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Show 46 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER laws upon which all reclamation policies were founded. History, tradition, engineering and financial feasibility were to be brushed aside. The handbook of 1942 also said that soon after the Reclamation Service had been established and had begun to build projects it was realized that large amounts of electric power were needed to operate construction machinery. Readily available was a source of power: the water to be conserved. That was true, but it was not all of the truth. It was also realized that electric power was money. Probably no one since the beginning of power de- velopment in the West had ever mentioned it without getting into an argument. One of the oldest and bitterest fights in the history of the western economy involved the theories and policies of the opponents and proponents of public power development. It was no different in Congress when the question of hydro-electric power production on federal reclamation projects first came up for debate. The question was important. Where dams were con- structed to store water for irrigation, potential power existed. And in the West there was a steadily growing demand for energy. Congress moved to take advantage of the resources at hand, but Congress refused to intrude upon the basic concept of the reclamation laws. Con- gress made it plain that irrigation would remain the original and the chief purpose of the projects, and power would be a by-product. It was in 1906 tl»at Congress, according to the Recla- mation Bureau's handbook, "provided that whenever a power development was necessary for the irrigation of lands under a reclamation project, or an opportunity |
