WATER 129 



the right to settle it. In the past, at least, such cases have ended 

 before the federal Supreme Court. 



And if those legal problems do not make the securing of an 

 adequate water supply for irrigation hard enough, there are, 

 in addition to them, many even more complicated financial and 

 technical problems. 



Take the technical problems first. The primary technical 

 problem is how to get enough water. "Very well," the engi 

 neers say, "well build a dam." "Just a minute," says the soil 

 erosion expert, "you engineers said build a dam, when people 

 wanted to irrigate the lower Rio Grande. You built it, too, 

 Elephant Butte. And what happened? The country around the 

 streams that fed it were so overgrazed that 18,000 acre feet 

 of silt enter the dam every year, and long before it has paid for 

 itself the project will be useless. 18 You should have called that 

 one White Elephant Butte." 



The soil chemist cuts off the engineer before he has a chance 

 to reply to the erosion man. "Well, if you're going to irrigate, 

 you have to lay plans to drain at the same time." 



"What?" says the farmer. "Irrigate and drain at the same 

 time? That sounds like nonsense." 



"It may sound like nonsense," the soil chemist replies, "but 

 it's a fact nevertheless. If youVe ever been up around Santa Fe, 

 you've seen that land covered with white alkali. That was de 

 posited on the surface by irrigation water that wasn't properly 

 drained. And that white alkali isn't half so bad as the black. 

 Besides, you have to drain off the irrigation water that will 

 run to the hollows." 



And in addition to all these questions, someone will have 

 to decide how evaporation from the irrigation ditches is to be 

 reduced, how to control flood water, how to see that the trunk 

 ditches and feeders are kept in repair. 



18 Van Hise and Havemeyer, Conservation of Our Rational Resources, The 

 Macmillan Company, New York, 1937, p. 363. 



