmcoming from Vermont, where the projectswould actually be located.

Reconciling Reclamation and Corps Plans for theMissouri River Basin

So you had these three forces–theBureau, the water users, water users in notonly the Missouri Basin but in Idaho, peoplein New England, were very concerned aboutwhat the Corps was doing. At the same time,so, the Bureau had allies in its proposal. TheCorps came out with its Pick Report first,ahead of the Bureau, so that the Corps got thejump on the Bureau, and the hearings werebefore the Senate Committee on FloodControl or Navigation, I’ve forgotten which,and before the House committees thatoversaw the Corps. The Bureau didn’t haveits plan out yet.

The Budget Bureau sent the Corpsplan to the Bureau for review, and the Bureaujumped all over it in its comments withrespect to the need to protect beneficialconsumptive use, the need to make it a trulymultiple purpose plan. And the Bureau[plan] was finally completed in about early1944, finally completed and released, SenateDocument 191, the Sloan Plan.

To give you some idea, to comparethe comprehensive nature of these plans, thePick Plan is about twenty pages long. Senate

22


Document 191 covers hundreds of pages. The Pick Plan focused on, as I say, buildingsome storage up in North and South Dakotato protect flood control in the LowerMissouri, Kansas City, from Sioux Citydown. At the same time, independently ofthe Pick Plan, there was this navigationproposal which was coming along before theRivers and Harbors Committee in the House.

Well, the Bureau jumped all overthem, and the western congressionaldelegations became very much alarmed aboutthe threat that the Army development posedto upstream consumptive use. Senators[Joseph C.] O’Mahoney [pronouncedOmahn‘] of Wyoming and [Eugene]Milliken of [Colorado] Montana introducedan amendment, which was actually written inthe Bureau with input from western waterinterests principally Judge Clifford Stone ofColorado. This was the O’Mahoney-Milliken Amendment. This is a long wayaround about what I think of the compromise,but–

Storey: It’s exactly what I want.

Weinberg: I’ll give you a paper I wrote on the birthpangs of Pick-Sloan, which goes into this insome detail and has all the dates right and theright committees and so on.

The O’Mahoney-MillikenAmendment provided, first of all, thatwhenever the Corps was developing a plan

23

5. The only U.S. Senator in the Biographical Dictionary of theUnited States Congress, 1774-1989, Bicentennial Edition; TheContinental Congress September 5, 1774, to October 21, 1788; TheCongress of the United States, March 4, 1789 to January 3, 1989,Inclusive, One Hundredth Congress, Second Session, Senate DocumentNo. 100-34, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989,with the surname Austin is Warren R. Austin of Vermont (1877-1962). He served in the U.S. Senate from April 1, 1931, until August 2, 1946. He then became United States representative on the Security Council ofthe United Nations.6. “Lieutenant General Eugene Reybold

“Chief of Engineers (October 1, 1941-September 30, 1945)“Born February 13, 1884, in Delaware City, Delaware, Eugene

Reybold was distinguished as the World War II Chief of Engineers whodirected the largest Corps of Engineers in the nation’s history. He

(continued...)


and whenever the Bureau was developing aplan under reclamation law, it had to give theaffected states an opportunity to comment. That reflects the concern of Senator Austin.5 That was one point.

The other point in the O’Mahoney-Milliken Amendment was that whenever theCorps constructed a project, proposed aproject, on a stream that either arose west ofthe 97th Meridian, or 98th Meridian, or wasentirely west of the 98th Meridian, twosituations. One, the stream might cross the98th Meridian, but insofar as those affectedwaters that arose west of the 98th Meridian,or the 97th Meridian, the use for navigationwas subordinate to the beneficialconsumptive use of those waters forirrigation, domestic use, industrial use, so on.

When that amendment was floated inthe Senate committee, General Reybold,6

24

6. (...continued)graduated from Delaware College in 1903. Commissioned in the CoastArtillery Corps in 1908, Reybold was assigned to military housing andcoast defense construction work. Stationed at Fort Monroe throughoutWorld War I, he became commandant of the Coast Artillery School. He transferred to the Corps of Engineers in 1926 and served as DistrictEngineer in Buffalo, New York; Wilmington, North Carolina; andMemphis, Tennessee. In the last assignment he successfully battledrecord Mississippi River flood crests. He was Southwestern DivisionEngineer (1937-40) and War Department Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4(1940-41). Appointed Chief of Engineers shortly before Pearl Harbor,General Reybold directed the Corps’ tremendous range of activitiesthroughout the war and was the first officer ever to rank as lieutenantgeneral while Chief of Engineers. He was awarded a DistinguishedService Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster. Reybold retired January 31,1946, and died November 21, 1961, in Washington, D.C.” Source:http://www.usace.army.mil/History/Pages/Commanders.aspx


who was the chief or the deputy chief ofengineers, was testifying, and he referred tothat amendment as “that crazy amendment.” O’Mahoney was on the committee, andO’Mahoney said, in effect, “It may be crazyto you, but I am not going to put my trust inthe good faith of the Corps of Engineers. Weneed this for protection.” Poor Reybold. (laughter) He needed a good P.R. advisor,because I don’t know whether it wasarrogance or lack of sensitivity, but can youimagine referring to an amendment offeredby one of the prime members of acongressional committee, before whom youare testifying, referring to that as “that crazyamendment?” (laughter)

“. . . ‘Mr. President, you’ve got to do something. You’ve got to knock some heads together and get these

two agencies to agree.’. . .”

25


Anyhoo, it was getting late in 1944 bythis time, and the parties were at loggerheads. So O’Mahoney went to the president, who,while he was for a Missouri Valley Authorityand kept calling for a Missouri ValleyAuthority, he was also very supportive of theBureau and recognized the need forsomething to curb the constitutional right towater that would arise from a hugenavigation project. O’Mahoney laterrecounted that he went to the president andsaid, “Mr. President, you’ve got to dosomething. You’ve got to knock some headstogether and get these two agencies to agree.”

Chicago Meeting Where the “Shotgun Wedding”Resulting in the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program

Occurred

Well, there was a meeting convenedin Chicago, and I think it was November orOctober of 1944. That is what is referred toas the “Shotgun Wedding.” The agreement isvery simple. It can be reproduced on acouple of pages. It dealt mainly with thephysical things. The Bureau accepted aCorps dam rather than a dam that it wasproposing, and so on and so forth, andrecognized the priority of beneficialconsumptive use over navigation, and that inmatters of irrigation, the Bureau would takethe lead and in matters of flood control [and]navigation, the Corps would take the lead. That, in essence, is the plan.

In December of ‘44, the Flood

26


Control Act was passed, and Section 9authorizes the Pick-Sloan Plan–authorizedthe initial stages, and it does so in a veryshort paragraph. The plans that wereincluded in those reports, as I say, the Armyreport was very sketchy and they hadconcepts for these dams, that waters from oneof the dams would be useful for irrigation inthe Dakotas, but it didn’t really say how.

The Sloan Plan, on the other hand,was a very elaborate document. It spelled outwhat was to be done. Unfortunately, thespelling-out was better than the engineering,because due to a lack of manpower and thehaste in meeting the deadlines, they hadn’treally had a chance to do the extensive fieldwork that should have been done, but at leastit focused on what ought to be done in theUpper Basin states. And in December of ‘44,the Shotgun Wedding was consummated.

As I say, you couldn’t possibly havean authorization like that today. I mean, herewe’re talking about one-sixth of the area ofthe United States, and in a paragraph,Congress authorized--they probably didn’trealize it–five to six billion dollars worth ofprojects, and this was at 1940 prices. Youcouldn’t possibly get something like thatthrough Congress today. The environmentalimpact statements alone would take years tocomplete. So with that authorization, theygot started, and, really, flying by the seat oftheir pants, they had to reengineer, scope out,really, what they were going to do, and they

27


made a lot of changes.

Storey: Was there any discussion at the time aboutthe fact that the war was coming to an end?

Weinberg: Oh, yes, and this was looked upon as anopportunity both for developing homes forthe returning veterans, projects, and also as agreat employment stimulus, building theseprojects. Oh, yes, yes, that was very much inthe minds of everybody.

Storey: What kinds of personalities were involved? Mr. Sloan, Mr. Pick, and so on.

Weinberg: Well, I got to know Sloan later on. I didn’tknow Sloan while this was going on, butSloan remained with the Bureau for manyyears. He was rather an austere guy. Hewasn’t a mixer. He didn’t say much, butwhen he said something, by God, it better bedone. I never knew Pick. I didn’t knowPick.

Storey: What about the commissioner and the headsolicitor in Reclamation?

John Page and Harry Bashore

Weinberg: Okay. The commissioner of Reclamationduring this time was John C. Page, and hewas commissioner when I came to theBureau in 1944. He retired in ‘44 or ‘45 andwas succeeded by Harry [W.] Bashore. JohnPage and Harry Bashore were old-lineBureau of Reclamation engineers. They

28


were career people. They had worked theirway through the ranks, and became, as I say,head of the Bureau.

I also knew the chief engineer at thetime from the Denver office and the chiefhydrological engineer, E. B. Debler–E.C.Debler, E.B. Debler–and his assistant, J. R.Riter, R-I-T-E-R. These were all careerpeople. The chief designer of the Bureau,head of the dam design, was a man by thename of John R. Savage. He was known asthe “Billion Dollar Engineer” because he haddesigned a billion dollars worth of dams. Today he’d be the Twenty Billion DollarEngineer. He was in charge of the design ofGrand Coulee, Hoover, Shasta, all the bigdams. And incidentally, I’m happy to say hewas a native of, and a graduate of theUniversity of Wisconsin. (laughter)

Storey: Tell me about Page. What was he like? Didyou meet him?

Creation of Reclamation’s Regions

Weinberg: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I knew Page. Page was atall, thin man. I was a junior attorney andJohn Page was the commissioner, but I wouldfind my way in the commissioner’s officefrom time to time. As I say, he was in theprocess of retiring, and the Bureau was in theprocess of regionalization. They were in theprocess, and this was implemented underHarry Bashore, who I got to know real well. He presided over the reorganization of the

29


Bureau, which set up the regional offices ofthe Bureau.

“. . . the commissioner concerns himself with high policyand relations on the Hill, and the real decisions, the real

implementation is done in Denver and not in theregions, as I see it. . . .”

Before that, the only field offices theBureau had, of course there was the chiefengineer’s office in Denver, and before thereorganization, and as is true today, theBureau was run from Denver. Commissioner–hell, I think thecommissioner’s staff is smaller than it waswhen I joined the Bureau, and thecommissioner concerns himself with highpolicy and relations on the Hill, and the realdecisions, the real implementation is done inDenver and not in the regions, as I see it.

The regional offices wereimplemented. As I say, before that, the onlyoffices that the Bureau had in the field werethe Denver office, project offices, and theBureau had six or seven or maybe eightdistrict lawyers–district counsel, they werecalled–scattered around. There was one inBillings.

“. . . the district counsels’ offices became the site of theBureau’s regional offices. . . .”

In fact, the district counsels’ offices becamethe site of the Bureau’s regional offices. There was a district counsel in Boise, there

30


was a district counsel in Billings, there was adistrict counsel in Denver, there was adistrict counsel in Amarillo, Texas. I’veforgotten where else. Sacramento. No, LosAngeles. The Boulder City stuff was run outof Dick Coffee’s office in Los Angeles. Hewas the district counsel in Los Angeles. They became the nucleus of the regionaloffices, except that Coffee stayed in LosAngeles, but they set the regional office up inBoulder City, at the Bureau.

Storey: What were you hearing around the officeabout why the regions were being created?

“The regions were being created because . . . they couldforesee . . . after the war. There was going to be big

development, and it couldn’t all be run out of the chiefengineer’s office. The job was just too big. . . .”

Weinberg: The regions were being created because theBureau, they could foresee what was going tohappen after the war. There was going to bebig development, and it couldn’t all be runout of the chief engineer’s office. The jobwas just too big. If the Bureau ever getsaround to returning to its mission, the samething is going to happen. Don Glaser is avery fine fellow, and I know him, I’ve knownhim for years, but it’s going to be impossible,if the Bureau ever finds a mission again, torun it out of Denver. The Bureau is spreadtoo far afield.

Storey: So how were they going about creatingregional offices? Were you involved in that

31


at all?

Weinberg: No, I wasn’t involved. What they did wasthey took engineers in the Bureau, and theybecame the regional directors. They were allcareer people. I don’t know of anybodyamong the original regional offices who wasnot a career man, nor did I know of anybodywho became the division heads inWashington. In Washington they createddivisions. There’s the operation andmaintenance division, the project planningdivision, the power utilization people.

They stayed out in Denver, by theway, the power people, originally, but theycame into Washington finally because thedirector of the branch of power utilization inDenver, he would send his stuff in to thecommissioner for approval and it would bereviewed by a fellow by the name of Ted, T.W. Mermel, who, by the way, is still alive. He’s close to ninety. He works at the WorldBank now. He was the engineering assistantto the commissioner for many years–Thaddeus W. Mermel. I’ll give you histelephone number. He had worked onHoover Dam as a young engineer.

Anyway, I was the lawyer that hadresponsibility for power matters, so HarveyMcPhail, who was the head of the branch ofpower utilization, decided he’d better locatein Washington; otherwise, he was beingsupervised not by the commissioner, but by ayoung lawyer and a young engineer.

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(laughter)

Storey: What was Page like in meetings?

Weinberg: I don’t recall. My vision of John Page is atall, rather austere man, and I didn’t get intomany meetings with him.

Bashore, on the other hand, was avery jovial guy. He was very nice to dealwith. He was a brilliant mind, but he wasalso very friendly and he was cooperative, hebelieved in fellowship, and he had quite asense of humor.

Storey: Did you look forward to meetings in thecommissioner’s office?

Weinberg: Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Storey: Under Page, too?

Weinberg: Oh, yes, yes. That was where the action was,you know. That’s where the decisions weremade.

Storey: That’s interesting, because in the Denveroffice, if you ask people if they lookedforward to meetings with the chief engineer,their reaction is very negative, generally. The only reason you were taken up there wasto be chewed out.

Weinberg: Well, that is now. I’m talking about then. The Bureau is a different organization today. It’s in the throes of a complete change of

33


mission. In fact, I don’t think it’s found itsmission. It has abandoned the concepts thatit started with, and, I think, I personally amof the opinion that there remains a need forsmall, relatively small–40,000-, 50,000-acre–projects in the Great Plains area, which is anarea that is losing population. There’snothing to hold the people there. Theycannot depend on the weather cycle, and theytherefore need irrigation as a stabilizingelement to complement the lifestyles. TheBureau doesn’t believe in building irrigationprojects anymore, under any circumstances. The Bureau has lost much of its . . .


Storey: This is tape two of an interview by BritStorey with Edward Weinberg on Novemberthe 23rd, 1994.

You were saying Reclamation’s lost alot of its engineering expertise.

Weinberg: It’s lost a lot of its top people, its talentedpeople, and it’s not developing, so far as Ican see, the young talent coming up throughthe ranks. As I say, they don’t know whattheir mission is. The Bureau is going througha terrible turmoil.

Storey: You mentioned that you knew the chiefengineer. Who was that at that time? Was itstill Ray Walter?

34

7. Referring to Madden Dam which was completed in 1935 onthe Chagres River.

(continued...)


Weinberg: No, no, no. Walter had retired. Incidentally,Walter’s son became a regional director. R.F. Walter’s son became a regional director. No, R. F. Walter was in the original cadre ofpeople that were there–

Storey: Had you ever met him?

Leslie N. McClellan

Weinberg: No, I never met Walter, but I met [L. N.]McClellan, was the chief engineer.

Storey: What was he like?

Weinberg: Well, he was another one that was veryreserved, very formal, and I would imaginethat not many people were close toMcClellan. I can imagine that there was fearand trepidation in being called beforeMcClellan, because the chief engineer, heoccupied the highest professional rank in theBureau and was an acknowledged worldleader in engineering.

“The Bureau of Reclamation had a worldwidereputation and deservedly so. The Bureau designed the

high dam on the Panama Canal . . .”

The Bureau of Reclamation had a worldwidereputation and deservedly so. The Bureaudesigned the high dam on the Panama Canal,the one that forms the big lake.7 The Bureau

35

7. (...continued)“The Madden Dam created the Alahuela Lake . . . It can store

one third of the canal’s annual need. Since it is not part of thenavigational route, there are less restrictions on the water level.

“The dam prevents the possible torrential flow of the Chagresriver into the navigational route of Lake Gatun. The water is also usedto generate hydroelectric power, and to supply Panama City’sfreshwater. The dam is named after US congressman Martin B.Madden.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagres_River

Sources variously give credit for the design of Madden Dam toJohn (Jack) L. Savage or jointly to Savage and Raymond F. Walter.8. See footnote on page 15.


designed that for the Corps of Engineers. The Corps had never built a high dam, neverdesigned a high dam at that time.

The know-how was in the Bureau ofReclamation, and to be the chief engineer,you were at the top of the profession, andunless you were a very gregarious person,people would be very deferential to the chief. As I say, at that time, the chief engineer’soffice had been running the Bureau. Lateron, the chief became–the position wasfocused on engineering and not on projectmaintenance, not on project development,and so it became a different place.

Storey: Do you remember any meetings with him?

Weinberg: Yeah, I remember a couple of meetingsduring the Mexican Treaty things.8 Hewould come into Washington. But I have noreal recollection of those times.

Storey: What about John Savage?

36


Weinberg: I never met Savage.

Storey: Oh, you didn’t?

Weinberg: No. I knew who he was, but I never metSavage. So far as I can recall, Savage didn’tspend much time in Washington. He was outthere designing dams.

Storey: Another person with a worldwide reputation.

Weinberg: Yeah.

Attended the Hearings for the Mexican Water Treatyand Protocol

Storey: How were you involved in the MexicanTreaty negotiations?

Weinberg: Well, I wasn’t involved in the negotiations. The treaty had been negotiated and went toCongress in early 1944. I was involved inthe hearings. As a junior lawyer, I preparedsome memoranda, and I sat in on thehearings before the Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee.

Storey: Did the issue of where the water was going tocome from ever come up?

“The big issue in the Mexican Treaty hearings on theColorado was . . . all of the other Basin states were very,very concerned about how in the hell the Mexican Treaty

demand was going to be met, and they could see that itwas going to be met from them and not from California.

. . .”

37


Weinberg: Yes. The big issue in the Mexican Treatyhearings on the Colorado was the guaranteeto Mexico which every state exceptCalifornia, which, by the way, contributes nowater of the Colorado River. (laughter)

Storey: It takes.

Weinberg: Yeah. It takes. But all of the other Basinstates were very, very concerned about howin the hell the Mexican Treaty demand wasgoing to be met, and they could see that itwas going to be met from them and not fromCalifornia. California had Hoover Dam. This was a continuation of the Upper versusLower Basin fight on the Colorado that hadbeen going on for seventy-five years. Southern California was a rapidly developingarea. The Upper Basin states were very slowin developing. They wanted that water therewhen they reached the time when they wouldneed it. They were afraid that Californiawould establish rights to that water so thatthey would be left out in the cold.

Arizona’s Differences with California over theColorado River Compact

The Colorado River Compact, whichwas negotiated in [1922,] 1923, presided overby Herbert Hoover as Secretary ofCommerce, was chairman of thenegotiations, didn’t really resolve the matter. It apportioned the water between the Upperand Lower Basins, but not among the states,

38


and the Upper Basin continued to live in fearthat by the very fact that California wasbuilding up its demand, it was going to getthe water, regardless of what was said in thecompact. Thus, the Upper Basin states andArizona, which had its own fight withCalifornia over a provision of the ColoradoRiver Compact, known as 3(b) water, 3(b) ofthe compact says that the Lower Basin canincrease its use by a million acre-feet. Arizona took the position that that waswritten in there because of the Gila River,which is entirely, or almost entirely, I thinksome of its tributaries are in New Mexico,but the Gila River is basically an Arizonastream, it enters the river below Hoover Dam,near something like nine miles above theMexican border or something like that, belowthe intake for the Imperial Irrigation District,which is the largest irrigation district in theUnited States, and it’s in the Imperial Valleyin California, half a million acres. Arizonacontended that that million acre-feet wasintended for Arizona, and California said,“Oh, no, that’s got to be divided.” So it waseverybody against California, and that wasthe situation in the hearings on the treaty.

Storey: Who were the major figures then, the majorpolitical figures?

Weinberg: Well, Franklin Roosevelt and Tom Connollyof Texas, Senator Connolly of Texas,because the treaty also covered the RioGrande. He very much wanted that treaty. California, Hiram Johnson was past his

39

9. Senator Sheridan Downey.


prime, he was, I think, out-general. I’veforgotten who the hell the other Californiasenator was at the time in 1944.9 California,nevertheless, prevailed on getting the treatyratified, California and Texas.

Storey: Why did Texas want the treaty?

Weinberg: Because of the projects it authorized on theRio Grande. There were two dams, twoMexican Treaty dams, on the Rio Grande,Falcon [Dam] and Amistad Dam. Theycontribute important benefits to Texas byway of irrigation, as well as to Mexico. Theyalso provide a sense of flood control, so theywanted the treaty. California contended thatthe whole thing was a Texas ploy.

Storey: To steal California water. (laughter)

Weinberg: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. That’s right. The other basin states supported the treaty,mainly, I think, because California was agin’it.

Storey: So it was Texas and the other basin statesthat got the treaty ratified?

Weinberg: Right. Yeah.

Storey: But why weren’t the other basin statesworried about their water going to Mexico onthe Colorado River?

40


Weinberg: That’s a good question and I can’t answer itnow without going back and looking at thehearings.

Storey: What were you doing after you wereinvolved in the Mexican Water Treatyhearings and the Pick-Sloan?

Weinberg: You know, I was a lawyer in the chiefcounsel’s office, and I focused–my boss wasthe assistant chief counsel for planning, andhis boss was the chief counsel of the Bureau. Small world department. The chief counselwas a man by the name of Clifford Fix. Oneof his aunts, Aileen Mer., M-E-R-Z, had beenthe secretary to the dean of the University ofWisconsin Law School since timeimmemorial. So that didn’t do me any harm. (laughter)

And before Cliff Fix, the chiefcounsel when I joined the Bureau was a manby the name of J. Kennard Cheadle fromSeattle, Washington–not Seattle, fromSpokane, Washington. He was a little guy. He was shorter than I was, than I am, but hehad a deep basso profundo voice and was avery good lawyer. I had some good teachers. Jeff Well was the assistant chief counsel forplanning. A man by the name of Howard R.Stinson, who came from Boise and was laterthe regional counsel in Boise, was anassistant chief counsel. He was working onthe Columbia Basin Project.

“. . . I somehow or other found favor with my superiors

41


and I was promoted. I kept getting promotions. I thinkI was the only floater in the Bureau. . . .”

I don’t know, I hit it off with all thesepeople. We developed very close friendshipsand a very good professional relationship. SoI rose through the ranks in the Bureau. By1948 or ‘49, I was an assistant chief counselmyself. I worked on a variety of matters thatwould arise–repayment problems, powerdevelopment, power contracts, and that sortof thing. I somehow or other found favorwith my superiors and I was promoted. Ikept getting promotions. I think I was theonly floater in the Bureau.

Reclamation Marketed Pick-Sloan Power in the EarlyDays of the Program

Pick-Sloan–and this is an interestingstory–Pick-Sloan really got under way in1950. Well, they had been building theprojects, and the Bureau was in charge ofmarketing the power, including the powerdeveloped at the Corps of Engineers’ dams. In 1950, the Bureau was getting ready toannounce the rates, the power rates, and enterinto the first power sales contracts.

“Well, if you know anything about reclamationprojects, you know that the water users don’t begin topay for the cost of the projects; power picks up most of

the tab. . . .”

Well, if you know anything aboutreclamation projects, you know that the water

42


users don’t begin to pay for the cost of theprojects; power picks up most of the tab.

“In terms of Pick-Sloan, most of the power wasdeveloped at the Corps projects . . . Well, the questionarose, could the revenues from the Corps projects be

figured in . . . picking up the irrigation subsidy, the costthat was beyond the ability of the water users to repay. .

. .”

In terms of Pick-Sloan, most of thepower was developed at the Corps projectsand not at the–the Bureau had some powerdevelopments, but they didn’t begin tocompare with the Corps in Pick-Sloan. Well,the question arose, could the revenues fromthe Corps projects be figured in the payout ofthe irrigation, picking up the irrigationsubsidy, the cost that was beyond the abilityof the water users to repay. If it couldn’t, ifthe Corps’ revenues couldn’t be used and therates set accordingly, the irrigation was allinfeasible because it couldn’t pay out. Youcouldn’t pay out the irrigation costs of thoseBureau projects just by applying revenuefrom the Bureau power development. Toattempt to do so, use only the power revenuesfrom the Bureau, would have resulted in apower rate that was so high that you couldn’tsell the power from the Bureau projects.

“. . . Bill Burke . . . took the view that it [Pick-Sloan]was all one project and had to be treated as one projectfor payout purposes. . . . submitted to the solicitor of thedepartment . . . held that Pick-Sloan was, in effect, twoprojects and you couldn’t include the power revenues

43


from the Corps projects in the payout study. . . . MikeStraus . . . and Bill Warne . . . went to Oscar Chapman .. . They had sense enough to see that the Sloan part of

Pick-Sloan, the whole Bureau of Reclamation was deadif the solicitor prevailed, so that they ignored him. Theywent ahead on the theory that it was all one project. . .

.”

Well, the question went to thesolicitor. I was only involved tangentially inthat my bosses were handling this. Theregional counsel in Billings, a man by thename of W. J. Burke, Bill Burke, he was aninstitution in the Bureau. He took the viewthat it was all one project and had to betreated as one project for payout purposes. My bosses took the view that while that wasall well and good, but Congress hadn’t reallysaid that in authorizing the project in 1944. Bill Burke wrote a very learned opinion. Thething was submitted to the solicitor of thedepartment, Maston [phonetic] White, andMaston held against Burke. He held thatPick-Sloan was, in effect, two projects andyou couldn’t include the power revenuesfrom the Bureau from the Corps projects inthe payout study.

Well, fortunately Mike Straus, whoby that time was the commissioner ofReclamation, and Bill Warne, the assistantcommissioner of Reclamation–Bill, by theway, is still alive out in California, and youshould certainly go see him, he’s in hisnineties. These people had a lot to do withthe formulation and driving force of the

44


Bureau in the post-war epoch.

Oscar Chapman

They went to Oscar Chapman, who was bythat time the secretary of the interior. Oscar,by the way, still holds the title of the longesttenure of any assistant secretary in the historyof the United States, because when FranklinD. Roosevelt came in as president, OscarChapman was given the position of anassistant secretary of the Interior. There weretwo assistant secretaries. Oscar stayed in theInterior Department as an assistant secretary,and then secretary, until the [Harry S.]Truman Administration went out in [1953.]1952.

Storey: What was Chapman like?

Weinberg: Chapman was a very nice fellow. He was abrilliant lawyer, by the way, but he was avery disarming guy. He had come fromDenver and he had been an assistant, or hehad some relationship with a famous juvenilejudge in Denver by the name of [Judge Ben]Lindsey, who revolutionized the handling ofyoungsters who were in trouble with the law,and Chapman worked with him. I thinkthat’s what brought him to the attention ofRoosevelt.

Anyway, Chapman was a very niceguy, and he was given to malapropisms in hisspeech. For example, there was an assistantcommissioner of Reclamation by the name of

45


Goodrich W. Lineweaver, who, to OscarChapman, was always Linewich W.Goodweaver. (laughter) He never could getGoodrich’s name straight.

Anyway, Mike Straus was thecommissioner and he was very close toOscar. In fact, Mike Straus–there were twoassistant secretaries and they were ranked. There was the first assistant secretary andthen the assistant secretary. Then there wasan undersecretary, who was over the twoassistants. Mike Straus had been the firstassistant secretary and he gave that up tobecome commissioner of Reclamation in1945. Bashore stayed only a year or two,also. They had sense enough to see that theSloan part of Pick-Sloan, the whole Bureauof Reclamation was dead if the solicitorprevailed, so that they ignored him. Theywent ahead on the theory that it was all oneproject.

“In 1956, there was an extensive hearing before theSenate Public Works Committee and the Senate

Interior Committee on the problems of the MissouriRiver Basin. There was a concern then that the Armywas favoring navigation contrary to the O’Mahoney-

Milliken Amendment. . . .”

In 1956, there was an extensivehearing before the Senate Public WorksCommittee and the Senate InteriorCommittee on the problems of the MissouriRiver Basin. There was a concern then thatthe Army was favoring navigation contrary to

46


the O’Mahoney-Milliken Amendment. Alsothere was an alarm in the Senate committee. Senator Murray of Montana was thechairman, but the real power in the Senatecommittee, insofar as water and power wasconcerned, was Senator Clinton Anderson [ofNew Mexico]. There were other members ofthe committee.

“They were getting concerned about the cost of these[Pick-Sloan] projects and that the Bureau was, in effect,

writing its own ticket. . . .”

They were getting concerned about the costof these projects and that the Bureau was, ineffect, writing its own ticket. So all thesethings came to a head and there were thesehearings.

I was sent up to testify on the law bythe department. By that time the lawyers hadall been consolidated in the offices of thesolicitor, and I was an assistant solicitorhandling Reclamation work. My title wasassistant solicitor for power and procurement. In other words, I supervised the lawyers thathandled procurement problems, and theBureau was one of the biggest constructionagencies in the government. There were a lotof procurement problems, contractors’ claimsand that sort of thing. I was in charge of that,but I had people who knew what they weredoing working on that. My real love waspower and development planning and so on.

“I testified for a whole day, and I had exactly one day’s

47


notice of this, too. And I testified . . . on the legal basis .. . including the Army power and the payout . . .”

Well, the word came down that theywanted somebody to come up there andtestify on the law. What was the basis for theBureau’s authority? What was the legal basisfor the power rates? And so on and so forth. Well, the then associate solicitor for waterand power and the then solicitor didn’t wantto touch it with a ten-foot pole, so they sentme. The associate solicitor, Ed Fisher, whowas a very dear friend of mine and who Isucceeded in every job that he had, when hewent up, I went up, and I became deputysolicitor when he died of a stroke in 1963.

But anyway, Ed went up with me, butI was the guy in the hot seat. I testified for awhole day, and I had exactly one day’s noticeof this, too. And I testified that on the legalbasis for the ultimate development concept,that is, including the Army power and thepayout and establishing the payout in such away that the total project would be paid outregardless of when the units came in, in otherwords, you established a rate at a level whichanticipated the development of the irrigationand paid them all out in fifty years from thetime each one came up. You did this by asingle rate so you didn’t have to yo-yo therate all the time, as would be the case if youonly looked four or five years ahead.

Well, I testified on the legal basis ofthat, and the question I was asked, “Wasn’t

48


there a solicitor’s opinion to the contrary?”

And I said, “Yes,” and I produced itfor the record.

“Why was the solicitor’s opinion notfollowed?”

I said, “The law commits theadministration of these projects to theSecretary of the Interior, not to the solicitor. The solicitor is an advisor like everybodyelse, but it is the secretary that makes theultimate decision,” and then I proceeded togive the legal justification for it.

Concern in Congress about Why Reclamation Did NotSubmit its Power Rates on Pick-Sloan to the Federal

Power Commission For Approval

A subsidiary question which wasinvolved was, “Why didn’t the Bureausubmit its rate schedules to the FederalPower Commission for confirmation andapproval?” Section 5 of the Flood ControlAct, which deals with power generated atCorps dams, says that it is to be turned overto the Interior Department, to be marketed bythe Interior Department, and the rates shall bethe lowest possible rates to consumers,consistent with sound business principles,and shall be subject to confirmation andapproval by the Federal Power Commission.

Well, we never submitted the rates,and the reason we didn’t submit the rates was

49


that we read Section 9 as covering power, aswell as power developed at the Corps dams. That was the heart of the concept of a singlerate, and that if they had to be submitted forconfirmation and approval to the FederalPower Commission, the Federal PowerCommission would look only to theindividual projects and not to the whole.

The General Accounting Office sidedwith the Federal Power Commission, and wewrote some memoranda telling them politelythat we disagreed, and they finally gave upon that.

“They were astounded . . . to learn that Congress, inthese few lines in Section 9 of the Flood Control Act of1944, had authorized the Secretary of the Interior to

spend $6 billion building this project without anycongressional oversight. . . ”

But it was those hearings that nailed thisthing right into the–removed any question ofthe law. They were astounded, SenatorAnderson, Senator [Francis H.] Case, wereastounded to learn that Congress, in thesefew lines in Section 9 of the Flood ControlAct of 1944, had authorized the Secretary ofthe Interior to spend $6 billion building thisproject without any congressional oversight. I said, “Well, that’s the law. That’s what itsays, and Congress has appropriated themoney on that basis regularly and raised theappropriation ceiling periodically to permitcontinuation of the development of thecomprehensive plan,” and the comprehensive

50


plan was everything. Well, they didn’t likethis. They swallowed hard, but after thosehearings, they did not–there was nolegislation resulted from those hearings.

“That testimony of mine became the basis later on forwhat’s known as the Holum Report of 1963, which was

accepted by Congress in reauthorizing the GarrisonProject in 1965, as the basis for Pick-Sloan power rates.

. . .”

That testimony of mine became thebasis later on for what’s known as the HolumReport of 1963, which was accepted byCongress in reauthorizing the GarrisonProject in 1965, as the basis for Pick-Sloanpower rates.

Left the Solicitor’s Office in February of 1969 andBecame Counsel to Midwest Electric Consumers

Association

Just to make sure that that–well, I leftthe Bureau in February of 1969, and Ibecame counsel to Midwest ElectricConsumers Association in 1977. Midwest isthe trade association that represents the Pick-Sloan customers.


Storey: So you’ve been [unclear].

“I have continued my professional interest in Pick-Sloan through representation of Midwest. . . .”

51


Weinberg: Yeah, I have continued my professionalinterest in Pick-Sloan through representationof Midwest. I might say that the concept ofthis huge project with the secretary relativelyfree to choose the means by which it wouldbe carried out, devised the means by which itwould be carried out, is not popular withother agencies of the government–forexample, the Office of Management andBudget.

“The . . . philosophy [of various administrations] . . .was to regard the sale of power as a cash cow to raisemoney for general governmental purposes, in other

words, to apply against the deficit . . .”

The administration’s philosophy inthe [Ronald] Reagan Administration, andcontinued in the [Jimmy] CarterAdministration, to my astonishment as aDemocrat, and, of course, continued in theReagan-[George] Bush Administration, the[Dwight D.] Eisenhower Administration wasthe first, was to regard the sale of power as acash cow to raise money for generalgovernmental purposes, in other words, toapply against the deficit, and not sell it atcost, which is the principle of Pick-Sloan,including the cost that the irrigators can’tpay.

Protecting the Repayment of Pick-Sloan Projects withCorps of Engineers Power Revenues

Well, to make sure, as I say, the 1965

52


Garrison Reauthorization Act wrote theseprinciples, or approved these principles,again, but they continue under attack andfrom time to time there are efforts madeadministratively to raise the rates under theeuphemism of “repayment reform.” Repayment reform means that you’d havestraight-line amortization instead of payoutby the end of the period. You’d have to pay,like a mortgage, so much each year,regardless of water conditions and so on. And, these are all devices to force separaterates.

So in 1986, we succeeded in puttinginto the Water Resources Development Actof 1986, which is the old flood control andnavigation legislation, we put a provision inthere that reaffirmed the principles of Pick-Sloan, so that those principles can bechanged now only by an act of Congress.

McGovern-Meeds Amendment “. . .says, in substance,that there can be no change in the cost allocations of

any project then under way or completed withoutfurther authorization of Congress. . . .”

Also, when the Department of Energywas established in 1977, there was a realconcern among power users that the changein jurisdiction over power marketing wouldencourage tinkering with the allocation ofcost, so on behalf of Midwest, I wrotesomething that got into the 1977Authorization Act. It’s called theMcGovern-Meeds Amendment, sponsored in

53


the Senate by Senator [George] McGovernand in the House by Congressman [Lloyd]Meeds. And it says, in substance, that therecan be no change in the cost allocations ofany project then under way or completedwithout further authorization of Congress.

“. . . power rights . . . have gone up 300 percent since1950, but they are still based on cost. Costs have gone

up. . . .”

We’ve been fighting rear guardactions for many years to protect the Pick-Sloan power rights, not that they haven’tgone up. They have gone up 300 percentsince 1950, but they are still based on cost. Costs have gone up. The water supply hasnot been what people thought it would be. We’ve had a tremendous drought of four orfive years’ duration in the Missouri Basinthat just ended a year or so ago, but thereservoirs were way, way down, so that allthese things have forced the power rates up,but they are still based on the principles thatwe established in Pick-Sloan.

Now, what else did I do?

Storey: Yes, what else did you do?

Legal Issues Related to Hoover Dam and the All-American Canal

Weinberg: One of my responsibilities was overseeingthe legal ramifications of the Boulder CanyonProject, of Hoover Dam, and the All-

54

10. The Colorado River Aqueduct of the Metropolitan WaterDistrict of Southern California–known variously as Met, Metropolitan,MWD, MWDSC.


American Canal, which is the canal that takesthe irrigation water into the Imperial andCoachella valleys.

Storey: What were the legal ramifications?

Weinberg: Well, the legal ramifications of that were theBoulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 and theBoulder Canyon Project Adjustment Act of1940, the second act was passed a few yearsafter power really became available from theBoulder Canyon Project, and that laid downsome fairly stringent requirements on thepower rates, and the regulations.

Allocating Power from Hoover among California,Arizona, and Nevada

Hoover is a peculiar project because there arepower allocations to the states of Nevada andArizona, and they have set up powerauthorities to administer those, but sinceNevada and Arizona did not grow as fast asCalifornia, Nevada and Arizona could notuse all of their power allocations originally. So the regulations provided that anything thatthey could not use would be sold to theMetropolitan Water District of SouthernCalifornia for pumping water, ColoradoRiver water, in the metropolitan aqueduct10

into Southern California, Los Angeles andthe metropolitan area.

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Well, the regulations set forth somerather complex and strict notice periods. Inother words, if Nevada wanted power onsuch and such a date, it had to give a certainnotice, and they could relinquish power onthe same basis. They’d have to give a certainnotice.

During World War II the Federal GovernmentCommandeered Power from Hoover and the IssueLater Became Where the Responsibility Lay forPayment of Extra Costs Caused by That Action

Also there was another complicatingfactor, and that is that during the war, thegovernment commandeered a big chunk ofHoover power supply to provide power forthe big magnesium plant that was built inHenderson. It was a subsidiary of theReconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)and the Defense Plants Corporation called theBasic Magnesium, Inc. That wassuperimposed upon these other Hooverrequirements, so that you get into quite acomplicated situation.

Then when the government began toshut down its operation at Basic Magnesium,that power had to be refitted into the legalmold, and there was a big fight between thepower allotees and the ReconstructionFinance Corporation, because the demand forpower was such that the installation ofgenerators at Hoover, the war demand wassuch that the installation of generators atHoover was speeded up, so that some of the

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generators were put in years before theywould otherwise have been put in, and therewas a big flap over who paid those extracharges. When the RFC gave up theoperation, or curtailed it, and the demand wasnot there in California, who was going to paythe unamortized charges on those generators? So it was quite a complex matter, and I wasinvolved in those matters.

Worked on Acreage Limitation Issues on the CentralValley Project

I was also involved in the 160-acrelimitation both in the Central Valley and inImperial. It happens that–well, that’s anotherstory, another couple of stories. The acreagelimitation is not the most popular feature ofthe reclamation law among the water users inCalifornia, in the Central Valley or in theImperial Valley.

“The acreage limitation was, however, a central featureof the reclamation law, and the reclamation law would

not have been passed without it. . . .”

The acreage limitation was, however, acentral feature of the reclamation law, andthe reclamation law would not have beenpassed without it. But if you can only getwater for 160 acres, or 320 acres if you’remarried, and you want to operate on a bigscale, you have problems.

In the Central Valley, there were allkinds of devices used. They would establish

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trusts and esoteric contractual devices toincrease the water supply, and this washappening in the sixties as the Central ValleyProject was going into big-scale operation. So it fell my lot to review these things. Theregional counsel would send them in toWashington, and so that kept me busy forquite a while, took up a great share of mytime. Some devices got through, somedidn’t, but that was a hell of a fight.

Acreage Limitation on the Imperial Irrigation District

At the same time, the ImperialIrrigation District, it had a contract in whichthere were no excess land provisions, andthat’s another tale which has a history. TheBoulder Canyon Project Act was authorizedin 1928, and a part of the Boulder CanyonProject is the construction of the All-American Canal to the Imperial andCoachella valleys. The question arosewhether the excess land laws should apply tothe Imperial contract.

On March 1, 1933, Roosevelt wasinaugurated March 4, 1933, the secretary,Ray Lyman Wilbur, who was a physicianfrom California and had been Hoover’sSecretary of the Interior, was going out ofoffice on March 4. On March 1, a one-pageletter was signed by the secretary that saidthe excess land laws don’t apply. So thatthere were no excess land provisions in theImperial contract.

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After the war, the Veterans of ForeignWars became interested in this and theycomplained to the Interior Department. Whyaren’t there farms being made available inthe Imperial Valley to veterans? Why aren’tthe excess land laws enforced? So theInterior Department wrote a response whichsaid, “Well, it’s too late for us to go into thatnow. We’re just not going to. What hashappened has happened, and we’re notexamining the question.”

Development of the Southwest Water Plan andAuthorization of the Central Arizona Project

Well, in the early 1960s, the SupremeCourt decided the water suit between thegovernment and Arizona and California overthe Lower Colorado River. The governmentand Arizona won that lawsuit. I won’t gointo the legal details, because it would putyou to sleep. But the government won. Therefore, at that point the Central ArizonaProject, which would take water into thePhoenix and Tucson areas, came to life. Stewart Udall and Floyd Dominy–Dominyby that time was the commissioner–decided,and I decided, too, that it was out of thequestion–Stewart was from Arizona–wedecided that it was out of the question thatCongress, with California having over fortymembers of the House of Representatives,that Congress would authorize a project justfor Arizona. California had too muchpolitical muscle.

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So we set about to develop aregionwide plan to provide water not only forArizona, but to meet the shortages whichwould inevitably develop under thearrangements that governed the division ofwater between Arizona and California. Thatwas called the Southwest Water Plan, and itevolved into extensive provisions that areincluded in the act of–well, I’ve got it righthere. That’s my wife shaking hands withLyndon [Johnson] and that’s me. But itevolved into extensive provisions that dealtwith importing water, studying projects toimport water into the Lower Colorado RiverBasin. It also included a provision that madethe Mexican Treaty burden a national burden,which meant that there were authorizedprojects to augment the Colorado Riverflows, and the first 2 million acre-feet, I thinkthat’s the Mexican Treaty requirement, thefirst 2 million or a million and a half acre feetthat was brought in would go to meet theMexican Treaty deficiency. In other words,you would augment that water supply by theamount of the Mexican usage.

Well, California, of course, fought theCentral Arizona Project tooth and toenail,and the hearings went on–oh, hell, bills wereintroduced for four or five years and we hadextensive hearings, which one of the pictureson there is Udall and me and Dominytestifying at one of the hearings. It wasformally called the Lower Colorado River

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11. Colorado River Basin Project Act of September 30, 1968; P.L.90-537; 82 Stat. 885; 43 U.S.C. §1501.


Valley Project11 or something like that, ofwhich the Central Arizona Project was justone unit.

Well, as I say, California fought thedamn thing tooth and nail. California’schampion in the Senate was Tom Kuchel,who was the ranking Republican on theSenate Interior Committee. Carl Hayden,then close to ninety, was chairman of theAppropriations Committee of the Senate,and, of course, was Arizona’s champion. Wesold Carl on the idea that you had to have thisoverall project, otherwise we would not getthe Central Arizona Project authorized, adecision which was not popular in Arizona. My God, Udall was accused of selling out thestate because he was encumbering theCentral Arizona Project with all this excessbaggage.

“. . . the question arose, why wasn’t the excess land lawsapplicable to the Imperial Irrigation District, which wasthe biggest single user of irrigation water in the whole

Colorado River Basin . . .”

Anyhoo, in the course of thosehearings, the question arose, why wasn’t theexcess land laws applicable to the ImperialIrrigation District, which was the biggestsingle user of irrigation water in the wholeColorado River Basin, in fact, in the UnitedStates. So again it fell my lot to testify, and I

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repeated this business. Well, this was donein 1933 and I told them about the inquiryfrom the Veterans of Foreign Wars and thedepartment had decided that it was too late inthe day to reopen that. I was asked if I hadlooked into it, and I said, no, I had not. Well, the next question was–and Kuchel keptinsisting, for reasons which I don’tunderstand yet, he wanted an answer. (laughter) Clint Anderson took up thecudgels; he wanted an answer. Andersonwas chairman of the committee, waschairman of the subcommittee.

So I reported this back to Stewart. Dominy and I and Stewart had a council ofwar, what the hell to do, and we decided thatAnderson, who had written the letter askingabout this, we would just let that letter lie inthe “in” basket and perhaps until and unlessClint repeated his request. So sure enough,about three or four months later, in comesanother letter from Anderson. “I want areply.”

“We concluded that the excess land laws indeed appliedto the Imperial Irrigation District. We had this opinionready in December of the year in which John Tunney . .. was elected to Congress from the Imperial Valley, andJohn was a Democrat. So the question was, my God, if

we release this opinion out of the blue, why, JohnTunney’s career in the House of Representatives is

going to be over before it starts. . . .”

So we decided, Dominy and I and thesolicitor, Frank Berry, who had been Stewart

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Udall’s law partner in Arizona, we decidedthat we couldn’t duck this thing anymore andwe’ve have to go into it, and we did go intoit. We concluded that the excess land lawsindeed applied to the Imperial IrrigationDistrict. We had this opinion ready inDecember of the year in which John Tunney,the son of Gene Tunney, the old heavyweightboxing champion, was elected to Congressfrom the Imperial Valley, and John was aDemocrat. So the question was, my God, ifwe release this opinion out of the blue, why,John Tunney’s career in the House ofRepresentatives is going to be over before itstarts.

So we decided we would invite Johnin for a meeting with the secretary andDominy and myself and Frank Barry, thesolicitor, on a Saturday. John comes in andwe break the news. My God, the guy turnedwhite. Stewart said, “Well, we’ll make it aseasy on you as we can. We will not shut offthe water. We’ll bring a declaratoryjudgment action, and meantime the waterwill continue to be delivered.”

Well, we all walked out of Stewart’soffice and John said to me, “My God, howcould you do this to me? What can I do?”

I said, “Well, I’ll tell you what Iwould do if I were you. I would walk out ofhere, and I would call a press conference, andI would denounce Stewart Udall, FrankBerry, Floyd Dominy, and Ed Weinberg for

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selling out the premier irrigation district inthe United States, the one on which thenation depends for winter vegetables and soon and so forth and after all these years.” Hedid just that. (laughter)

Incidentally, the case came out. Imperial Irrigation District’s lawyer wasWarren Christopher, now the Secretary ofState. So I met with Warren. Frank Berryand I met with Warren a few times, and wetold him, “We’ll bring a declaratoryjudgment action. We’re not going to cut offthe water.” Christopher is a very nice man.

The case came on for trial after theReagan Administration went into office, andI was out of the Interior Department. Thecase came on for trial in March of 1969,March or April.

Storey: Reagan was the governor, you mean?

Weinberg: No, Reagan became president. Oh, no,[Richard M.] Nixon. It’s Nixon, the NixonAdministration.

Storey: I was losing a period of years there.

“The government lost before . . . the federal judge in theImperial Valley. . . .”

Weinberg: Yeah. It was just after the NixonAdministration came in. I was thegovernment’s principal witness. We lost. The government lost before the judge, the

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federal judge in the Imperial Valley.

So then the question was, was thegovernment going to appeal. The solicitorgeneral of the Nixon Administration, [Erwin N.]Griswold, who had been solicitor generalbefore–he just died the other day, by the way,at the age of ninety-two–he had been dean ofthe Harvard Law School and solicitor generalfor many years, both under Nixon and underJohnson, too. Anyway, he decided that therewould be no appeal.

Ben Yellen and Acreage Limitation on the ImperialIrrigation District

There was a doctor living in theImperial Valley, who was Ben Yellen, hisname was. He was from Brooklyn. He was aJew from New York City, settled down there,and was a doctor to the poor people, thewetbacks and the poor people, and he took upthe cudgels. He personally intervened. Thegovernment had filed a notice of appeal inthe court of appeals and then withdrew it. Hepersonally intervened in the Ninth Circuit,and the Ninth Circuit allowed him toprosecute the appeal. By God, he won.

“. . . the United States Supreme Court reversedbasically on the ground that too many years had

intervened . . .”

Then the case went to the United StatesSupreme Court, and the United StatesSupreme Court reversed basically on the

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ground that too many years had intervened, itwasn’t fair for the government to, after allthose years, to change its position and imposethe excess land laws.

Storey: So in the land, the excess–

Weinberg: The land laws do not apply to Imperial.

Storey: I’d like to keep going, but we’ve spent overtwo hours now. I appreciate it. I’d like toask you whether or not you’re willing for thetapes and resulting transcripts from thisinterview to be used by researchers frominside Reclamation or outside Reclamation.

Weinberg: Absolutely. It will not make me popular withthe current commissioner of Reclamation, butI’ve always called them as I saw them, and Ihave no regrets and no reservations aboutanything that I’ve said. And I think history isvery important.

Storey: Good. Thank you very much.

END SIDE 2, TAPE 2. NOVEMBER 23, 1994.BEGIN SIDE 1, TAPE 1. JANUARY 27, 1995.

Storey: This is tape one of an interview by Brit AllanStorey, senior historian of the Bureau ofReclamation, with Edward Weinberg, in hisoffices in Washington, D.C., on January the27th, 1995, at about ten o’clock in themorning.

Last time, as I recall, when we were

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talking, you said you had always known youwere going to be an attorney.

Why He Wanted to Be an Attorney

Weinberg: Yes.

Storey: Could you tell me more about that, what hadmade you make up your mind?

Weinberg: Well, I have an older brother. He is theyounger of my two older brothers. The otherbrother is now deceased. But, my brotherPhil, who was eleven years older than I am,went to law school, and he was kind of myrole model. He was intellectually inclinedand so was I.

Education

He went through high school in three yearsand so did I. We had many of the sameteachers in grade school, because I grew upin a small town in southern Wisconsin,Whitewater, Wisconsin, and there was onlyone grade school that served the part of townwhere we lived. The teachers didn’t changemuch in those days, particularly in gradeschool, so I was constantly being reminded ofmy brother’s prowess as I was going throughgrade school and high school, although Imust confess that he was the salutatorian ofhis high school class–that means he finishedsecond–and I only came in third. (laughter)

Then I went on to college. I had

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already decided by the time I was in highschool that I was going to be a lawyer. Wehad in Whitewater a State Teachers College.

Storey: I’m sorry, I’ve been very dumb. I didn’t setup the microphone for you. [Tape recorderturned off.]

We were talking about–

Weinberg: I was saying, before you plugged in the mic,that in my home town there was a StateTeachers College, and this was in theDepression years. I graduated from highschool in 1935. So the natural thing to doand the economical thing to do, because myfamily didn’t have money to send someoneaway to college until it became necessary,although we were not poor, anyway, I wentto Whitewater State Teachers College thefirst two years. One of my professors there,an economics professor, had had my brotherwhen he went to the Teachers College.

Storey: Eleven years previously.

Weinberg: Yeah. And so again I was reminded. Itransferred to the University of Wisconsinafter my second year, and in those days onewas required to get a bachelor’s degree to beeligible to receive a law degree. Well, thiswas a change from when my brother hadgone there. After two years of college, hecould go right into the law school and makeit in three years. So my first year inMadison, I was enrolled in what was called

68


“the hill,” the College of Letters andSciences, and then after the three years Ienrolled in the law school, which alsocounted as my senior year toward my B.A. Anyway, the reason I became a lawyer wasreally following my brother.

Storey: Then in ‘44, after you had worked for yourbrother’s law firm and after you had workedfor the Fuel Rationing Division–

Weinberg: Of the OPA, yeah.

Storey: –you went to Reclamation.

Weinberg: Yes.

Storey: That would have been right as–I think it wasAbe Fortas actually signed on behalf ofSecretary [Harold L.] Ickes, thereorganization of Reclamation and createdthe regions.

Creation of Regions in Reclamation

Weinberg: It created the regions, and I came there justabout that time.

Storey: What were you hearing in the office aboutwhy that was going on?

Weinberg: Well, I didn’t hear much about why that hadbeen done. All I heard was that it enabledthe commissioner of Reclamation to get abetter handle on running the Bureau insteadof serving as the Washington liaison between

69


the chief engineer and Congress and thedepartment. Prior to that time, thecommissioner–of course, the office ofCommissioner existed, but the Bureau’soperations were, in effect, supervised by thechief engineer.

The only field offices that the Bureauhad had prior to the reorganization were theproject offices, where a project was actuallybeing built or being operated still by theBureau, and the legal offices. There were sixor seven legal offices of the Bureau scatteredthroughout the West–Amarillo; Billings;Denver; Boise, Idaho; Sacramento; andBoulder City, Nevada. Those offices becamethe headquarters of the regional directorswhen the regions were established.

Storey: Uh-huh. So the commissioner would havebeen John Page, I believe.

Weinberg: Yes, John Page was the commissioner when Icame to the Bureau.

Storey: And so he felt that he needed more controlover Reclamation?

Weinberg: I don’t know what John Page thought. Myposition in the Bureau was several rungslower on the ladder than John Page, and Inever really talked to him about hisphilosophy or anything like that, but I wouldimagine that something had convinced AbeFortas and the secretary that the Bureauwould function much more effectively and

70


efficiently if it were regionalized.

Storey: Do you have any idea what those legaloffices did before the reorganization?

The Work of Reclamation’s Legal Offices

Weinberg: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. The legaloffices then, and after the Bureau wasregionalized, were responsible for therepayment contracts and all of the facets ofthe relationship between the water users, theprojects, and the Bureau.

The Legal Offices Handled Claims Against Reclamation

District Counsels

They also handled claims against the Bureaufor one reason or another, for whateverreason. Say a canal broke and damaged afarmer’s land, and so on. Those claims werehandled by the district counsel, later who,when the Bureau was reorganized, becamethe regional counsel.

The legal offices of the Bureaualways were very important in the scheme ofthings, in the way the Bureau operated,because of the complexity of the Reclamationlaw and the fact that the water users’relationship with the Bureau was throughcontracts.

Storey: If I’m understanding what happened then,they had seven legal offices out there, around

71


which the regional offices built up.

Weinberg: The regional offices were located in thosecities, because the Bureau already had apresence there through the district counsel. They were located roughly in drainage lines.

Storey: To whom did those offices report before theregions were created?

Weinberg: They reported to the chief counsel of theBureau of Reclamation.

Storey: In Washington.

Weinberg: In Washington, yes.

Storey: About how large were those offices? Do youhave any sense of that?

Weinberg: Yes. They were as large as they were in thefirst decade or so after the Bureau wasregionalized, because there was quite a bit ofwork going on of a legal nature. That wasthe era when the big contracts, big projectswere getting under way, and thus there was alot of negotiation going on.

There was also, in Denver, the chiefengineer’s office was letting manyconstruction contracts, and they had lawyerslocated in Denver who handled the chief’slegal business.

Storey: So they reported to the chief?

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Weinberg: No, they reported professionally to the chiefcounsel of the Bureau.

Storey: How did, or did, the person they reported tochange when the regions were created?

Weinberg: No.

Storey: They were still responsible to the chiefcounsel?

Weinberg: The regional counsel functioned as theattorney for the regional directors and theother Bureau offices in the region, butprofessionally they were overseen by thechief counsel’s office in Washington.

Storey: So, for instance, if they said, “We want toenter into a repayment contract within ‘X’District,” who reviewed that contract?

Weinberg: The contracts were negotiated by arepresentative of formerly the chief engineerand, later, of the branch of operation andmaintenance in Washington, and togetherwith the lawyer.

Storey: But then did the general counsel have toreview them?

Weinberg: They would come in to Washington, yes, andthey were reviewed by the Division ofOperation and Maintenance in Washingtonalso. The contracts were signed by thecommissioner.

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Storey: Of course, nowadays there’s a lot ofcontroversy about the length of Reclamationcontracts. You know, some of them were forfifty years, some of them even had a longerterm.

Weinberg: You mean the duration.

Storey: Yes.

Weinberg: I thought you were referring to the number ofpages.

Storey: Well, that’s another problem. (laughter)

Weinberg: Actually, a Reclamation contract, arepayment contract, has no expiration. Therepayment period expires, but the contractualrelationship continues.

Storey: I was wondering if you could put yourselfback then and give me your perspectives onthe length of the repayment periods and thatsort of thing, and the length of the contractsthat were set up to cover the repayment.

“Under the original Reclamation law, the contractswere entered into with the individual farmers. . . .”

Weinberg: Well, I have to start with a little bit ofhistory. Under the original Reclamation law,the contracts were entered into with theindividual farmers.

“. . . the repayment period, fixed by law, was ten years. .. . It turned out that ten years was much too short. . . .”

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The relationship was between the individualfarmer and the Bureau, and the repaymentperiod, fixed by law, was ten years. Thatbecame unworkable for two reasons. Itturned out that ten years was much too short. The projects proved to be more complex andposed more physical and engineeringproblems than had been imagined. Therewas a lot of re-engineering work on theground after a project got started, because ofthe inadequacy of the regional investigations,and I’m not saying that critically.

There was a great demand for federalreclamation projects throughout the West,and there had been agitation to get areclamation law passed for some threedecades before it finally got through, sobecause the non-federal projects, by andlarge, unless they were very, very simple,were not making it. Congress had triedvarious means to foster non-federal projects,something like the current RepublicanCongress is trying to do. They want to doaway with many of the functions of thefederal government. So today theRepublicans talk about block grants.

In the early day, in the era of which Iam speaking, the eighties and nineties of thelast century, the way Congress first tried tofoster reclamation development was by landgrants to the states under something calledthe Carey Act, in which states were givenblocks of land and they, in turn, would give

75


them on to the settlers if they developed I’veforgotten how many acres. If there was asettler who would bring the land undercultivation within a certain period of years,he would get the land. That didn’t work,because it turned out that just the land wasn’tenough. These projects cost money. Privatecompanies were organized under the CareyAct to borrow money and finance theprojects, but many of them went belly up,and there was increasing pressure for thefederal government to step in and undertaketo finance the program. Finally the 1902 Actwas passed in response to that. PresidentTheodore Roosevelt became very muchinterested in calling for the passage of thereclamation law.

Anyway, the way the reclamation lawwas originally set up was that all revenuesfrom the sale of public lands and thedisposition of minerals. Well, in 1902, therewere no mineral revenues, but othermiscellaneous revenues had derived from theland, from federal land, went into thereclamation fund, and the Secretary of theInterior was authorized to himself undertakeprojects that he found to be feasible withoutgoing back to Congress. Congress did nothave a voice in what projects were to bebuilt, so long as it could be financed from thereclamation [fund].

Well, the projects turned out to bemore costly than originally thought, and thereclamation fund soon was inadequate, and

76


the water users, the farmers, were unable topay in ten years. Because the dealingsbetween the Bureau and each individualsettler on a project made for an unwieldyarrangement, because the Bureau had to dealindividually with each farmer, the Bureauencouraged the western states to adopt lawsallowing the formation of water userassociations, and the water user associationdid not assume the debt of the individualfarmers, but it acted as the collection agencyon behalf of the government.

Well, by 1914, it became apparentthat something had to be done. I think therewere also some loans to the reclamation fundfrom the treasury in that period, although I’mnot certain of that without going back andreviewing the law. Anyway, by 1914, itbecame apparent that ten years was notenough, and there had also been somescandals that had arisen in connection withthe 160-acre limitation, which was beingwidely ignored and flouted by one scheme oranother, usually somebody paying off thefarmer, paying off somebody, individuals,who would go in and make entries and theywould wind up in the hands of thespeculators who had paid the individualsettlers for the use of their name.

Reclamation Extension Act of 1914

Anyway, the combination led towhat’s called the Reclamation Extension Actof 1914, which prohibited the undertaking of

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a project until the water users signedcontracts agreeing to sell their excess lands. It also lengthened the time for the repayment,and I’ve forgotten what time [period]–pardonme while I refresh my recollection here.

Storey: That’s something somebody can look up ifthey’re interested.

Weinberg: 1914. They lengthened the time to fifteenannual installments, and that didn’t workeither, in the long run, and it turned out thatmany of the projects got into difficultiesbecause of defaults by the water users. Bythat time, the reclamation law had beenchanged to allow the formation of irrigationdistricts, which became the contractingentities for the United States. That law wasoriginally passed in 1922.

By 1922 or ‘23, also there was thepost World War I Depression, so that thingswere coming to a standstill again, and acommission was appointed called the FactFinders Commission, to investigate what waswrong and make recommendations. It washeaded by a man by the name of Garfield,who was the son of President Garfield. Howhe got appointed, I don’t know. Anyway, theFact Finders made a number ofrecommendations and Congress, in 1926,passed what’s called the OmnibusAdjustment Act, based on the report of theFact Finders, and Section, I think, 46 of thatact provided for a forty-year repaymentperiod. It also strengthened the excess land

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clause.

Reclamation Project Act of 1939

The forty-year period is essentiallythe period that existed for repayment. In1939 there was added the feature of thedevelopment period. After a project wascompleted, up to ten years could be allowedbefore the repayment started of theconstruction costs, in order to get the farmersgoing and accustom them to irrigatedagriculture and so on. And that is essentiallywhat you have today.

Storey: Then I believe in addition to that, there arewater contracts that are sometimes enteredinto.

Weinberg: Well, yes. On some of the big projects likeCentral Valley Project, the ‘39 act providedfor, instead of repayment contracts for thedelivery of water for periods of forty years,theoretically when those contracts expired,the water users had no legal right to anyrenewal. In practice–well, nobody expectedthat the contracts would not be renewed, ofcourse, and those contracts, called 9(e)contracts, for Section 9(e) of the ReclamationProject Act of 1939, were used on the CentralValley Project and under Pick-Sloan andsome of the other larger contracts.

The Issue of Ownership of Water Rights onReclamation Projects

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An interesting phenomenon occurred. The parties to those contracts and theirrepresentatives in Congress and waterlawyers who advised them throughout theWest became concerned that they did nothave a water right. All they had was acontract right to water for forty years. So in1954, somewhere around there–this was inthe Eisenhower Administration–there was ademand that something be done about that,because to a westerner, you can steal hishorse and you can steal his wife, but you’dbetter let his water rights alone. The basicpremise of Western water law . . .

END SIDE 1, TAPE 1. JANUARY 27, 1995.BEGIN SIDE 2, TAPE 1. JANUARY 27, 1995.

Storey: You need to go back a few seconds, rightabout now.

Weinberg: All right. As I was saying, the basic premiseof western water law is the law ofappropriations, in which a person intendingto use water appropriates the thenunappropriated waters in a stream, and theappropriator must develop the water supply,or must put it to use, or the right would lapse. When it was put to use, the right related backto the time of the original appropriation andnot to the time when the actual water usebegan.

Section 8 of the act of 1902 requiredthe Secretary of the Interior to obtain waterrights under state law and the law provides

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that beneficial use shall be the basis, themeasure, and the limit of the right, and thatthe rights shall be appurtenant to the landirrigated. That appurtenancy provision wasfound in some state laws, but not in others,and an appropriator could sell his waterrights without selling his land, so that aspeculation in water rights arose. One of thekey requirements of the 1902 act was that thewater right be appurtenant to the land andthat was put in there because of theopposition on the part of Congress and theframers of the reclamation law, Newlands,Senator [Francis E.] Newlands, Congressman[Franklin W.] Mondell, to speculation. As amatter of fact, Mondell stated on the floor ofthe House during the debate that thisprovision was intentional and he knew it wascontrary to the law that prevailed in some ofthe Western states and territories, but, byGod, they were not going to allow thereclamation law and federal projects tobecome a vehicle for speculation in waterrights, the purpose of the law was home-building.

In any event, the secretary of theinterior had to obtain water rights under astate law. The Supreme Court later held thatwhen the secretary did that, he did that forthe benefit of the water users, and when theproject went into operation, the rightbelonged to the water users and not to theUnited States, a proposition that was hard toswallow by the Justice Department, and itlitigated that in a number of cases. Finally

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the Supreme Court, in Nebraska v. Wyoming1, in 1945.

Storey: Let me just relocate this.

Weinberg: The law made that point clear. Thegovernment had contended that the UnitedStates was the owner of the water, of allunappropriated water, because the UnitedStates had originally owned the land and thewater of the Western states, and that theUnited States still had an independent right towater. The Supreme Court, in 1945, inNebraska versus Wyoming 1, said thatwhatever might be the merits of thatproposition, theoretically the reclamation lawwas very plain, Section 8 says that thesecretary had to acquire water rights understate law. So these claims of ownership ofthe water going back to the ownership of theland wouldn’t, to use a phrase, hold water. (Storey: Uh-huh.)

I refer to that case as Nebraska versusWyoming 1 because Nebraska versusWyoming 2 began in 1986. I am counsel forthe Basin Electric Power Cooperative, whichhas a substantial interest in that litigation,and I won’t bore you with why that is so, butit is so, and we have been litigating in theSupreme Court, before a special master of theSupreme Court, since 1986. Wyoming versusNebraska 2 was decided in 1993. The masterhad filed a report [in] which he made certainrecommendations to the Court, exceptionswere heard by the Court, and the Court

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decided that case in 1993, and Nebraskaversus Wyoming 3 will be heard by theSupreme Court in March of this year. Thesebig water cases never end.

Storey: They just get new wrinkles, huh? (laughter)

Weinberg: Yeah, that’s right.

Storey: Now, for instance, these water contracts thatwere entered into, I believe in the CentralValley some of them were maybe forty yearsin length.

Weinberg: Yeah, and the forty years began to expire afew years ago, the term for which they wereguaranteed water, but in 1953 or ‘54, underthe law that was passed at that time, thewater users, under a 9(e) contract wereguaranteed a continuation of their right towater once they had paid out.

Storey: But one of the criticisms that I understandhas been leveled at Reclamation is that wegave them far too liberal terms and far toolong a time span for that.

Weinberg: As far as far too long a time frame isconcerned, the history of reclamation is thatthe shorter periods just didn’t work. As tothe liberality of the terms, that is true and thatwas, in part, in large part, a matter of nationalpolicy as enacted by the Congress. Thewater users don’t pay interest on their portionof the project cost. That has been so sincethe first reclamation law. Anytime Congress

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wants to change that, it can do so, except in acouple of instances, except involving excesslands under what I call the Miller Act, whichwas enacted six or seven years ago. Anexcess land holder does pay interest. Ifyou’re not an excess land holder, you don’tpay interest.

Those who claim that the terms aretoo liberal are welcome to try to get the lawchanged. I think that the terms in many casesare too liberal in this day and age of large-scale agriculture, but Congress has beenunwilling to do anything about that, as yet.

Storey: When you first came to Reclamation in ‘44,what did you start out doing?

Work on the Flood Control Act of 1944

Weinberg: That bottom plaque will tell you what Istarted out doing. The first thing I did, wasput to work on, was what became the FloodControl Act of 1944, which authorized Pick-Sloan. I won’t say that I was a bigperformer, but I was given certainassignments of legal research, which I did.

Mexican Water Treaty and Protocol of 1944

Also the Mexican Water Treaty was beingconsidered by the Senate at that time, in1944, and I was given some researchassignments on that.

Storey: When you say research assignments–

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Weinberg: On various legal issues.

Storey: Did you do any writing? Did you do anynegotiating?

Negotiating the Repayment Contract for Marshall FordDam on the Colorado River in Texas

Weinberg: Yes, I’d write memoranda to my superiors inthose instances. The other project, the otherbig project that I was put to work on in 1944involved a project in Texas, known in theBureau as the Marshall Ford Dam Project,and that has a very unusual history and itinvolved, among others, Lyndon Johnson. The project was in the district that he latercame to represent.

There had been a dam started on theColorado River in Texas. There is aColorado River in Texas. It runs throughAustin, which is the state capital. SamuelInsull, the utility tycoon who later went tojail on securities fraud, had started ahydroelectric project, and he went busted. The project went busted. It was the LowellDam Hydroelectric Project.

That was in the period of time by thetime that the Insull had to abandon theproject, the Roosevelt Administration was inoffice, and the PWA Act had been passed,under which loans and grants were made forpublic works. The Texas legislature enacteda law setting up a Lower Colorado RiverAuthority of Texas. The law was actually

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modeled on the TVA Act. They came to theadministrator of the Public WorksAdministration, who happened to beSecretary Ickes, and the Texas politicianswere all involved in this. The chairman ofthe House Appropriations Committee, agentleman by the name of [James P.]Buchanan, represented the district in whichthis project was located. Lyndon Johnsonwas his successor once removed. Anyway,Buchanan got a line in the appropriationsauthorizing the secretary of the interior toenter into whatever arrangements he thoughtnecessary to further the project. This was notunder the reclamation law, but under thepublic works law.

The secretary called on the Bureau ofReclamation to look into the thing andstraighten the project out, basically withPWA funds. Well, they entered into anarrangement, and the Bureau decided that theproject wasn’t what it should be, a multi-purpose project, not only power but irrigationand flood control. There’s a lot of rice growndown there in the Colorado River Valley.

So they entered into an agreementunder which the Bureau completed theMarshall Ford Dam as a high dam, and it saidthat the secretary would allocate the costs ofthe project among the various purposes andthen would enter into arrangements with theLower Colorado River Authority of Texas torepay the cost allocated to irrigation.

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“When I came along, they had gotten to the point whereit was time to begin negotiations on the repayment. Intomy office were trundled about eight or nine feet of files,all the files on the Marshall Ford Dam, and the first twomonths I spent on this project was reading those files. . .

.”

When I came along, they had gottento the point where it was time to beginnegotiations on the repayment. Into myoffice were trundled about eight or nine feetof files, all the files on the Marshall FordDam, and the first two months I spent on thisproject was reading those files.

“That . . . was the best education in reclamation law andpractice and . . . how Congress appropriates money,

that anyone could have had, and by the time I gotthrough reading those files, I knew how Congress

appropriated money for public works projects . . .”

That, I must say, was the best education inreclamation law and practice andcongressional, how Congress appropriatesmoney, that anyone could have had, and bythe time I got through reading those files, Iknew how Congress appropriated money forpublic works projects, how the ReclamationBureau went about–[Telephone interruption. Tape recorder turned off.]

Where was I?

Storey: You were talking about the education you gotfrom Marshall Ford Dam.

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Weinberg: Yeah. I learned, for example, what the RulesCommittee was, because I read theCongressional Record excerpts of theappropriations for Marshall Ford Dam, andthis thing has always stuck in my memory. There was an entry in the CongressionalRecord that said Mr. [Martin] Dies [Jr.] of theAppropriation Committee presented thefollowing resolution. This was the resolutionof the Rules Committee that Congress had toapprove in order to begin debate on theAppropriation Act. That’s how Congressworks. The Rules Committee is sort of thepolice force, the policing mechanism of theHouse of Representatives. Otherwise, with435 members, the thing would be sounwieldy. They set the terms which have tobe approved by the House, under whichevery bill is debated, whether amendmentsare allowed, so on and so forth. Anyway,you’ll notice I referred to Mr. Dies. That wasMartin Dies, who became notorious for theUn-American Activities Committee, and Iguess that’s why it stuck in my mind.

“These negotiations dragged on for several years. Naturally the local people wanted to pay as little as

possible, and we wanted to get out as much as possible. .. .”

These negotiations dragged on forseveral years. Naturally the local peoplewanted to pay as little as possible, and wewanted to get out as much as possible. Finally we entered into an agreement, I thinkin the early fifties, late forties, which set the

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terms.

“Unbeknownst to me at that time when I first startedworking with this, the Marshall Ford people were

pretty hefty in Democratic politics. . . .”

Unbeknownst to me at that time whenI first started working with this, the MarshallFord people were pretty hefty in Democraticpolitics. The construction contractor wasBrown & Root. That’s how Brown & Rootgot their start, was building Marshall FordDam, and they were not hesitant in throwingtheir weight around. The lawyer for theLower Colorado River Authority was A. J.Wirtz, later to become under secretary of theinterior and a power in Texas Democraticpolitics. The representative from the districtwas always influential in Democraticpolitics, and, as I say, Lyndon Johnson was[unclear].

So while I can honestly say that nopressure was ever put on me and, so far as Iknow, the Bureau engineer who was workingwith me on developing the contract, I haveno doubt that the Lower Colorado RiverAuthority people pulled a lot of strings in thedepartment to get this [unclear].

Storey: As the years wore on, did you actually go tomeetings and participate in negotiations?

“By 1948, . . . I had become an assistant chief counsel inthe Bureau. I had a rather meteoric rise in the legal

staff of the Bureau of Reclamation. . . .”

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Weinberg: Oh, yes. By 1948, I was an assistant chiefcounsel. I had become an assistant chiefcounsel in the Bureau. I had a rathermeteoric rise in the legal staff of the Bureauof Reclamation.

Storey: Why was that?

“. . . I’m not given to false modesty. It was ability. . . .I’m a faster learner. . . . I was very young and I became

the superior of lawyers who had been there muchlonger than I had and had much more to do. . . .”

Weinberg: Well, I’m not given to false modesty. It wasability. I had never heard of the Bureau ofReclamation until I was offered a job by thesolicitor to work in the Bureau ofReclamation. I had to ask him what it was. But I’m a faster learner. I was in those days. I was very young and I became the superiorof lawyers who had been there much longerthan I had and had much more to do.

Storey: So you had a staff?

Weinberg: Yes. Oh, yes.

Storey: What was the title again?

Assistant Chief Counsel for Power and Procurement

Weinberg: There were several assistant chief counsel. There was the chief counsel and severalassistant chief counsels. There was anassistant chief counsel for planning, an

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assistant chief counsel for repayment, anassistant chief counsel for power andprocurement. I began to work in the powerfield, and by 1948 I was the assistant.

Storey: For power?

Weinberg: For power and procurement.

Storey: This was actually within the Bureau ofReclamation?

“Each bureau in those days had its own legal staff, andthe solicitor of the department had a small staff

handling mainly appeals and policy and legal advice tothe secretary, and professionally supervising the chiefcounsel of each bureau. The bureaus couldn’t hire a

lawyer without the approval of the solicitor. . . .”

Weinberg: This was in the Bureau legal staff. Eachbureau in those days had its own legal staff,and the solicitor of the department had asmall staff handling mainly appeals andpolicy and legal advice to the secretary, andprofessionally supervising the chief counsel[of each bureau]. The bureaus couldn’t hire alawyer without the approval of the solicitor.

Storey: So how many people would you have had onyour staff maybe?

Weinberg: Well, I usually had three or four. By thattime I had three or four people working forme. The whole Bureau legal staff inWashington was maybe fifteen people.

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Storey: Fifteen people. The Mexican Water Treaty, Ibelieve was signed in the early forties, beforeyou actually came to Reclamation.

Weinberg: 1944. I think–I’m getting old. My memoryisn’t as strong as it used to be.

Storey: I’ve sure noticed mine going, too. (laughter)

Weinberg: The Pick-Sloan Act, the Flood Control Act of1944, was signed on December 22, 1944. The Mexican Water Treaty, February 3,1944.

Storey: So then you weren’t involved in negotiatingthe treaty.

Weinberg: No. Oh no.

Storey: You were involved in implementing.

Implementation of the Mexican Water Treaty andProtocol

Weinberg: I was involved in implementing thearrangements after the treaty was ratified. There was a lot of work to be done with theinternational boundary, with the U.S. Sectionof the International Boundary and WaterCommission that was set up in the treaty, andthey built–there are two dams on the RioGrande that were built under the treaty, andthe Bureau of Reclamation had a big hand indesigning those dams and working with theU.S. section.

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12. Harold Arthur worked as liaison between the IBWC andReclamation for construction of Falcon Dam. History staff interviewedMr. Arthur for the oral history activity, and he discussed the design andconstruction of Falcon Dam..


Weinberg: But they’re under the International BoundaryCommission, I believe.

Weinberg: Yes. The Bureau did a lot of work on that,and we had agreements with the IBWC.12

Storey: This covered both the Rio Grande and theColorado, I believe.

Weinberg: Yes.

Storey: Now, for instance, on the Colorado, forinstance, the Colorado River Compact was inplace, and I think by then we were getting asense that maybe there wasn’t as much wateras we had thought there was in the Colorado.

Weinberg: Yeah. The compact was negotiated, whichwas [1922.] 1924.

Storey: Maybe ‘22 or ‘23.

“At that time . . . they thought that there were 18 to 20million acre-feet of water, virgin flow, of the Colorado,and that was the basis in which the [Colorado River]

compact was negotiated. . . .”

Weinberg: Yeah. The chairman of the compactcommissioners, was, by the way, HerbertHoover, who was Secretary of Commerce. At that time the period of record which theyhad showed clearly how it flowed. Hell, they

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thought that there were 18 to 20 million acre-feet of water, virgin flow, of the Colorado,and that was the basis on which the compactwas negotiated.

Storey: And they split up 15 million acre-feet a year.

Weinberg: Which was 4.5 million for the Upper Basin,4.5 million--no, 7.5 million for the UpperBasin, 7.5 million for the Lower Basin, andthey figured that they had 2 or 3 million acre-feet of surplus. Who knows? Over the agesyou may get those conditions again, but sincethe forties, the estimates have gone down.

Storey: How did the government and Reclamation, inparticular, if you know, prepare for theMexican Treaty? If we knew that there waswater shortage and the treaty was going on,for instance, was Reclamation consultedabout the treaty or was this something Statejust went off and did? Do you knowanything about that?

Storey: The State Department consulted Reclamationand they also had an independent waterengineer consultant by the name of RoyceTipton, who was a well-known engineer,highly respected engineer, whose office wasin Denver, and he was the principal advisor,but the Bureau of Reclamation had a largehand in this.

Storey: So what was Reclamation saying when itappeared that we didn’t have enough water todo the Colorado River Compact, much less–I

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believe that was another 1.5 million acre-feet?

Weinberg: That wasn’t known when the treaty wassigned.

Storey: Ah, okay.

Weinberg: That didn’t evolve. The rosiest glow ofoptimism began to fade in the fifties.

Storey: Oh, okay. So Reclamation thought, “Well,we’ve got 3 million acre-feet a year ofsurplus, maybe.”

“California fought the Mexican Treaty tooth and nail,because they figured the day would come when thatsurplus wouldn’t be there, and the million [and one-

half] acre-feet for Mexico was going to come out of theirhide. . . .”

Weinberg: California fought the Mexican Treaty toothand nail, because they figured the day wouldcome when that surplus wouldn’t be there,and the million [and one-half] acre-feet forMexico was going to come out of their hide. Senator Hiram Johnson from California wasstill in the Senate when the Mexican Treatywas considered by the Senate ForeignRelations Committee and ratif . . .


Storey: This is tape two of an interview by BritStorey with Edward Weinberg on January

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27th, 1995.

You were saying that you hadattended some of the committee hearings.

Weinberg: Yes. My bosses were kind enough to let meaccompany them to some of the SenateForeign Relations Committee proceedings,mainly so that I could get a feel of how thegovernment operated . . . involved in thelegal aspects.

But California fought the treaty toothand nail. As I say, Hiram Johnson, by thattime in his eighties, was still around. I’veforgotten who the other California senatorwas.

“The Texas delegation . . . were hot for the treaty. TheUpper Basin supported the treaty, too. . . .”

The Texas delegation, the Texas senators, ofcourse, were hot for the treaty. The UpperBasin supported the treaty, too.

Storey: Why were the Texans supporting the treaty?

Weinberg: Because of the Rio Grande portion.

Storey: But it would seem like they might fear theywould lose water also.

Weinberg: You had a different water situation on theRio Grande. They wanted protection againstMexico by putting limits on what Mexicocould get. Also, as I say, I think there were

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three treaty dams. It meant economically aheck of a lot for the lower Rio GrandeValley.

Storey: Uh-huh. Okay. What kind of legal issueshad to be worked out by Reclamation toimplement the treaty then? What were youworking on?

Weinberg: The legal issues were, first and foremost, wasthere a guarantee of water quality on theColorado. That was never worked out. Thequestion never was resolved until later.

“The United States negotiators assured the SenateForeign Relations Committee that there was no

guarantee of quality . . . The Mexican negotiators wereassuring the Mexicans of exactly the opposite. . . . that

they would get the same quality of water as the ImperialIrrigation District, which was the last [U.S. irrigation

water] diverted from the Colorado. . . .”

The United States negotiators assured theSenate Foreign Relations Committee thatthere was no guarantee of quality, and thatmeant that as projects were developed in theUnited States along the Colorado and thewater became more saline, Mexico just hadto take the water as it came down the ditch,regardless of quality.

The Mexican negotiators wereassuring the Mexicans of exactly theopposite. They were entitled that the treatymeant that they would get the same quality ofwater as the Imperial Irrigation District,

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13. Wellton-Mohawk is the irrigation district. “Gila Project” isthe name of Reclamation’s project. Reclamation has now transferredtitle to the irrigation district.


which was the last diverted from theColorado.

Reclamation’s Gila Project Caused the Quality of theWater Delivered to Mexico in the Colorado River to

Become an International Issue

That issue came to a head, by theway, in the late fifties and early sixties, whenthe Wellton-Mohawk project13 of the Bureau,which was on the Gila, on the Lower Gila,which is the principal Arizona tributary, andcomes into the–the Gila joins the ColoradoRiver just a few miles above the Mexicanborder, but below the diversion works for theImperial Irrigation District and the YumaProject, which was a Bureau project on theArizona side.

The Wellton-Mohawk project wasballyhooed as a great thing to provide farmsfor returning veterans, so on and so forth. Don’t ask me to explain the hydrology ofwhy this is so, but in order to build theWellton-Mohawk project, they had to do a lotof pumping from the deep underground, andthat water was absolutely saline. When theybegan that pumping, there was a dramaticdeterioration of water that reached Mexico,and the Mexicans complained bitterly.

“. . . we would periodically release water from ParkerDam and from Hoover Dam to flush out the river. This

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caused the senators from the Colorado River Basinstates to raise hell that we were giving this water to

Mexico. Well, the excuse we used was that we had toflush the channel in the United States . . .”

For several years, the Bureau, underCommissioner Dominy, and I was in thething up to here, we would periodicallyrelease water from Parker Dam and fromHoover Dam to flush out the river. Thiscaused the senators from the Colorado RiverBasin states to raise hell that we were givingthis water to Mexico. Well, the excuse weused was that we had to flush the channel inthe United States, and, incidentally, somewater would get to Mexico. Actually, thereleases were timed to dilute the water goingto Mexico, and everybody knew it. We hadto maintain the fiction.

“. . . the United States undertook to build what was theworld’s largest desalting plant in Yuma to desalt the

Wellton-Mohawk water, a boondoggle if there ever wasone. The Wellton-Mohawk project should never have

been built . . .”

Finally the thing got so bad that [JohnF.] Kennedy, President Kennedy, met withthe president of Mexico, and they worked outan agreement whereby the United Statesundertook to build what was the world’slargest desalting plant in Yuma to desalt theWellton-Mohawk water, a boondoggle ifthere ever was one.

The Mexicali Valley

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The Wellton-Mohawk project should neverhave been built, and it would not have beenhad the Mexicali Valley been located in theUnited States.

Storey: What do you mean by that?

Weinberg: What I mean by that was that the MexicaliValley is a continuation of the ImperialValley below the Mexican border.

Storey: And that’s where the water was going fromtheir treaty?

Weinberg: Yeah. There is an extensive Mexicanirrigation development right down here. Here’s the Imperial Valley. You notice thatthe boundary line crosses there. Well, thevalley doesn’t end just at the internationalboundary. The Mexicali Valley, which is thesouthern part of the Imperial Valley, itscalled Mexicali Valley in Mexico, is a largeirrigation development in Mexico just likethe Imperial Irrigation District.

Storey: And the Mexicali was getting the water outof the river.

Weinberg: Yeah, and we were getting killed. Had theMexicali Valley been included in the UnitedStates, there never would have been aWellton-Mohawk project.

Storey: Because they would have opposed it?

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“. . . rather than building this desalting plant, it wouldhave been cheaper to buy up the farms in Wellton-Mohawk project, but . . . the Arizona congressional

delegation, wouldn’t hear of that, and the chairman ofthe Senate Appropriations Committee was Senator

Hayden of Arizona . . .”

Weinberg: Yeah, and rightly so. It would have beencheaper, rather than building this desaltingplant, it would have been cheaper to buy upthe farms in Wellton-Mohawk project, butthe Arizona senators, the Arizonacongressional delegation, wouldn’t hear ofthat, and the chairman of the SenateAppropriations Committee was SenatorHayden of Arizona, very influential memberof Congress. But international politics arenot the same.

Storey: But back in ‘44 to ‘48, say, what were thelegal issues that you were working onregarding the Mexican Treaty?

Weinberg: Oh, aside from being [unclear] and workingon agreements with the InternationalBoundary Water Commission relative to theRio Grande stuff, I wasn’t involved inanything else.

Became More Involved in the Mexican Water Treatyand Protocol When Mexico Raised the Issue of Water

Quality on the Colorado River

However, I was involved on theColorado side, because one of my jobs was tohandle the legal problems that arose under

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the Boulder Canyon Project Act from HooverDam, and later on, as I say, when theMexicans started complaining to the StateDepartment, the State Department came to uson the water quality of the Lower Colorado, Ibecame very much involved in that. Butother than that, my involvement with theColorado was really through Hoover Dam.

Storey: So tell me about that involvement, then.

Construction of Hoover Dam

Weinberg: Well, Hoover Dam was the first large multi-purpose project built. The estimated cost ofHoover Dam was $165 million, peanutstoday, but at that time when the BoulderCanyon Project Act was passed by Congress,$165 million was more than had been spenton the entire Reclamation program from1902 to that time. Hoover Dam was theoutgrowth of the Colorado River Compact,because the Colorado River Compact hasprovisions which take effect when storagebecomes available on the Lower ColoradoRiver [unclear].

Purposes of Hoover Dam

They envisioned there would be adam, a huge dam, on the Colorado in theUnited States to do two things–well, threethings–make the water supply of the ImperialValley secure and free it from the devastationof floods and the equal devastation of thedrought. You may be aware, or you may not

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be aware, that in the early 1900s, theColorado River had a huge flood, burst itsbanks at the intake of the Imperial IrrigationDistrict, flowed into the Salton Sea for twoyears. That’s why there’s a Salton Sea. Sofrom that time on, agitation grew for theconstruction of a dam that would provideflood control and water for irrigation, andalso water for both the agricultural and urbanneeds of the Southern California CoastalPlain, i.e., Los Angeles.

The Upper Basin, seeing thatCalifornia was developing much morerapidly, and having in mind the principle ofWestern water law that I told you about, firstin time is first in right, they were not happy. They did not take to the idea that thereshould be a huge dam that would hold twoyears’ flow of the Colorado River in theLower Basin. That was why the ColoradoRiver Compact was negotiated. Itsupposedly guaranteed 7 and a half millionacre-feet of water to the Upper Basin. Thatpermitted the construction of the HooverDam.

Disputes Between Arizona and California over Dividingthe Waters of the Lower Colorado River Basin

The state of Arizona, which had itsown dispute with California about how theLower Basin should be divided betweenCalifornia and Arizona, continued to opposeHoover Dam, and they brought severallawsuits in the Supreme Court, which were

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dismissed because the United States, inwhich was a necessary party and had to besued, so Arizona gnashed its teeth and theHoover Dam was built, but when ParkerDam, which is below Hoover, wasundertaken. A principal function of ParkerDam is to serve as a reregulating reservoirbelow Hoover and from which theMetropolitan Water District’s intake reachesthe Colorado River. That’s [part of] thewater supply for Los Angeles, for the LosAngeles area.

“The governor of Arizona called out the NationalGuard and threatened to arrest the Bureau of

Reclamation engineers and the contractor who startedto work on Parker Dam. Well, to everybody’s surprise,the government sued to enjoin Arizona’s [unclear]. Toeverybody’s astonishment, including, I suspect, Arizona,the Supreme Court held that Parker Dam had not been

authorized properly under the reclamation law, andtherefore it was being constructed in violation of several

federal laws . . .”

Parker Dam was constructed, wasbegun under PWA financing and with apretty substantial contribution also fromCalifornia. The governor of Arizona calledout the National Guard and threatened toarrest the Bureau of Reclamation engineersand the contractor who started to work onParker Dam. Well, to everybody’s surprise,the government sued to enjoin Arizona’s[unclear]. To everybody’s astonishment,including, I suspect, Arizona, the SupremeCourt held that Parker Dam had not been

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authorized properly under the reclamationlaw, and therefore it was being constructed inviolation of several federal laws, and mainlythe Rivers and Harbors Act of 1890, whichrequires the authorization of Congress and apermit from the Secretary of War in order tobuild a dam on a navigable stream. Whilethere had been a finding of feasibility and soon and so forth, the Supreme Court said,“You don’t have a permit from the Secretaryof the War. The project is enjoined.”

It didn’t take Congress long to pass aone-paragraph act which ratified andauthorized the construction of Parker Dam,Marshall Ford Dam, because this sameconstitutional issue was raised, and GrandCoulee Dam, they were all–and HeadgateRock Dam, which is an Indian dam projecton the Colorado River for supply of water tosome Indian reservations, and so it wasregularized and they regained Reclamationprojects.

Storey: What were the legal issues you were theninvolved with in the late forties?

Issues Regarding the Hoover Dam Power Contracts

Weinberg: Well, I was involved in the handling of theHoover power contracts, which were verycomplex. To put it simply, power wasapportioned to Nevada, Arizona, andCalifornia. Nevada was given the privilegeof taking power and releasing it, then takingit again. The contractual arrangements were

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somewhat complex. They had to give certainnotices if they wanted to release power, theyhad to give certain notices if they wanted toresume taking power, and I had to reviewthose notices. That was my firstacquaintance with Hoover.

“I was a quick study, and I didn’t undertake anythingwithout knowing what the hell I was doing and what the

project consisted of and why, so on and so forth. So Ibecame an expert. . . .”

Later on, why, my involvement broadenedout. I was a quick study, and I didn’tundertake anything without knowing whatthe hell I was doing and what the projectconsisted of and why, so on and so forth. SoI became an expert.

Storey: I thought that the power contracts for Hooverwere actually signed before Hoover wasbuilt, in the thirties.

Weinberg: Yes, yes. The Boulder Canyon Project Act–as I say, this was the first great multipurposeproject and it was undertaken under a specialact which was before Congress from 1922until it was finally passed in 1928, variousversions of that act. I think they were calledthe Swing-Johnson bills Hoover Dam. PhilSwing was the congressman from theImperial Valley and Johnson is HiramJohnson, the senator from California. I thinkthere were five, maybe four, maybe six,different Swing-Johnson bills. Every yearthey’d introduce one, then they would revise

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it the following Congress, and so on and soforth.

Anyway, this act was considered inthe twenties. The [Calvin] CoolidgeAdministration was in office. TheRepublicans controlled Congress. TheRepublicans didn’t believe in the governmentinvolvement to that extent, and certainly theydid not believe in the government being inthe power business. The private powercompanies were very strong at that time andhad great influence on public policy, whichwas demonstrated in congressional hearingsin the thirties which led to the passage of therevised Federal Power Act and the SecuritiesExchange Act.

Anyway, one of the provisions of theBoulder Canyon Project Act was that beforethe secretary could begin construction, hehad to have signed contracts in handguaranteeing the repayment of the cost ofHoover Dam. The cost was really largelyborne by power, so we had to have thesepower contracts. These contracts werefinally signed in ‘31 or ‘32. Anyway, thenthe Secretary of the Interior authorized theBureau to go ahead with the project.

Those contracts, when Hooveractually went into operation–well, let me goback. Under those contracts, the Bureau builtthe powerplant, equipped the powerplant, butleased it for operation to the city of LosAngeles in southern California, and they

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14. The Boulder Canyon Project Adjustment Act of July 19, 1940,ch. 643, 54 Stat. 774; 43 U.S.C. §618o; P.L. 76-756.


actually generated the power not only for theCalifornia users, but for the Arizona usersand the Nevada users. It was called the[unclear].

There were certain rigidities in thatcontract, in those contracts, which hadbecome apparent by the time generation ofpower was to begin. This was 1937.

Boulder Canyon Project Adjustment Act of 194014

So the California contractors secured passageof what’s called the Boulder Canyon Project[Adjustment] Divestment Act of 1940. Thatrevised the contracts. That authorizedrevision of the contracts in several respects,one of which was that the lease wasterminated and the secretary was authorizedto operate the dam, the powerplant, throughagents of the United States. Guess who theagents were? Southern California EdisonCompany and the City of Los Angeles. Butthe secretary and thereby the Bureau, really,had greater oversight than they had before.

1940 Power Contracts for Hoover Dam Powerplants

The 1940 contracts, ‘41 contracts,were retroactive to 1937, and those were thecontracts that I was involved with.

The Original Power Contracts for Hoover Expired May

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31, 1987, and He Worked for Nevada in Negotiating theNew Power Contracts

Those contracts expired at midnight on May31, 1987, by which time I had been in privatepractice for many years. I was retained bythe state of Nevada to work with them in therenegotiation of the Hoover [unclear].

Storey: So were there a lot of meetings with thepower companies and things that youparticipated in?

Weinberg: Mainly on the ground, at Boulder City.

Storey: So you went out to meetings there.

Weinberg: I would go.

Storey: How did you travel when you went out there?

Weinberg: Train. A delightful trip, by the way.

Storey: Do you remember the trains or anything?

Weinberg: Trains didn’t move at that fast a pace in thosedays, and you’d leave Washington atsomething like 5:30 [in the evening] on theCapital Limited, get into Chicago the nextmorning, jump on the train.

Storey: Where did the train deliver you to? Howclose could you get?

Weinberg: Los Angeles.

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Storey: Then what did you do from Los Angeles?

Weinberg: That’s where the meetings were because theregional counsel’s office for that area nevermoved from Los Angeles.

Storey: To Boulder City.

Weinberg: Although the regional office was at BoulderCity, the regional counsel said, “The hellwith it. I’m not moving.” (laughter) And heprevailed.

Storey: How long did it take to renegotiate thecontracts?

“When the contract expired . . . It took about six years. We began that effort in 1981 or ‘82. . . .”

Weinberg: Well, in those days I was not involved inrenegotiation, because contracts were ineffect. When the contract expired, how longdid it take? It took about six years. Webegan that effort in 1981 or ‘82.

Storey: Okay. What was the next major project thatyou remember? Was it after you became theassistant chief counsel or before?

Work on the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program

Weinberg: Well, the Missouri Basin, Pick-Sloan Projectwas getting started and I would handle avariety of things that came in for review–repayment contracts. The lawyer out therewould ask for advice. The regional director

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would ask for advice on various matters.

Storey: Tell me about the process that led to yourpromotion to assistant chief counsel. Didsomebody come in and say, “You’re it”? Didyou have to compete? How did this work?

Weinberg: They were promotions from within, and Irose. Merit.

Storey: Like a cork to the surface, huh?

Weinberg: I had no political pull whatsoever.

Storey: How long were you assistant chief counsel?

“. . . the legal staffs were consolidated in the Office ofthe Solicitor, when the Eisenhower Administration

came in. I think it was 1953 or ‘54, when we were allmoved to the solicitor’s office. . . .”

Weinberg: Well, until the legal staffs were consolidatedin the Office of the Solicitor, when theEisenhower Administration came in. I thinkit was 1953 or ‘54, when we were all movedto the solicitor’s office. Physically, theBureau, on the seventh floor, and the otherbureaus were scattered around, all thelawyers were moved to the sixth floor, whichwas then the solicitor’s office.

Storey: Then what--


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Storey: You were getting ready to tell me what youbecame when you moved down to the sixthfloor.

Served as an Attorney Advisor and Then as theAssistant Solicitor for Power in the Solicitor’s Office

Weinberg: I was an attorney advisor in the solicitor’soffice, and then I became the assistantsolicitor for power and generally handlingreclamation matters.

“. . . I became, in effect, the deputy associate solicitor. . .. although others had the same title, and I always had a

higher grade than any other assistant solicitor. . . .”

There were other attorneys in the solicitor’soffice who handled reclamation, handledrepayment, and so on, but I became, in effect,the deputy associate solicitor. So theassociate solicitor would [unclear], althoughothers had the same title, and I always had ahigher grade than any other assistantsolicitor.

Became the Associate Solicitor and Then the DeputySolicitor in 1963 or 1964

When the associate solicitor movedup to become the deputy solicitor, Isucceeded him as associate solicitor. Whenhe died unexpectedly, had a stroke [unclear],I succeeded him as deputy solicitor.

Storey: When was that?

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Became Solicitor in 1968

Weinberg: I became deputy solicitor in 1964, either ‘63or ‘64. I was deputy solicitor until I becamesolicitor in 1968.

Storey: Did you ever become associate solicitor?

Weinberg: Yeah.

Storey: In between there?

Weinberg: Yeah, when the associate solicitor for waterand power moved up to become the deputysolicitor, and I succeeded him as associatesolicitor for water and power.

Storey: And that would have been?

Weinberg: That was 1960 or ‘61. It was in theEisenhower Administration.

Storey: Um-hmm. Eisenhower. Okay. ‘60, ‘61, thatworks okay. Tell me about, by the time youwere moved to the solicitor’s office fromReclamation, were you at that pointbecoming aware of the way politics wouldaffect the agency and so on?

Weinberg: I had become aware of that long before that.

Storey: Tell me if you saw any changes whenPresident Roosevelt died and Truman camein, and then tell me about what happenedwhen Eisenhower came in.

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Weinberg: There were no great changes in Reclamationwhen Truman came in. Both [unclear]. When the Eisenhower Administration camein, they were going to clean house and sweepout the place and change all the policies andso forth, and allow some people moved out. I impressed the man who became deputy theman who become the associate solicitor forwater and power in the EisenhowerAdministration, mainly because I knew whatwas going on, I knew the law, and I didn’t tryto softsoap; I told it like it was.

“After . . . maybe a year, the EisenhowerAdministration got over their antipathy to government

development, and some of the biggest projects in theBureau were authorized during the Eisenhower

Administration . . .”

After about six or seven months, ormaybe a year, the Eisenhower Administrationgot over their antipathy to governmentdevelopment, and some of the biggestprojects in the Bureau were authorized duringthe Eisenhower Administration–the GlenCanyon Dam. Pick-Sloan went ahead fullspeed in the Eisenhower Administration. AsI said, they got over their antipathy to somedegree toward the government being in thepower business. Not wholly, because as amatter of policy, they put some restraints onthe extent to which the Bureau could buypower [unclear]. But by and large, as I said,they didn’t believe that Reclamation was adirty word, and there was great bipartisansupport.

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Storey: Of course, Eisenhower started out very anti-public power, I believe.

Eisenhower, “. . . tried to, in effect, sell TVA . . . Thatwas a bad move. Because politically the country

wouldn’t stand for it . . .”

Weinberg: Yes, yes, he did, but he tried to, in effect, sellTVA and, as I said, they were going to, ineffect, turn the marketing over to the privateutilities. That was a bad move.

Storey: Why?

Weinberg: Because politically the country wouldn’tstand for it, it’s as simple as that. Bipartisan,I mean. This was not the Democratsfrustrating the Eisenhower [Administration],it was the Democrats and the Republicansfrustrated the Eisenhower Administration’sambitions. As I say, they were not as readyto cooperate with the power companies[unclear], but that had a curious and, I think,so far as the Republicans are concerned, aboomerang effect.

Foundation of the Midwest Electric ConsumersAssociation and the Basin Electric Power Cooperative

In 1956 or ‘57, it became apparentthat the power demand, the load growth ofthe cooperatives that purchased Pick-Sloanpower [unclear]. The Assistant secretary ofinterior at the time, Fred Aandahl, formerlygovernor of North Dakota, no, South Dakota,he went out and told the power customers

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that the Bureau would not be able to supplythe load growth and that the customersshould look to the private facilities.

Well, that galvanized the customersinto action. First of all, it resulted in thefoundation of the Midwest ElectricConsumers Association, [unclear], whosecounsel I have been since 1978. Theyorganized so that they would have a politicalvoice, and it led to the establishment by thecooperative of Basin Electric PowerCooperative, headquarters in Bismarck,which undertook to supply to thecooperatives the power to meet their loadneeds–it was a cooperative. The privateutilities didn’t [unclear].

Ken Holum Founded the Midwest Electric ConsumersAssociation

The founder of the Midwest ElectricConsumers Association, by the way, was KenHolum, who at the time was very active inthe cooperative movement. He, along withFred [unclear], organized the MidwestElectric Consumers Association, which ledalso to the formation of the Basin ElectricPower.

Storey: Um-hmm. Now, before you leftReclamation, I believe you worked with Mr.Lineweaver.

Weinberg: Who?

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Storey: Lineweaver.

Weinberg: Oh, yeah, Goodrich Lineweaver. Oh, yeah.

Storey: Tell me about him. What was his style as amanager? What was his personality? Thosekinds of things.

Goodrich W. Lineweaver, Oscar Chapman, and MikeStraus

Weinberg: Goodrich Lineweaver, or as Secretary OscarChapman, who was addicted to malapropism,one time called him, introduced him–hisname was Goodrich W. Lineweaver, andOscar Chapman once publicly referred to himas Linerich W. Goodweaver. (laughter)

Goodrich had come to the Bureaufrom the Federal Power Commission. Goodrich had been Secretary of the FederalPower Commission. He was politicallyactive in the Democratic party, fromVirginia, and he had political connections. He came into the Bureau about the time thatMike Straus became commissioner. MikeStraus succeeded Harry Bashore, who hadsucceeded John Page.

Storey: ‘45 to ‘53.

Weinberg: And Mike Straus had been the first Assistantsecretary of the interior. In those days, thedepartment had an under secretary and twoassistant secretaries, one of whom was thefirst assistant secretary, and that was Mike.

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Oscar Chapman was the other assistantsecretary. Oscar Chapman, by the way, holdsthe record for longevity as a member of the“little cabinet” in Cabinet. He becameAssistant Secretary of the Interior in 1933,when the Roosevelt Administration came in,and he left as Secretary of the Interior whenthe Eisenhower Administration came in, andthat was in ‘61. So Oscar was either anassistant secretary, under secretary, orsecretary of the interior from 1933 to 1961,and no other member of the little cabinet andCabinet has ever–no one has ever equaledthat length of time in a secretarial office inthe whole history of the United StatesGovernment.

Storey: Really?

William E. Warne

Weinberg: Yeah. Anyway, Goodrich came in, andGoodrich was at first the head of the Divisionof Operation and Maintenance, which reallywas responsible for repayment contracts andoverseeing the irrigation operations. BillWarne was the assistant commissioner at thetime, William E. Warne, who, by the way, isstill alive out in California. He’s in hiseighties. You ought to talk to Bill, by theway, because he went through this.

Storey: Do you know where in California?

Weinberg: No, but I can find out for you. It’s inSouthern California.

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Storey: California is a little hard to find people in ifyou don’t know where. (laughter)

Weinberg: Well, I’m sure I can get his address. BillWarne and Mike Straus and Goodrich werevery dynamic people. They believed inaction, and getting things done, and cuttingred tape.

“Goodrich . . . was canned, actually, when theEisenhower Administration came in. He was persona

non grata to the Republicans. He went to work forSenator [James E.] Murray [D] on the Senate Interior

Committee. . . .”

Goodrich later became an assistantcommissioner, and he left. He was canned,actually, when the EisenhowerAdministration came in. He was persona nongrata to the Republicans. He went to workfor Senator [James E.] Murray [D] on theSenate Interior Committee.

Storey: What was his personality like?

Weinberg: Well, he was much older than I was. Iregarded him as kind of a grandfatherlyfigure, to me. Goodrich was a shrewdoperator. He did a lot of the lobbying on theHill for the Bureau, and he had his agenda,and, by God, he accomplished it.

Storey: Was he an authoritarian manager or howwould you characterize him that way?

Weinberg: Well, I wouldn’t be in a position to say,

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except that where Goodrich sat was at thehead of the table. Goodrich believed inadvancing the program, and so did everybodyelse in the Bureau. Goodrich had his ownideas on how it was to be done, and that’s theway it was.

Storey: Did he implement any new programs oranything like that?

Weinberg: No. Well, the Bureau at that time wasundergoing a tremendous expansion inproject development and construction, andGoodrich was in the forefront of that. Goodrich did not care much for the thingsthat the water users didn’t like, such as theexcess land laws, but by the time that fightcame along in the Central Valley, Goodrichwas long gone–well, not so long out of it,because the Central Valley repaymentcontracts, the water delivery contracts, whichis the term for these forty-five-year or forty-year contracts, the water delivery contracts,they were being developed in California.

“. . . the California regional director of the Bureau ofReclamation at the time, Richard Boke, not an engineer,

believed very deeply in the concept of the excess landlaws . . .”

“it got to the point where Senator [Sheridan] Downey,otherwise a far-out left-winger from California, took up

the cudgels for the big landowners in Central Valley,and he actually got the appropriation to pay the salary

of Boke and Straus cut off. He got a rider on theappropriation act that said that none of the funds

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appropriated herein can be used to pay the salary of acommissioner of Reclamation and a regional director of

Reclamation who are not engineers. . . .”

Goodrich was head of O&M, laterassistant commissioner, and the Californiaregional director of the Bureau ofReclamation at the time, Richard Boke, notan engineer, believed very deeply in theconcept of the excess land laws, and it got tothe point where Senator [Sheridan] Downey,otherwise a far-out left-winger fromCalifornia, took up the cudgels for the biglandowners in Central Valley, and he actuallygot the appropriation to pay the salary ofBoke and Straus cut off. He got a rider on theappropriation act that said that none of thefunds appropriated herein can be used to paythe salary of a commissioner of Reclamationand a regional director of Reclamation whoare not engineers. It happened that Bokewasn’t an engineer and neither was MikeStraus. They sued and, of course, the courtstossed out the rider as a bill of attainder.

Storey: Was Straus also trying to support the 160-acre limitation?

Weinberg: Straus, yes, he did, and he also tried to paperover the fact that the reclamation excess landlaws had not been enforced for years, andthere was a great hue and cry to bring theBureau into compliance with the excess landlaws.

“Straus, with legal advice, by the way, came up with the

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policy that if you paid up your construction charges,your water charges in advance, paid them all, the excessland laws would not apply, a legal proposition which Ilater, in the sixties, found to be not supportable. . . .”

Straus, with legal advice, by the way, cameup with the policy that if you paid up yourconstruction charges, your water charges inadvance, paid them all, the excess land lawswould not apply, a legal proposition which Ilater, in the sixties, found to be notsupportable. And even the department in theEisenhower Administration refused to goalong with it.

I remember when Fred Seatonbecame secretary of the interior, hesucceeded [James D.] McKay, he was fromHastings, Nebraska, by the way, the hometown of Floyd Dominy, Fred Seaton came in,he had been in office one day when he wasasked to sign a contract which had beennegotiated with the King’s River water usersin California on Pine Flat, or Isabella, Dam,which would excuse them from repaymentbecause they would go out and borrow themoney to pay off the construction charges allat once. Seaton asked, “How long has thisproblem been kicking around? How long hasthis been under negotiation?” He was told, Idon’t know the exact number of years theytold him, but it was several years. I was notpresent at that meeting, but I was told this byEd Fisher, who was the associate solicitor forwater and power.

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And Seaton says, “And you ask me tocome in to sign this contract in one day,without any notice, and you say this problemis controversial? I’m not going to do it.” And he turned the problem over to thesolicitor, Elmer Bennett, and Elmer Bennettconcluded this advanced payment was not inthe cards. Elmer came up with the statement,in his opinion, “I will not be a party towhittling away at a principle until it isnothing but a pile of shavings.” That was theRepublicans. But the idea still persisted, andas deputy solicitor, I developed, with FrankBarry [phonetic], the legal theory that[unclear].

Storey: Well, I’d like to keep going, but once againwe’ve used two hours.

Weinberg: Time goes fast, doesn’t it?

Storey: Oh, it does, especially when you’re havingfun. I’d like to ask again if you’re willing forresearchers inside and outside Reclamation touse these tapes and the resulting transcripts.

Weinberg: Sure. No problem.

Storey: Good. Thank you.

END SIDE 2, TAPE 2. JANUARY 27, 1995.END OF INTERVIEWS.

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