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

page A52

A52 APPENDIX 2 06 areas. It is planned that the water would finally reach Centennial Wash. The south and southwesterly branch would pass between the S. H. Mountains and the Little Horn Mountains to the Palomas Plain, from which point it would be on the Gila watershed and would be conveyed to other lands on the Gila. These several branches would bifurcate, carrying water to different valleys, some of which contemplate considerable pumping lifts. The acreage under this possible system is impossible to state, as up to the present time it is nothing more than the roughest kind of a guess, and one upon which no figures can be given. There are not sufficient data at hand to make an estimate as to the cost of constructing such a large canal. The Arizona engineering commission is at the present time trying to ascertain the elevation of certain controlling points, and it is hoped that in the near future the commission will be able to give some idea as to the practicability or impracticability of conducting any further investigations as to the merits or demerits of such a scheme. Question 12. It has been said that the Arizona High Line Canal project is just as feasible as the Columbia River Basin gravity project recently approved by Gen. George W. Goethals. Please compare the main features of these two projects. Answer 12. As far as this office is advised no surveys or detailed estimates are available from which any statement of the construction quantities or costs involved in the main features of the Arizona High Line Canal can be even approximated. No comparison is therefore now possible. Question 13. In his report on the Columbia River Basin project, General Goethals discusses a pumping plan which contemplates building a dam 285 feet high across the Columbia River near the head of the Grand Coulee and using the energy thus stored to operate 17 pumps, each with a capacity of 1,000 second-feet, which will raise the water ^50 feet to an artificial lake, whence the water flows by gravity to the basin area, where 1,403,000 acres may be irrigated. The total estimated cost of this pumping project is $241,487,285, or $172 per acre, and the annual operating cost is estimated at $1.56 per acre. It has occurred to me that, as an alternative to the upper and more expensive part of the Arizona High Line Canal plan, consideration might be given to a pumping project, the essential features of which would be as follows: A. Utilize the power site about 5 miles above Parker, for which application has been made by Beckman and Linden, by constructing a dam about 75 feet high for the generation of hydroelectric energy. If this dam will not provide enough power, after the flow of the Colorado River is regulated, then supplement the same by power developed in the Grand Canyon. B. Raise the water about 900 feet by pumping from the Colorado River through a conduit or conduits about 15 miles long up the Osborne Wash to the level of the proposed Arizona High Line Canal, from whence it would flow by gravity as proposed in the original scheme. I shall be pleased to receive your comments on this idea.