1 66 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



April, 



rights to the water. The matter at first 

 sight presents numerous complications, 

 but underl^dng it are fundamental prin- 

 ciples which are being developed by 

 custom and sustained by decisions of 

 the courts. 



Private enterprise has already gone 

 nearly to its full limit. State action has 

 been confined almost wholly to attempted 

 improvements in legislation and the 

 control of the distribution of the water 

 among the irrigators. National works 

 are being urged by those who have most 

 thoroughly studied the subject, upon 

 the ground that the nation alone is in 

 a position to conserve the water supply, 

 since it controls the land and the sources 

 of most of the important streams. It 

 is not suggested that there should be 

 any interference with vested rights, nor 

 with the distribution of water to the 

 irrigators by state officials, wherever 

 such exist. Under any suggested combi- 

 nation of interests in reclamation, the 

 nation must construct the reser\^oirs, 

 the large tunnels, and diversion works 

 from great rivers, the experimental deep 

 or artesian wells, which demonstrate the 

 existence of underground supplies in 

 desert areas, and other works the mag- 

 nitude of which entails cost too great 

 for private enterprise or too far-reach- 

 ing for state action. In harmony with 

 this general development, and within 

 its own borders, each state can supple- 

 ment the national work, as far as this 

 may be of local concern, and regulate 

 all matters such as the adjustment of 

 disputes among irrigators and the har- 

 monizing of conflicting local interests. 



There has been a tendency, also, to 

 magnify the difficulties and complica- 

 tions and the large expenditures which 

 ultimately may result from national 

 reclamation works, but it is neither 

 necessary nor desirable to attempt to 

 foreshadow them. The magnitude of 

 the work to be done is doubtless fully 

 realized by the Congress. The hydrog- 

 rapher of the United States Geological 

 Surve}' suggests an expenditure of 

 $125,000,000, spread over a period of 

 twenty-five \ears. Another estimate is 

 for $10, 000, coo a year for ten years. In 

 an}^ event the ultimate amount needed, 

 while not prohibitive, will be large 



enough to demand the utmost caution 

 and wisdom in the provisions made for 

 beginning and continuing work, so that 

 the good to be returned to the people at 

 large shall amply repay and jUvStify 

 even the largest amount of expen.se 

 probable or necessar}' for the successful 

 completion of the great undertaking. 

 Whatever the ultimate expenditure for 

 reservoirs and main-line canals, the 

 return in money and indirect benefits 

 will be still greater. Congress need 

 not now consider remote expenditures 

 and returns, but certain present concrete 

 matters on a business basis. 



ANSWERS TO OBJECTIONS. 



There can be no possibility' of con- 

 flict between the state and national 

 authorities over water rights when once 

 it is clearly established that beneficial 

 use alone governs the right to water. 

 Those now thus employing the water 

 are doing so under the law of Congress 

 of 1866, and their rights are and will be 

 fully protected. The states, in some 

 instances, have created certain machin- 

 ery for adjusting disputes among these 

 users of the water, such disputes as 

 must always arise when men are draw- 

 ing from a common .stock; but the pur- 

 pose of no .state can be otherwise than 

 to guard the waters and divide them 

 justly among the various claimants. 



The nation is the great land-owner 

 and holds the water as part and parcel 

 of the public land, allowing those per- 

 sons who have put it to beneficial use 

 to do so tinder set regulations, mainly 

 of the nature of police control. It is 

 not believed that the nation has divested 

 itself of the unutilized waters of the 

 public domain. If this were the case, 

 the lands would be deprived of value 

 and the government would be more 

 helpless than an individual owning an 

 equivalent area. It is not necessary for 

 an}' state to divest itself of its police 

 powers nor of its authority to adjust 

 difficulties among its citizens as to water 

 rights, nor is it necessary for the gov- 

 ernment to create additional machiner}' 

 and a new set of officers to perform d uties 

 now undertaken, theoretically at least, 

 bv state officials. 



