AZ vs. CA:24 California Exhibits, Vol. XXIV; Miscellaneous

page 20

20 PROBLEMS OF IMPERIAL, VALLEY AND VICINITY. Considering the population and industrial importance of the Pacific coast region, this market is the largest of all the prospective markets, and neither development could at present be justified financially without it. The advantage in transmission distance of 260 miles is of course decisive. In fact, the transmission of so much power a distance of 560 miles, though physically possible, can hardly be considered to-day commercially feasible under the conditions surrounding this problem. It would be hard to find a pdwer site in the United States more remote from adequate markets than the Glen Canyon site, and nearly all its markets are or can be more cheaply served from nearer points. These facts are so obvious that some of the proponents»of Glen Canyon reservoir tacitly admit its present unavailability as a power site and extol its virtues as a regulator for power sites to be developed below. The best located of these is that at Boulder Canyon, which, as we have seen, can be made to furnish its own regulation, so that two such great undertakings are at presenLnnnecessary, and are in fact financially at present not only very uneconomical but probably infeasible. In tne present state of development of the Southwest, the construction of a large reservoir at Glen Canyon under either plan would encumber the power development with such a heavy charge for construction and maintenance as to be a serious public misfortune; The disadvantages from an irrigation standpoint of locating a storage reservoir 650 miles by river from the point of diversion when a site is available at one-half the distance are readily appreciated. One of the great problems concerning the Colorado is that of silt. The Boulder Canyon dam as planned would store the silt for over three centuries, if all were caught and held, and for nearly a century before greatly impairing its water-storage function. It is hoped before that time that other developments above will so regulate the flow that not all of its storage capacity will be needed, but it will always be desirable to control the floods of the region between Boulder Canyon and Glen Canyon, and before the capacity of the Boulder Canyon is entirely destroyed the Glen Canyon regulator can be built to take its place. It will then be fresh and empty of silt and will last to as much later date as the age of the Boulder Canyon reservoir at that time and will, therefore, solve the silt problem for a period of two or three hundred years further into the future than if it is built first, and can, if desired, be employed as a sluicing agency for sluicing out the Boulder Canyon reservoir. If built first the Glen Canyon reservoir would immediately begin silting up and if sluiced in the future will discharge its sediment into the reservoir later provided below and thus require sluicing of the same sediment two or more times. This multiple sluicing will not be'possible without shutting down the storage and other functions of all the reservoirs below while they are being sluiced out. By the time silt deposits have begun to encroach upon the storage capacity of the Boulder Canyon reservoir sufficient power earnings will have accrued to amortize its cost, and the full height of the dam will still be available for the development of power. The engineers