UNITED STATES 



RECLAMATION SERVICE 



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Government Irrigation Work During the Month 



Begin 



Roosevelt 



Dam 



"The first stone of the 

 Roosevelt dam was laid 

 by the contractor at 5 

 o'clock on the afternoon of Septem- 

 ber 20." 



This message, from Engineer Hill, 

 was read with a great deal of satis- 

 faction by the officials of the Recla- 

 mation Service. It marks the begin- 

 ning of the end of one of the most 

 daring and difficult irrigation projects 

 so far undertaken by the Government. 



The contract for the construction of 

 this dam was executed by the Secre- 

 tary of the Interior April 21, 1905. 

 Although the company which made 

 this contract is energetic and experi- 

 enced, the long succession of unusual 

 floods which have occurred in Salt 

 River in the past year has from time 

 to time delayed the attempts to con- 

 trol the river with coffer dams and ex- 

 cavate the foundation. Time after 

 time a large amount of work has been 

 entirely destroyed and the contractors' 

 appliances swept away. 



It is, threfore, with a great sense 

 of relief that the news is received that 

 the erratic river has finally submitted 

 to the curb and rein and a few weeks 

 will see the contractors' works out of 

 danger. The work will thereafter ad- 

 vance rapidly and benefits from the 

 storage accomplished may be expect- 

 ed during the season of 1907, although 

 the completion of the dam will require 

 a much longer time. The dam will be 

 284 feet high, 280 feet long at the 

 base and 700 feet long on top. It will 

 back the water up for 25 miles, form- 

 ing a lake with a capacity of 1,300,- 



000 acre-feet, or water sufficient to 

 cover that many acres one foot in 

 depth. The cement mill erected by 

 the Government has a capacity of 350 

 barrels a day and the saw mill thirty 

 miles up the canyon has cut about 3,- 

 000,000 feet B. M. of lumber for use 

 in the various structures. A power 

 canal, 18 miles long, with a drop of 

 220 feet, is furnishing power to oper- 

 ate the cement mill and for use in con- 

 structing the dam. 



When completed this project will 

 reclaim more than 200,000 acres of 

 desert land. 



The Secretary of the In- 

 Work Moves terior lias awa rded con- 

 Rapidly tract to the p acific p ort . 



land Cement Company for supplying 

 27,000 barrels, more or less, of Port- 

 land cement for the Tieton and Sun- 

 nyside irrigation projects, Washing- 

 ton. 



Four proposals were received for 

 furnishing this cement, but taking into 

 consideration the cost of transporta- 

 tion, that of the Pacific Portland Ce- 

 ment Company, Tolenas, California, 

 was the lowest. 



This marks the beginning of the 

 construction work on the Yakima pro- 

 ject, of which the Sunny side and Tie- 

 ton projects are independent units. 

 The Yakima irrigation system, as 

 planned by the Reclamation Service, 

 will ultimately be one of the largest 

 of the Government projects. 



The nucleus of irrigation already es- 

 tablished in this valley has shown that 

 in fertility of soil and climatic condi- 



