711.42157 R 72/42
The Secretary of State to the Canadian Chargé (Wrong)
Sir: Referring to the Department’s note to your Legation of July 6, 1928,40 I have been advised that Mr. N. C. Grover, Chief Hydraulic Engineer, United States Geological Survey, and Mr. R. de B. Corriveau, Chief Engineer, Department of Public Works of Canada, met at Winnipeg on July 9 and 10, at which time they drafted and signed a memorandum of proposed terms of submission of the Roseau River drainage problem to the International Joint Commission.
A copy of the memorandum signed by Mr. Grover and Mr. Corriveau, is enclosed herewith. The form of reference proposed by Messrs. Grover and Corriveau is satisfactory to the Government of the United States. Please advise me whether the form of reference [Page 60] proposed by Messrs. Grover and Corriveau is satisfactory to the Government of Canada and whether the Canadian Government is now ready to have the Roseau River drainage matter submitted to the International Joint Commission for investigation, report and recommendations.
With respect to the suggestion made in your Legation’s note of June 16, 1928, that Mr. Grover on the occasion of his visit to Winnipeg examine the works now under construction along the Roseau River on the Canadian side of the boundary, I have to inform you that Mr. Grover reports that although he is of the opinion from such data as he was able to obtain that the danger that the works in Canada would substantially increase the stages of waters at the international boundary and cause injury on the United States side of the boundary is remote, yet he is not in a position to form an opinion whether those works would constitute a unit of a coordinated system for the control of the waters of the Roseau River on both sides of the boundary. Inasmuch as one of the questions which it is proposed to submit to the International Joint Commission for investigation and report is whether it is practicable and desirable to coordinate projects for the control of the waters of the Roseau River and its tributaries on both sides of the boundary, it would seem desirable that the construction of works on the Canadian side be suspended until the International Joint Commission shall have had an opportunity to investigate the problem of drainage in the Roseau Valley and to have made its report and recommendations in order that the works in Canada may not prove to be an obstacle to the adoption of the recommendations of the International Joint Commission if its recommendations are acceptable to the two Governments.
Accept [etc.]
- Not printed.↩