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Show plants in operation, with a total installed capacity of 3,294,000 kilowatts. Thirty-six new plants are under construction or authorized, which will add 3,136,650 kilowatts. During 1949 the Bureau plants produced nearly 18 billion kilo- watt-hours of electrical energy and paid a total of 31 million dollars into the United States Treasury. Extent of Irrigated Agriculture The 1944 census showed about 21 million acres of irrigated land in the United States, of which 19,434,000 acres were in the 17 Western States referred to in the Reclamation Act. The dis- tribution of these acres among the States is shown in the following table: TABLE 1.-Cropland and Irrigated acreage in 17 Western States, 1944 States Number of farms Cropland harvested Irrigated farms reporting Irrigated acreage Arizona______ . 13,142 138,917 47,618 41,498 141,192 37,747 HI, 756 3,429 29,695 73,962 164,790 63,125 68,705 26,322 79,887 13,076 384,977 Thousands of acres 652 7,536 6,035 3,442 22,817 7,439 19,596 487 1,957 20,817 14,088 3,276 16,525 1,248 4,290 1,843 27,469 9,634 87,205 28,054 28,571 636 12,997 7,156 3,072 14,299 206 74 15,597 708 23,543 15,974 7,793 15,110 Thousands of acres 736 4,953 2,699 2,026 96 1,555 632 674 535 23 2 1,129 56 1,124 520 1,354 1,320 California.......... Colorado____....... Idaho......... Kansas Montana_____ ____ Nebraska____ ... Nevada_______ New Mexico.. ___ North Dakota______ Oklahoma___ Oregon______ South Dakota........ Utah............ Washington........ Wyoming____ _____ Texas............... Total____...... 1,439,838 159,517 270,629 19,434 gated and nonirrigated acres, or about one-sixth of the total farm acreage in the 17 Western States. Their 1940 value was placed at about 3 billion dollars. Their irrigated land alone exceeded by 35 percent the total farm land in New England. Irrigation Builds the West Had it not been for the big and little reclama- tion projects, the West as we know it today would not exist, for impounded water alone makes pos- sible not only agriculture, but the very life of the people in this vast semiarid region. The build- ing of regional and national economies, enhanc- ing social values and improving living conditions for people, is the primary if not the only reason for the investment of public funds in water re- sources projects. Careful estimates have been made by the Bu- reau of Reclamation of the Federal individual income taxes paid from the project areas of seven selected, mature reclamation projects, whose combined construction costs through March 1949 totaled about 168 million dollars. The results are shown in the following table: TABLE 2.-Total individual income tax revenues from 7 Federal reclamation projects Source: U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1945 Census of Agriculture, vol. II. Project area 1949 Total since 1916 Salt Eiver project area, Arizona............... Yuma project area, Arizona-California......... Boise project area, Idaho...................... Yakima project area, Washington............. Shoshone project, Wyoming............._____ Sun Eiver project area, Montana____________ Lower Yellowstone project area, Montana, North Dakota . __ $24,643,000 2,500,000 9,465,000 19,257,000 260,000 368,000 433,000 $164,229,000 17,242,000 66,568,000 136,480,000 2,629,000 2,917,000 3,887,000 Total.......................... 56,926,000 383,952,000 Source: Bureau of Reclamation. From these figures it is clear that irrigated agri- culture constitutes a fundamental factor in the economic life of the West. Actually, irrigated farms included not merely the 19 million irri- gated acres but a total of over 110 million irri- As will be seen from table 2, individual Fed- eral income tax revenues have already amounted to over twice the investment in these projects. These taxes in 1949 amounted to $52 per acre, and total taxes paid since 1916 to over $350 per 152 |