OCR Text |
Show 184 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER Each irrigated farm of eighty acres - Supports eight people in the project service area. Produces an average of $10,000 gross farm income each year. Provides an average market of $4,550 in retail sales. Contributes an average amount of $1,250 in federal taxes and comparable amounts in state, local and school taxes. Is an island of production stability in an area where de- pendence on normal rainfall brings inevitable drought disaster. Each year when the aspens on the mountains were turned to gold the happiest organization in the West gathered its members into the fold for a love feast. It was the National Reclamation Association, and this year of 1954 the faithful journeyed joyously to Portland, Oregon, where for each of them a rose was waiting. What usually occurred at the annual meeting of the association hardly made news in the strict sense. Most of the speeches were flowery accounts of the wonders of reclamation, and most of the resolutions called for more and better projects at any cost. The association would have liked to see a dam in every gully in the West, and a reservoir in any wash that would hold water. Prac- ticality was a subject taboo. Nothing was permitted to be said that the members did not like to hear, and the controlling forces of the association were the fanatical reclamationists who had no time for such dull matters as feasibility. Every project was feasible, and as Com- missioner Dexheimer said, "no project has ever been proposed that cannot be built with the engineering skills of today." 209 At the mention of costs the members' mouths became pinched, as if they were chewing green apples. For four days they praised each other, and they feasted and drank and danced, while the politicians and |