12 



THE IKRIGATION AGE. 



provide ultimately 250,000 eighty-acre farms, each capable 

 of sustaining in generous comfort a family. It remains 

 only for wise forethought and legislative and adminis- 

 trative ability to make possible such a splendid drama of 

 progress and home-building as will be comparable only 

 with what has been accomplished in a lesser measure in 

 the Snake river valley of Idaho and the Salt river valley 

 of Arizona. That the state and Federal agencies 

 which, owing to the "divided control" over land and 

 water are both intimately concerned in this matter, are not 

 derelict in their responsibility towards the future is evi- 

 denced by the "development program" just enacted and 

 by the terms of the "co-operative agreement" executed 

 on May 5, 1913, by the state authorities and Secretary 

 Lane of the Federal Department of the Interior. 



Aside from the measure referred to, for the rehabilita- 

 tion of the Columbia Southern project, the new policies 

 embrace: (1) Legislative appropriation of the sum of 

 $15,000 for the preparation of plans, specifications and 

 estimates of cost for 536,000 horsepower development on 

 the Columbia river near The Dalles, on the Oregon side, 

 co-operation with the state of Washington and the United 

 States being authorized in the execution of this and future 

 work. The data procured through these means is to be 

 made available for the use of private capital upon reim- 

 bursal of the amount spent in investigation, or for the 

 use of the state, should it be deemed expedient for it to 

 engage in construction work directly or should capital 

 prove reluctant. (2) Submission to a vote of the people 

 in November, 1914, of a constitutional amendment author, 

 izing the issuance of state bonds for the construction of 

 irrigation and power projects and for developing the cut- 

 over timber lands, the money advanced to be repaid over 

 a long term of years, and to constitute a lien upon the 

 lands. (3) The state made a party to all water-rights 

 litigation before the Water Board. (4) Provision for de- 

 claring forfeited and abandoned all waters for non-use 

 during a period of five years or more. (5) Appropriation 

 of $10,000 annually for the work of the Water Board, in 

 addition to a standing appropriation of like amount. 



No change was made in the regular appropriation 

 of $25,000 for topographic and hydrographic work. Under 

 the co-operative agreements heretofore existing between 

 the United States Geological Survey and a large number 

 of states, both east and west, the Federal agencies con- 

 tribute dollar for dollar of this sum. This last-named 

 work has heretofore marked the limits of co-operation be- 

 tween the Department of the Interior and the western 

 states, but the present program has extended the limits 

 of this work much further, State and Federal govern- 

 ments under their agreement each appropriating the sum 

 of $50,000 "for the joint investigation or irrigation and 

 power projects." This is to be regarded as being as im- 

 portant a step as the adoption of the original "Reclamation 

 Act," as it will result in vastly increasing the scope and 

 efficiency of this measure. 



The extent to which efforts under the Carey Act, un- 

 der "irrigation districts" and by private capital, have thus 

 far failed of their purpose is rapidly fostering the convic- 

 tion that if the work of reclamation is to proceed upon a 

 future stable basis and with a minimum of mistakes the 

 measure of state and national control over these projects 

 must needs be greatly augmented. Oregon, as well as the 

 Federal government, it appears, has absorbed the lessons 

 taught by ten years of struggle and experiment in whole- 

 sale reclamation and is preparing to inaugurate a new 

 condition with the mistakes of the past to guide it. With 

 the sole exception of Utah (through the operations of its 

 "Reservoir Land Grant") and of spasmodic eforts in two 

 other states, Oregon, in the radical departure of providing 

 funds for direct construction of irrigation or power proj- 

 ects, is the first of the western states to embark upon a 

 policy of self-executed effort, and the pioneer in the field 

 of widened co-operation with the reclamation forces of 

 the national government. That the idea of co-operation, 

 however, is taking root is evidenced by the recent recom- 

 mendations of S. G. Hopkins, State Land Commissioner of 

 Wyoming, by the agitation for its adoption among prop- 

 erty owners in the Sacramento valley of California and by 

 the attitude of the new administration of the Department 

 of the Interior evidenced by calling into conference at 

 Washington last May the water users under Federal proj- 

 ects, for a free discussion of their problems. Justification 

 for the new plan of co-operation with its suggested bene- 



fits is readily to be found in the complexities involving 

 many large schemes of reclamation. The diversity of 

 ownership of land, of control of water, and of rights to its 

 use, ownership of power sites, and control of rights of 

 way over public lands by the Federal government, all tend 

 to complicate the situation, at best beset with natural 

 difficulties. A unique and favorable factor in the case of 

 Oregon, however, exists in the fact that most of the power 

 sites are still upon Federal domain, that the waters needed 

 are still largely unappropriated, and that a great area of 

 the land to be benefited is of a public character, the situa- 

 tion, therefore, being such as to lend itself readily to state 

 and Federal control and to that extent offering a fair 

 field. By the direct participation of the United States 

 Reclamation Service there will be rendered available the 

 services of an organization already perfectly equipped, fa- 

 miliar with varying conditions, and with a record of suc- 

 cess. Cooperation with such an agency will eliminate at 

 the outset the mistakes almost inseparable from a new 

 department dealing with technical and complicated sub- 

 jects. It will permit the execution of far-reaching plans 

 regardless of political changes and operate, perhaps, to 

 prevent many useless appropriations. 



As stated the work under the "joint agreement" will 

 at the outset, at least, be confined to investigations in the 

 Deschutes Basin "to ascertain the feasibility of irrigation 

 projects," etc., "to determine ways and means whereby 

 the public waters, lakes and reservoir sites, state and 

 public lands may be used, reserved, or disposed of in con- 

 nection with such projects to the highest public advantage, 

 also to determine what power may be developed inci- 

 dentally to the construction of such projects and the value 

 and possible use thereof." 



The Secretary of the Interior is bound "to prevent the 

 attachment of all right to public lands which would inter- 

 fere with the development of the project," while the State 

 Engineer is "to withdraw and withhold from appropria- 

 tion all necessary unappropriated waters." When the 

 investigation is completed its results are to be submitted 

 as a report "with appropriate recommendations as to 

 further policies to be adopted by state and nation for the 

 reclamation and development of the areas investigated." 



IRRIGATION PROJECT FOR SOUTH DAKOTA. 



Within a short time the report on the preliminary 

 work on the next big irrigation project for South Dakota, 

 will be out, showing the practicability of irrigating 60,000 

 acres of Cheyenne river valley lands in Fall River county. 

 The work so far as carried out shows that this project can 

 be put in at a much less cost than was the Belle Fourche 

 project, and will spread water over a large acreage of 

 land, reducing the cost per acre on the land to be bene- 

 fited. The proposition is for a stone and concrete dam 

 150 feet high, and at the place selected for this part of 

 the project, the dam would need be but 980 feet long 

 which would hold a water supply up to 165,000 acre feet 

 per year. This is in strong contrast to the big Belle 

 Fourche dam which is a mile and a half in length, and 

 which impounds but little more water than would the 

 much smaller dam on the southern fork of the Cheyenne. 

 The appropriation of the state for the carrying on of 

 preliminary work has been exhausted before the survey 

 had been completed and business men of Fall River 

 county donated $1,000 to the work to get it carried 

 through this fall, and in shape to present the matter in 

 the coming congress for consideration, and the attempted 

 preliminary steps toward making the project a reality. 



The new $6,000,000 dam at Bassano, Alberta, will be 

 opened soon, according to official announcement coming 

 from the Canadian Pacific railway in regard to the proj- 

 ect of checking the Bow river, western Canada. 



By the system of irrigation which the opening of the 

 dam inaugurates, 1,000,000 more acres of land will be 

 opened up and the settlers will be insured against all 

 possibilities of a dry season, says the Star. At present 

 8,000 acres of the territory affected belongs to the estate 

 of the late Duke of Sutherland. 



Send $1.00 for 1 year's subscription to the IRRIGA- 

 TION AGE and bound copy of THE PRIMER OF IRRIGA- 

 TION. If you desire a copy of The Primer of Hy- 

 draulics add $2.50 to above price. 



