THE IEEIQATION AQE. 



53 



WILLISTON IRRIGATION PROJECT. 



Irrigation is an experimental proposition for the 

 North Dakota farmer and the construction of the Willis- 

 ton project is an experiment from an engineering 

 standpoint. There were so many new elements that 

 entered into the construction and operation which had 

 never been tried before that the engineers had to feel 

 their way along and overcome the difficulties as they 

 were met. The pumping of the water into the irriga- 

 tion canal was a new method not tried in this section 

 of the country. The Missouri river, from which the 

 water is taken, presented difficulties to overcome that 

 were entirely new; the fuel for producing the power 

 was new and had not been tried on a commercial basis ; 

 the soil and climatic conditions are peculiar to the 

 locality and different from those at other places where 



equipments necessary to pump that water are established 

 facts well known to the engineering science. There is 

 no guesswork about these matters. The unknown quan- 

 tities that enter into the Williston project is the mud 

 in the Missouri river water, the unsafety of its bank 

 and the kind of fuel used in producing the power. The 

 amount of sediments in the Missouri river water is 

 enough to fill the water canals if pumped directly into 

 them from the river. Some means had to be provided 

 to rid the water of a large per cent of these sediments 

 before it is let into the canal system. The location of 

 the main intake pumping station had to be settled some 

 way, but it would not do to build a permanent one on 

 the bank of the river, as it would be liable to go down, 

 bank and all. The means of producing power had to 

 be supplied with native coal, a fuel with power-produc- 

 ing qualities not fully known and the cost of mining 





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Tj**fcl**x 'f-r" - - 



In Owens River Canyon, California. 



irrigation has been tested. All these combined are 

 causes that make irrigation difficult at the Williston 

 project and cause the constructing and operating en- 

 gineers and the farmers many disappointments, until 

 such time as the difficulties are overcome and the true 

 method established. The amount of power required to 

 lift a specified amount of water to different elevations is 

 known ; the amount of water required to cover a given 

 area with a certain number of inches of water is also 

 easily computed ; the size, number and capacity of the 

 pumps and the relative size of all power producing 



the same an unsettled problem. These, were matters 

 that had to be estimated from datas secured from the 

 best available sources. To the farmers in this section 

 irrigation was a new problem and looked upon by 

 many with suspicion. The rules prescribed and condi- 

 tions imposed on the land owners was deemed by many, 

 to be unreasonable and unjust. 



So far the construction and operation have been 

 a continuous series of experiments. In the matter of 

 pumping station for the main intake at the river it was 

 decided to place the pumps on a floating barge and 



