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Show 94 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER that great losses of water through evaporation would be suffered if the dam were not constructed in the narrow canyon of Dinosaur. "I am wondering," he said,121 "if we may not be straining at a gnat and swallowing a dinosaur. "A Colorado Agricultural and Mechanical College bulletin lists a seepage loss of water between diversion point and point of delivery to farms in the seven Colo- rado Basin states at 22,927,000 acre-feet annually. "You might be interested in the breakdown of that figure: "Wyoming, 4,100,000 acre-feet, or 67 percent of the water diverted; Arizona, 3,200,000 acre-feet, or 60 per- cent of the water diverted; New Mexico, 1,566,000 acre- feet, or 55 percent; California, 11,430,000 acre-feet, or 46 percent; Utah, 733,000 acre-feet, or 20 percent; Nevada, 508,000 acre-feet, or 19 percent; Colorado, 1,590,000 acre-feet, or 17 percent. "A Bureau of Reclamation pamphlet states that in 1949 of 15,650,000 acre-feet diverted into unlined canals and laterals on 46 Bureau of Reclamation pro- jects, 3,900,000 acre-feet, or 25 percent was lost through seepage before reaching the farmers' fields. "Recently the president of Utah Aggies stated that of four million acre-feet diverted in Utah, only half reaches the farmers. "To illustrate further: "A California agricultural station bulletin reports an average irrigation efficiency of only 51 percent. "A bulletin out of Logan, Utah, reports irrigation efficiencies ranging from 24 to 51 percent with an aver- age of 40 percent." No conservationist would take more punishment from |