THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



105 





to the needs of the city, supposing that the department 

 would be enabled by the terms of this Act to make 

 such provision as was deemed equitable and necessary. 

 Such an appropriation of water under the Eeclamation 

 Project, and under this Act, would have given the city 

 all of the water which the Secretary deemed necessary 

 for domestic and municipal purposes, and would have 

 been a complete bar to all future encroachments 

 leaving the Owens River Valley people absolutely pro- 

 tected and free to proceed with their. own development. 



The Act of June 30, 1906, in favor of Los 

 Angeles, makes specific provision in Section 3 that all 

 legitimate rights both in land and in ditches, reser- 

 voirs and water appropriations shall be protected. 



The Reclamation Act of June 17, 1902, makes 

 specific provision that the government stands upon the 

 same basis as an individual in the appropriation of 

 water, and must take it subject to the state law. The 

 Forest Act passed by Congress makes provision that the 

 citizens of the state shall have the right to enter upon 

 said reservations for the appropriation of water under 

 the state laws. 



Notwithstanding these and numerous decisions of 

 the courts, and the rules and regulations of the depart- 

 ments regarding the use of rights of way for ditches 

 and reservoirs, not a single reply or even an acknowl- 

 edgement has been received by these people to their 

 various petitions praying for a hearing to determine 

 their rights. The individuals who filed on the reservoir 

 sites, the associated ditches, the Chamber of Commerce, 

 and the Board of Supervisors of Inyo County, have 

 addressed numerous petitions both to the Secretary of 

 the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture, to none 

 of which has there been a reply; no relief granted for 

 which the petitions prayed, no hearing granted, the 

 citizens being left in utter ignorance of how to protect 

 their rights. 



Who is to blame for this condition? Will some 

 government official explain. 



Reclamation 

 Service. 



Certain citizens of Colorado have an- 

 nounced their purpose to test in the Fed- 



eral courts the power of the Secretary of 

 the Interior to refuse the g^^ of rignts 



Q f way Qver p u blic l an ds for irrigation 

 canals, on the ground that to do so "will interfere with 

 the plans of the Reclamation Service." 



The particular contention is based upon the fol- 

 lowing facts alleged. Surveys and maps were made 

 and filed with an application as required by the statutes 

 of Colorado, for a canal to divert water from the Grand 

 River in the western part of that state. A small por- 

 tion of the right of way needed crossed sundry vacant 

 government lands in the canyon, necessitating the ap- 



proval of the Secretary of the Interior as prescribed by 

 the rules of the department. 



After a delay of nearly a year this application was 

 rejected on the grounds, solely, that the plans of the 

 Reclamation Service might be interfered with. No 

 opportunity was given the applicant to be heard, al- 

 though it is claimed that in no particular, as a matter 

 of fact, does the private project affect the other. It 

 is from this arbitrary decision that steps are taking to 

 appeal to the courts for redress. 



Five or six years previously the Reclamation Ser- 

 vice ran several preliminary lines with a view to ulti- 

 mately constructing a canal to cover certain lands in 

 that section, one-half still vacant and the balance pat- 

 ented, which were at the outset withdrawn from entry. 

 For several years thereafter the government took no 

 further steps or apparent interest in the project. 



Then an Irrigation District was organized, surveys 

 made, and bonds voted for the purpose of supplying 

 practically the same territory, but the government re- 

 fused to restore the public lands and finally openly dis- 

 played its opposition to all local initiative. Whenever 

 the efforts of private endeavor were renewed agents of 

 the Reclamation Service would reappear and by one 

 means or another -harry and defeat local progress. 



When the right of way intended for the use of the 

 District territory was rejected as aforesaid, not a yard 

 of earth had been moved, no application to the state 

 authorities for right to divert water had been filed, nor 

 the final location of the canal line been determined 

 upon by the Reclamation Service. This condition of 

 affairs continues to this day, although tens of thous- 

 ands of dollars of the reclamation fund have been 

 exhausted in "preliminary" investigations. 



But because it is proposed when funds are availa- 

 ble, admittedly some years hence, such a canal may be 

 constructed, the effort of private capital meantime to 

 develop that section is defeated by this ruling of the 

 Secretary of the Interior, made repeatedly in other in- 

 stances, that such an effort would "interfere with the 

 plans of the Reclamation Service !" 



Invariably this ruling has effectually blocked local 

 operations because capital cannot be enlisted for con- 

 struction -where it must face a test with the general 

 government over rights of way. 



In addition to the question whether the state con- 

 trol of .the waters of its public streams can be defeated 

 in this way and the right of its citizens guaranteed 

 by the constitution of Colorado to divert 4 such waters 

 be denied, it is probable also that the very constitu- 

 tionality of the Reclamation Act itself will be attacked 

 in this suit. 



Another phase of the autocratic methods employed 

 by the Secretary of the Interior in conjunction with 



