POWER DEVELOPMENT MENACES IDAHO 



IRRIGATION. 



BY 



FREDERICK HAYNES NEWELL, 



CHIEF ENGINEER, V. S. RECLAMATION SER.VICK. 



IT is doubtful if any state presents a 

 better field for operations under the 

 Reclamation Act than Idaho. 



The arid portions of that state are fa- 

 vored with a fine climate, plenty of good 

 irrigable land, and large streams whose 

 discharge can be easily controlled. All 

 that is necessary to insure material de- 

 velopment of this arid region is the 

 bringing together under proper relations 

 of two of these resources, land and 

 water, which can be done at a compara- 

 tively small cost per acre. There is an 

 earnest desire on the part of the citi- 

 zens of the state that irrigation develop- 

 ment by the national government be 

 pushed forward on broad lines. The 

 people, however, are singularly blind or 

 strangely indifferent to the manner in 

 which their interests are 

 endangered by certain pro- 

 motion companies. 



Irrigation development 

 at its very inception in the 

 Snake Valley is threatened 

 by the proposed construc- 

 tion of a power plant, the 

 promoters of which claim 

 the right to use the only 

 supply of water available 

 for irrigation. Already 

 more than four times the 

 low- water flow of Snake 

 River is claimed for the de- 

 velopment of power. The 

 two large Carey Act pro- 

 jects now well under way 

 in the Snake River Valley, 

 together with the two fea- 

 sible projects recently in- 

 vestigated by the Reclama- 

 tion Service , will , when car- 

 ried to completion, reclaim 

 more than 635,000 acres of 

 land, practically double the 



area now irrigated in that state. These 

 lands lie in' large bodies, which insures 

 the building up of important centers of 

 wealth and population. All this splen- 

 did development depends upon overcom- 

 ing the condition of aridity, for without 

 water these lands must forever remain 

 in their present desert state. 



The theater of this future activity lies 

 comparatively remote from any large 

 town or settlement, being 150 to 200 

 miles distant from Boise, and about the 

 same distance from the most important 

 centers of population in Utah. Today 

 these bodies of land form part of the 

 vast unbroken wilderness of sage brush 

 which stretches across the state from 

 east to west, a desert scene never to be 

 forgotten by even a western traveler. 



TWIN FALLS, 180 FEET HIGH ; ON THE SNAKE RIVER, IDAHO. 



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