Tale of the ‘Arizona Navy’: Old story revived as state competes with California for water

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In 1934, Arizona faced off against California in a miniature “naval battle” on the Colorado River, the first and only showing of the land-locked state’s navy.

The story of the Arizona and California water battles is long and storied, but state leaders have repeatedly drawn on the tale of the “Arizona Navy” during speeches in the past month to illustrate the two states’ water histories.

The federal government started building Parker Dam, which eventually created Lake Havasu, in 1934, as a way to divert Colorado River water to California.

There was one small hitch in the plan: Arizona had not agreed to the dam yet, and Congress hadn’t approved it, said state historian Marshall Trimble. Then-Gov. Benjamin Baker Moeur declared martial law and sent the Arizona National Guard to the dam’s site.

“The Arizonans were really furious,” Trimble said.

Moeur sent a telegram to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, saying he had established martial law on the Arizona side of the river and directed the Arizona National Guard to do “anything necessary to prevent an invasion,” Trimble said.

Twelve years earlier, the Colorado River Compact divided up the river’s water to upper and lower basin states, but as of 1934, Arizona still hadn’t ratified the compact since there were still disagreements on how the lower basin states would divvy up their share of the water.

Two ships, ferryboats normally used to cross the river, became Arizona’s Navy, and the boats’ owner, Nellie T. Bush, was commissioned admiral, according to Trimble.

A Los Angeles Times clipping from 1934 cheekily details how the boats proceeded to the site of the “invasion.”

“Word that the Arizona Navy was moving on to the Parker Dam site spread faster than a brush fire along the California side,” the Times wrote.

But the naval forces ran into some trouble when a boat got hung up on construction cables in the river and started to sink, causing California to come to the rescue, Trimble said.

It was “much to our chagrin that our navy didn’t fare better. … There was probably no training at all, these were ground troops,” Trimble said.

The U.S. secretary of the Interior halted construction on the dam, though Parker Dam was completed in 1938, despite the still-boiling animosity between Arizona and California over the river’s water allotments.

In 1944, Arizona finally signed the Colorado River Compact, known as the “Law of the River,” though California continued to block efforts to build the Central Arizona Project until Congress eventually approved the project in 1968.

Today, Arizona has advanced water storage allowing the state to fend off any cuts to residential water users for some time as curtailment orders loom. The chance of Lake Mead dropping below 1,075 feet, triggering cuts to Colorado River allottees, is 33 percent for next year, according to projections released in April by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The likelihood of a shortage in 2017 is 75 percent.

California, on the other hand, has already ordered cities to cut water usage by 25 percent and bumped up fines for people who waste water.

Gov. Doug Ducey, in a speech at a water forum in early June, said as discussions of how to address the shortages in California progress, Arizona shouldn’t be penalized for planning ahead.

“We must impress upon (the federal government) what Arizona has already done and what is already put on the table to ensure that their decisions empower us to control our own destiny,” Ducey said.

Still, the Arizona naval battle of the Colorado River stands as an illustrative example of the Western states’ willingness to fight over water.

“It’s always been a good story, with colorful characters involved. … It’s part of the river lore of the Colorado River,” Trimble said.