OCR Text |
Show Record I am acquainted with Mr. Raplee who testified here yesterday.\ He is one of the substantial citizens of Bluff and we think a great deal of him. The changed conditions on the river since my arrival there were caused by the establishment of the numerous trails leading down to the river and the cutting of the timber on the water sheds. Those and other causes contibuted to the flood conditions that have at times existed on the river. Any timber that is cut out between Dolores and Arboles on the San Juan River contributes to our early floods and our late floods as well, because there is no under- brush; there is no blanket of leaves left on the mountain side where it used to be a solid mat for a foot deep; the tops of the trees after the logs had been cut in the timber had been piled 650 and burned. It is now a dry smooth mountain side where it used to be a forest with under- brush, pines, thistles and burs that would hold the water back when it came. The forests have been cut in the places mentioned for a very large area. It is a distance there of 50 miles long and I do not know how many wide. The mountain timbers as well as the flat timbers have been cut out, that is the big yellow pines and blackjacks covering the flats at the base of the mountains all through that country clear over to Dolores and between there and Mancos. Mancos is a drain of the San Juan drainboard. There were great forests in there for miles. The saw mills took out all, cleaned it up on the advent of the D. & R. G. Railroad in there for years after we went in. I saw a great many of those forests before they were cut and I have seen the places where they had been. When I first went in there the first saw mills were working and the handiest, nicest timber of 651 the flats was the first that fell. The heaviest cuts of the low timber was mostly before 1896, or 30 years ago. I know that big 652 mills have been operating in there for the last 30 years. Since the timber was cut down my observation has been that the water in the river flows off quicker. That would also be true in a flood 653 due to a cloud- burst, as well as to the melting of the snow. |