1906 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



195 



work is now under way by contractors 

 Mason, Davis & Co., of Portland, Ore- 

 gon. The Pacific Portland Cement 

 Company, of San Francisco, were the 

 successful bidders for 10,000 barrels 

 of cement at $1.55 per barrel for use 

 on this work. This firm is now supply- 

 ing cement on the forty-thousand-bar- 

 rel contract for the Yuma project, and 

 has also furnished all the cement so 

 far used on the Truckee-Carson pro- 

 ject. The board of engineers which 

 met at Klamath Falls on the 28th in- 

 stant considered plans for new con- 

 struction work and arranged details 

 for the building of the entire project. 



On the Yuma project the Secretary 

 <of the Interior has authorized the con- 

 struction of the Gila Valley levees by 

 force account at an expense of $100,- 

 000. These levees will be the only per- 

 fect levees ever constructed in this 

 country. The work was started on 

 March 12. In connection with the 

 levee work the Secretary has author- 

 ized the purchase of 100 mules with 

 their equipments, and the Government 

 is now prepared to purchase these ani- 

 mals. In accordance with the general 

 policy of the service a number of 

 small contracts amounting to approxi- 

 mately $1,000 each, have been let to 

 the farmers of the Yuma Valley for 

 the extension of the Yuma Valley 

 levee toward the Mexican line. On 

 the Laguna dam J. O. White & Co., 

 contractors, are employing 450 men at 

 present, and have just installed 

 dredges and other machinery on the 

 California side of the river at this dam 

 site. This force will be doubled with- 

 in the next thirty days. This firm was 

 awarded the contract for the construc- 

 tion of large sluice gates and regulator 

 gates for the entrance of the canals at 

 the dam. There will be three of these 

 steel gates, each 33 feet wide and about 

 20 feet high, and costing about $65,- 

 900. They will be of the type known 

 as "Stoney Gates." and are similar to 

 those used on the Chicago drainage 

 canal and the great locks at Sault St. 

 Marie. 



Flood An associated press dis- 



DamageOver- patch frQm Caspar. 

 Wyoming, stated that 

 the great dam at Alcova and steel 

 bridge across the North Platte River, 

 structures erected by the Reclamation 

 Service, were carried away by a flood 

 on March 27, entailing a loss of 

 $100,000. It would be difficult to 

 crowd more misstatements into the 

 same space than are contained in the 

 above. In the first place the Govern- 

 ment has not constructed a dam in 

 the North Platte River. A contract 

 has been let for this work and the con- 

 tractor erected a temporary embank- 

 ment to divert the stream from its 

 channel in order to lay the foundations 

 for the Pathfinder dam. This struc- 

 ture was swept away by a flood, but 

 aside from delaying the work no seri- 

 ous damage was done. The Govern- 

 ment erected a wooden bridge across 

 the river near the dam site and not a 

 steel structure, but the engineer in 

 charge in his report of the flood makes 

 no mention of its having been de- 

 stroyed. The bridge cost only $3,000. 

 and if it were washed away this would 

 represent the total loss sustained by 

 the Government, as the contractor 

 must stand the loss of the temporary 

 works in the river. The Pathfinder 

 dam is to be a masonry concrete struct- 

 ure, 210 feet high, and creating a stor- 

 age reservoir with a capacity of 1,000,- 

 000 acre feet, or several times greater 

 than the Croton reservoir of New 

 York. 



There is great rejoicing 

 in the Sun River Valley, 

 Montana, over the fact 

 that the Secretary of the Interior has 

 apportioned the sum of $500,000 for 

 beginning a great irrigation work in 

 that section. For the past two years 

 the engineers of the Reclamation Ser- 

 vice have been making surveys and 

 completing plans for one of the largest 

 of the National projects in the West. 



The preliminary investigations of 

 the Sun River project indicate that 

 256,000 acres arc reclaimable in this 



Sun River 

 Project 



