OCR Text |
Show THE ALL-AMERICAN CANAL. 51 The distribution of the cost of the canal work to power and to irrigation and the apportionment of the power cost thereupon to the Yuma project and the participating interest of the Imperial Valley presents peculiar difficulties. But if the broad principle be adopted of sharing the profits on the basis of capital invested by each party and the apportionment of cost is made on any fairly approximate but definite basis, full justice will be done to each. The ultimate condition may, therefore, be taken into account to determine the apportionment of construction cost and of profits from power sales, regardless of what might otherwise be agreed upon for temporary or incomplete power installations. If it should then happen that either the Yuma project or the Imperial Valley fails to make actual contribution at the proper time of the full expected amount, then, temporarily, the other party, having contributed a larger share of capital, would, until this disproportion is adjusted, be entitled to a correspondingly larger share of profit. The plans of the United States Reclamation Service for the Yuma project include a power development proposition. The Yuma Canal is to be enlarged to carry 4,000 second-feet in excess of the water required for irrigation, and this water is to be carried by canal a distance of about 5 miles beyond the siphon drop to some convenient point, as already stated, near Araz, a mile above Pilot Knob, where it would be dropped through a power house back into the river. It is expected that the fall which can there be made available at the height of the irrigating season would be about 23 feet. The board is informed that at such a power house to meet the requirements of the Yuma project alone there would have to be installed a plant for the utilization of about 8,500 water horsepower. These amounts of water and of gross water power may be accepted as representing the limit of the Yuma project's participation in any power development that may be found feasible on the all-American canal. If there were no cooperation between the Yuma project and the Imperial Valley, the former would at the proper time have to make alterations at the Laguna Dam and to convey at its own expense about 4,000 second-feet of water to the vicinity of Araz, as above explained. A like expenditure would be incurred by the Imperial Valley if it should proceed unaided on its own account to make this amount of water diverted at Laguna Dam available at th& same place for an all-American canal. In both cases the water would have been subjected to similar treatment in the matter of silt removal. In the one case it would be available for power, in the other, after the completion of the high-line canal, for irrigation, without any drop near Pilot Knob. During the time, however, that water is dropped into the present Imperial Canal the water used |
Source |
Original book: [State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Coachella Valley County Water District, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, California, City of San Diego, California, and County of San Diego, California, defendants, United States of America, State of Nevada, State of New Mexico, State of Utah, interveners] : California exhibits. |