TFIE IRRIGATION AGE. 



365 



One question which 

 the citizens of Nebraska 

 have been asking them- 

 selves is why is the gov- 

 ernment not willing to let 

 the water go down the 

 river during the season of 

 the year when it will bene- 

 fit the people and not wait 

 until the crops have been 

 destroyed by the sun's 

 rays. 



Since 1910, with a 

 '.-apacity of only 142.500 

 acre-feet of water for its 

 own lands and less than 

 an additional 150,000 acre- 

 feet for use upon lands 

 where water was sold, the 



government has been storing each year from 700,000 

 to 1,000,000 acre-feet of water for which it had no 

 beneficial use and has stood by and watched more than 

 a million dollars' worth of crops burned up each year 

 lor want of water while the Nebraska State Board 

 of Irrigation was compelled to shut down the head 

 gates of the irrigators in Nebraska. 



In addition to this it is well known that when the 

 \\atiT is in the river there is not only an evaporation 

 for rain, but also a raising of the water table in the 

 valley adjacent to the river, so that the valley crops 

 can get moisture from subirrigation. When there is a 

 dry bed of sand one-half mile wide and 200 miles long, 

 the hot winds blow across the sand, cook the crops 

 and draw all of the moisture out of the ground, pre- 

 vent the few local showers that we do have from cross- 

 ing the river, and lower the water table in the adjacent 

 Lnd so that the crops dependent upon rain and sub- 

 irrigation are destroyed. 



The people are now up in arms along the river and 

 are demanding that the Reclamation officials at Wash- 

 ington cut out their red tape and solve the problems 

 of the Platte river watershed in some equitable man- 

 ner that will permit the conservation and beneficial use 

 of the large amount of water in the Pathfinder Res- 

 ervoir. 



Frederick H. Newell, the Director of the Re- 

 clamation Service, has in the judgment of our people 

 pursued a cold blooded policy of using the funds of 

 the Reclamation Service for the purpose of perpetuat- 

 ing the Service at the expense of and by the exploita- 

 tion of the people. 



From the investigation which I have made, the 

 general opinion of the people, not only in Nebraska, 

 but in all of the states where the Reclamation Service .is 

 operating, is that there are no red cprpuscles and no 

 red blood running in Mr. Newell's veins. We have 

 never been able to get a single concession from Mr. 

 Newell and have always been required to go beyond 

 him in order to get humanitarian methods applied. 



It is almost inconceivable, in this day and age, 

 that it can be be said the administration of our Federal 

 Government at Washington would tolerate a policy 

 which permits its officials because it has wrongfully 

 squeezed $4,000 out of a few ditch companies this 

 year for temporary water, at 30 cents per acre-foot, to 

 stand by and see a million dollars in crops burn up on 



ticking Fruit in a Utah Orchard. Courtesy of Ric Grande Railroad 



the s o-c ailed equitable 

 claim that it is not fair to 

 let all the people have 

 water when they have 

 squeezed a few pennies 

 from a part of the people. 

 This is Mr. Newell's pol- 

 icy and to the astonish- 

 ment of our people who 

 have always held Secre- 

 tary Lane in the very 

 highest esteem, it seems to 

 have the endorsement of 

 the secretary himself. 



Our congressman, M. 

 P. Kinkaid, introduced a 

 resolution in the Federal 

 Congress requiring the re- 

 lease of this water for the 



benefit of our people, and Secretary Lane by the 

 use of the powerful influence of the Interior Depart- 

 ment, according to the reports of Congressman Kin- 

 kaid to us, prevented the passage of the resolution. 

 Therefore Secretary Lane is morally responsible for 

 the cold-blooded, inequitable, unjust and illegal admin- 

 istration of the waters in the Pathfinder Reservoir. 

 On the very day that Mr. Lane by his influence 

 got the Congressional Committee to refuse relief, the 

 department, after we were without water for three 

 weeks and when it would take a couple of weeks 

 more to get the water to Kearney, ordered the re- 

 lease of an additional 1,000 second-feet of water. It 

 was estimated that this would keep the river flowing 

 and all of the ditches supplied. The red tape of the 

 department cost us a delay of three weeks to give the 

 federal officers time to send a man here to investigate 

 and get his reports to Washington and then it took 

 about two weeks, when the irrigation season was over, 

 before we got the water. This illustrates the methods 

 used at Washington by the Interior Department and 

 while the department got water to the power company 

 at Kearney, the crops of our irrigators are lost. The 

 sun kept up with its deadly work of burning the crops 

 while Newell and Lane and the Interior Department 

 were unwinding red tape and squeezing our people. 



Secretary Lane sent Mr. I. D. O'Donnell, the Su- 

 pervisor of Irrigation, to this territory and after I 

 had made a statement of the conditions, Mr. O'Don- 

 nell stated to our party that he believed that I was 

 eminently fair in my attitude for a permanent solution 

 of this problem. I took the position that the people 

 were willing to pay to the Government their equitable 

 share of the cost of the construction of this reservoir, 

 but they did not propose to be held up by the Govern- 

 ment officials and that while the Government was fur- 

 nishing a permanent solution of the problem, the Gov- 

 ernment ought to permit some of the surplus waters to 

 flow down the river so that the people who had con- 

 structed ditches to the river could have water for their 

 (Continued on Page 370) 



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