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Show 59 Garrison also reported that there were twenty- one completed drainage systems in place by 1923.10 His predecessor, R. E. Caldwell, in the " Thirteenth Biennial Report", had also commented on the drainage districts that had been organized shortly after passage of the 1913 and 1915 drainage district laws. There were, according to Caldwell, a total of thirty- two drainage districts by 1921.11 Irrigation Districts In response to the growing need to finance large irrigation and reclamation projects, the Utah State Legislature passed an irrigation district law in 1909. Under its terms, organized groups of water users had the authority to tax land and issue bonds. 12 In 1911, the law was amended to allow districts to enlarge existing canals by using district resources or bonding privileges. 13 The law was further amended in 1913, when the governor was given the right to call for the process of organization to begin. 14 In 1917 the law was changed once again in response to the needs of the Reclamation Service. 15 This simplified the process of organization and allowed districts to be established by fewer people than had previously been required. The 1917 amendments also extended the repayment period on district bonds from twenty to forty years. 16 The legislature, in 1919, further revised the district law to allow districts to rent or lease water to landowners not included in a given district. The 1919 law also allowed land to be added to or withdrawn from the districts in later years, according to the needs of landowners and district members. 17 These successive irrigation district laws were somewhat patterned after California's Wright District Law. They represented a change in the attitude of the law makers of the state toward irrigation districts. Early irrigation districts ( beginning with the 1865 measure) had very limited abilities to tax or assess their members. In these early districts, the only recourse in the event of non- payment was to withhold water deliveries. Early usage of irrigation districts had been very limited and few remained in use at the time of statehood. 18 10ibid. " State of Utah, " Thirteenth Biennial Report of the State Engineer to the Governor of the State of Utah for the Years 1921 and 1922," Public Documents, pp 43- 47. 12State of Utah, Laws of the State of Utah ( 1909), Chapter 74, pp 144- 168. 13State of Utah, Laws of the State of Utah Passed at the Ninth Regular Session of the Legislature of the State of Utah which Convened at the State Capital, Salt Lake City, January 9th, 1911 and Adjourned March 9th, 1911 ( Salt Lake City, Utah: Skelton Publishing Company, 1911), Chapter 53, pp 70- 75. 14State of Utah, Laws of the State of Utah ( 1913), Chapter 101, pp 194- 199. 15The name of the United States Reclamation Service was changed to the Bureau of Reclamation in 1922. 16State of Utah, Laws of the State of Utah ( 1917), Chapter 33, pp 77- 101. 17State of Utah, Laws of the State of Utah Passed at the Thirteenth Regular Session of the Legislature of the State of Utah which Convened at the Capital in the City of Salt Lake, January 13th, 1919 and Adjourned Sine Die on the 13th Day of March 1919 ( Salt Lake: Press of the Gardiner Company, 1919), Chapter 10, pp 15- 19. 18George Thomas Institutions Under Irrigation ( New York: The Macmillan Company, 1920), pp 264- 273, 126- 128,275- 285. These pages contain an excellent summary of drainage and district laws of this period. |
