60 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



NEWS NOTES FROM IRRIGATION PROJECTS 



OF THE COUNTRY 



Oregon 



The natural features of Oregon 

 its topography, climate, rivers, lakes 

 and swamps and the flow of its 

 streams are described in a report en- 

 titled "Surface Water Supply of Ore- 

 gon, 1878-1910," which has just been 

 issued by the United States Geological 

 Survey as Water-Supply Paper 370. 



The public service commission is 

 holding hearings on the complaint 

 filed against the Central Oregon Ir- 

 rigation Company by the Central Ore- 

 gon Water Users' Association. The 

 association alleges that the company 

 has entered into contracts with the 

 settlers to supply them with the nec- 

 essary water, and that its canals and 

 system are inadequate for this pur- 

 pose. As the project is the largest in 

 the state, and the hearing will pave 

 the way for exercising control by the 

 commission over similar projects, it 

 is regarded as one of the most impor- 

 tant ever held by the commission. 



The Desert Land Board has asked 

 the government for an extension of 

 time of the State's contract on the 

 Benham Falls Unit of the Central 

 Oregon Irrigation Company's project 

 in Crook county: 



Utilization of the waters of the 

 Similkameen river, a tributary of the 

 Okanogan, which in turn is an impor- 

 tant tributary of the Columbia river, 

 will reclaim 10,000 acres of fertile 

 land in Northern Okanogan county, 

 Washington. Construction work is 

 far advanced, being about 75 per cent 

 completed, with assurance of comple- 

 tion of the entire system before the 

 1916 irrigation season begins. 



This project, the largest of its kind 

 in Washington or Oregon, under ac- 

 tive construction at the present time, 

 is the West Okanogan Valley irriga- 

 tion district project, the headquarters 

 of which are at the town of Oroville 

 in Northern Okanogan county. The 

 lands embraced in the project form 

 a narrow strip on either side of the 

 Okanogan river and the Great North- 

 ern Railway's Wenatchee north 

 branch road, beginning at the inter- 

 national boundary line and extending 

 south to below Tonasket, about 20 

 miles. 



Arizona 



The International Gas Company 

 have received for E. K. Gumming, of 

 Nogales, to be installed on his coun- 

 try property, a centrifugal irrigating 

 pump and motor, direct connected, 

 which is the last call in irrigation 

 machinery. It has a pumping capac- 

 ity of 800 gallons per minute, and will 

 suffice to cover a large tract of land 

 with irrigation water. The appliance 

 is from the United Iron Works, in 

 Oakland, Cal. 



Casa Grande in January, arranged for 

 a reorganization, defined its boun- 

 daries to include 55,000 acres and 

 voted $20,000 in a bond issue to clear 

 its indebtness. The directors elected 

 for- 1916 are W. S. Prouty, J. F. 

 Brown, A. Peters, R. H. Mendenhall, 

 M. J. Reid, F. A. Hamilton, Prof. A. 

 V. Vinson, M. Bambesberger and 

 W. J. Schulze. The project to bring 

 together the two ends of the district 

 is well under way. The priority suits 

 must first be settled. 



"Arizona Irrigation Calendar for 

 1916," issued by the U. of A. Agricul- 

 tural Extension Service is a vest- 

 pocket calendar attractively printed, 

 containing a list of irrigation rules 

 prepared by Prof. G. E. P. Smith, 

 Irrigation Engineer of the U. of A. 

 Agricultural Experiment Station. A 

 copy of this publication will be sent 



New Mexico 



Incorporation papers have been 

 filed by the Llano Irrigation Com- 

 pany of Questa, Taos county. It is 

 a community affair capitalized at 

 $10,500. 



United States District Judge Wil- 

 liam H. Pope has appointed David 

 W. Low, receiver of the Berrendo 

 Irrigated Farms Company fixing his 

 bond at $10,000. 



The board of directors of the Pecos 

 Water Users' Association has closed 

 a deal whereby the association takes 

 over the entire business and good will 

 of the Farmers' Irrigated Land Com- 

 pany, of Kansas City, Mo. 



Utah 



The farmers of the Ephraim dis- 

 trict have expressed their willingness 

 to conclude a contract for the con- 

 struction of a tunnel through the 

 mountains east of Ephraim, together 

 with diverting works for the irriga- 

 tion of 4,086 acres of land. 



Residents of two counties are con- 

 tending for the purchase of 30,000 

 acre-feet of water from the state's 

 Piute reservoir, a delegation from 

 Millard county having entered the 

 lists before the state board of land 

 commissioners. No decision has yet 

 been reached. 



The Casa Grande Water Users' 

 Association at its annual meeting in 



Texas 



The officials of the reclamation of- 

 fice laid before the Elephant Butte 

 Water Users' meeting in January, 

 plans which they had prepared look- 

 ing to construction of the initial 

 drainage unit of the system in the 

 form of a canal to be run from the 

 Rio Grande at Fabens, a distance of 

 approximately three miles, parallel to 

 the tracks of the Southern Pacific 

 Railway. The water users passed a 



resolution authorizing and indorsing 

 the steps taken by the reclamation 

 office relative to drainage. The as- 

 sociation decided to send President 

 Felix Martinez, Richard F. Burges, at- 

 torney for the association, and J. A. 

 Happer to Washington, for the pur- 

 pose of representing the association 

 in matters of legislation, and pri- 

 marily with the view of getting cer- 

 tain reductions in the costs to be as- 

 sessed against the water users for 

 the Rio Grande project. 



The attorney general's office, an- 

 swering an inquiry of the Texas 

 Board of Water Engineers, holds that 

 the Irrigation Act makes the waters 

 of public streams the property of the 

 state, and that, therefore, the state 

 may forbid their waste. But suits for 

 this purpose, it is held, must be insti- 

 tuted by the attorney general and not 

 by the Board of Water Engineers, its 

 function in the premises being merely 

 to advise the attorney general. It is 

 further held that a water user is en- 

 titled to get from an irrigating com- 

 pany only such a quantity of water as 

 may be reasonably sufficient to ir- 

 rigate his land, even though this 

 quantity should be less than the quan- 

 tity stipulated in the contract. It is 

 held, in other words, that a contract 

 for the delivery of more water than 

 is necessary cannot be enforced. 

 The Board of Water Engineers is to 

 determine, in the first instance, what 

 this reasonably sufficient quantity is. 



John T. Beamer of Chicago and 

 associates who recently purchased the 

 irrigation system and a tract of 100,- 

 000 acres of land belonging to the 

 American, Rio Grande Land & Irri- 

 gation Company for $3,500,000 are 

 making improvements to the irriga- 

 tion plant at a cost of $250.000. It 

 is stated that the canal and ditch sys- 

 tem will also be greatly extended to 

 bring practically all of the big tract of 

 land under cultivation. The Ameri- 

 can, Rio Grande Land & Irrigation 

 Company was composed of St. Louis, 

 Mo., men and the irrigation system 

 which it constructed near there is said 

 to have been the largest privately 

 owned land reclamation and water 

 supply project in the United States at 

 the time it was built. Since then 

 it has been considerably extended. 

 The water is obtained from the Rio 

 Grande by means of gigantic pumps. 



F. H. Carson, a San Antonio en- 

 gineer, announce that work probably 

 would be resumed soon on the great 

 irrigation project at Rio Bravo, Mex- 

 ico, 55 miles west of Matamoros, 

 where a Mexican concern is prepar- 

 ing to irrigate about 80,000 acres of 

 land. The system was well on the 

 road to completion when the revolu- 

 tion stopped work two years ago. 

 Carson has just returned from a visit 

 to the plant, made for the purpose of 

 obtaining a report on its condition 



