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Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS 19 project, a minimum uniform charge was assessed against all lands on this project that can actually be served with water. This mini-mum charge, fixed at 25 cents per acre, will be credited on the amounts due from those landowners actually using the water and, it is hoped, will have a tendency to eliminate the speculative fea-ture and induce more owners to farm their lands or dispose of them to others desiring to actually place the lands in a state of cultivation. With reference to the Blackfeet and Fort Peck Indian irrigation projects, the administration of which you also transferred from the Bureau of Reclamation to this bureau, their prospects are not very encouraging, and at this time there are comparatively few acres of either of them under cultivation, but every effort is being made to induce the Indians to cultivate their lands. Operations on all three projects transferred will receive close attention with a view to reaping practical returns from the investments involved, and it is hoped that definite progress can be reported a year hence. An act approved September 21, 1922, authorized the construction of a spillway and drainage ditch to lower the level of Lake Andes in the Yankton Reservation, S. Dak. This act did not authorize the acquiring of rights of way for use in connection with the project and performance of the work was held in abeyance until such authority was obtained. On May 20,1924, Congress authorized the use of part of the money appropriated for this purpose to acquire necessary rights of way across private lands by purchase or condemnation un-der judicial process. This work will be completed in the near future. An a propriation was made for payment of part of the expense assessabP e against the Indian lands to be included in.a drainage dis-trict organized in pursuance to the State laws of Wyoming for the drainage of Indian lands on the ceded portion of the Wind River Resemation and lands in private ownership adjacent thereto. The work will be pushed as rapidly as ossible and when the system is completed a considerable area of Inian lands now water-logged and unfit for cultivation will be made available for farming. Irrigable surveys of h e lands within both the Wind River project, in Wyo-ming, and the Crow project, in Montana, are bein made for the purpose of eliminating any areas that can not actua ly be economi-cally irrigated. 5 Work has been continued on the construction of the Wapato unit in the Yakima Reservation, Wash., and this roject, with the excep-tion of four generating units and pumping pfant is about completed. It is estimated that these units, for the generation of electricity to operate the umping plant, will cost $310,000, the pumping plant alone about 8260,000, and it is hoped to have this part of the work completed during the fiscal year 1926. When these units and pump-ing plant have been constructed and placed in operation the Wapato unit of the Yakima project thus completed will serve 120,000 acres of land. This undoubtedly is one of the hest irrigation projects on any of the Indian reservations and compares favorably with any other irrigation project in the West. The Indians on this reserva-tion have been allotted 80 acres of irrigable land, 40 acres of which have a free water right, and 40 acres supplied from storage reser- |