144 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



ADMINISTRATION OF STREAMS IN IRRIGATION. 



BY ELWOOD MEAD, WASHINGTON, D. C. 

 Read before the Western Society of Engineers. 



In the arid West there is no escape from the over- 

 shadowing importance of streams. Not only the pros- 

 perity but the very existence of civilized life depends 

 in large measure on ability to use rivers in irriga- 

 tion. Whoever controls the water supply practically 

 owns the land it makes productive, and just and stable 

 titles to water are of far more importance than deeds 

 to the land on which it is used. 



We have reached a period when the significance of 

 these facts can not longer be ignored. The water prob- 

 lems of the West are assuming national importance. 

 In the suit of Kansas against Colorado in the United 



large as the State of Indiana, and an area half the 

 size of that State is now being irrigated. The main 

 canals and laterals are so arranged that every square 

 foot of this area is watered from one to five times a 

 year. 



These cultivated lands are not continuous, but are 

 cases scattered over a region larger than any Euro- 

 pean country save Eussia and which embraces about 

 one- third of the United States. The water supply is 

 taken from thousands of rivers, creeks and rivulets, 

 is drawn from reservoirs and pumped from wells. Its 

 management and distribution require an army of men 

 to patrol the canals, to regulate the gates by which the 

 water is taken in and adjust those by which it is meas- 

 ured out to users. Claims to water are filed and re- 

 corded like claims to coal, oil or placer mines, and a 

 settlement of the water titles involves a determination 

 of the rights which shall be recognized in the rains 



MAP OF THE 



CACHE LAPOUDKE VALLEY- 

 COLORADO. 



States Supreme Court, and the international questions 

 created by the use of the Eio Grande, are examples of 

 present conflicts created by turning streams from their 

 courses. In its larger aspects the use of the rains and 

 snows of the Rocky Mountains and Sierras to water 

 the arid plains affects the flow of the Mississippi, the 

 Columbia and the Sacramento, and will in time raise 

 the question as to whether the farm at the head waters 

 or the steamboat below is to have the use of the water 

 supply. Meanwhile, with an optimism characteristic 

 of the West, development goes bravely on. 



The use of Western streams in irrigation has 

 created a commerce in water of great and constantly 

 growing importance. More than $100,000,000 and 

 some estimates make it twice this sum have been ex- 

 pended in the construction of irrigation works. They 

 begin with the rivulets far up on the mountain slopes 

 and extend to the great rivers which wind their lone- 

 some courses across the dusty plains. The area which 

 these ditches and canals can be made to water is as 



and snows which fall on mountain summits, and the 

 harmonizing of conflicting interests of individual irri- 

 gators, of communities and even different States. 



In considering the administration of creeks and 

 rivers we shall not be able to deal with the manner in 

 which canals are operated, the contracts under which 

 water is sold to farmers, nor the methods em- 

 ployed in its measurement and delivery. Either would 

 be a large topic alone. I shall not attempt to define 

 all the legal issues growing out of water ownership, 

 because that would be impossible, nor to say much 

 about engineering methods, because, in so brief a dis- 

 cussion, this would not be interesting. I hope, how- 

 ever, to make clear that the farmer under irrigation 

 has to deal with knotty problems, of which the farmer 

 who depends on the clouds knows nothing, and to place 

 before you the relation of streams to the agricultural 

 development of the West, to give you some insight into 

 the meaning of a water right, the most vital and per- 

 plexing question which now confronts the farmer, the 



