National Forests and the Intermountain Region 



15 



ance of water power derived from never-failing streams emerging 

 from the canyons. Utah alone has 61 power plants driven by water 

 power, and the development of this resource has scarcely begun. 

 Within the intermountain region it has been estimated that from 

 2,750,000 to 5,250,000 horsepower may be developed. Of this amount 

 approximately half is located within the national forests and the 

 remainder upon the larger rivers which have their origin in the 

 high mountain lands covered by the same forests. 



DEPENDENCE ON FOREST COVER 



Like irrigation projects, hydroelectrical development is greatly 

 hampered, if not impossible, on mud-laden, rock-carrying streams, 

 subject to floods every spring and after the summer thunderstorms 

 that break the periods of low water and drought. Rivers, like the 

 Snake, Bear, and others that drain large areas are, of course, not 

 so subject to difficulties of this kind as are the small streams run- 





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Fig. 6. — Municipal power plant in Logan Canyon, Cache National Forest, Utah 



ning in short, steep, canyons, where a single fire or local overgraz- 

 ing may so destroy watershed values that economical hydroelectric 

 power production becomes problematical. 



In a single storm in 1923 which brought floods down both Wil- 

 lard and Farmington Canyons, the two small power plants at these 

 points were put out of commission by the rush of bowlders and 

 rocks borne along on the face of the floods. At Ephraim, Utah, ar- 

 rangements have been made so that in the spring, when the main 

 creek is muddy and full of sand and rocks, the power plant can use 

 clearer water from streams rising in well-vegetated brush lands. 

 Not until the summer comes on and these streams begin to dwindle 

 does this power plant use the water from the main creek. During 

 high water the dirty, sandy waters of the main creek wear out 

 bearings and water wheels much more rapidly than do the streams 

 of clear water from the well-protected watersheds. 



Devastation of the mountains would put a damper on the hydro- 

 electric development of the intermountain region. Even moderate 



