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Show RECLAMATION OK THE ARID LANDS Roil lor their si/e and the almost startling effect they have had upon the growth of the states: Salt River and Roosevelt Dam in Arizona, Uncoinpahgre in Colorado, Mini-doka in Idaho, Milk River in North Dakota, North Platte in Wyoming and Nebraska, Truckee-Carson in Nevada, Hondo in New Mexico, Williston in North Dakota, Klamath in Oregon and California, Belle Fourche in South Dakota, Okanogan in Washington, and Shoshone in Wyoming.'14 Some $39 million had been allotted to these undertakings, but their total cost was eventually to run into hundreds of millions of dollars. They were to make possible the irrigation of nearly 2i/2 million acres alter many years.tir> On some of these projects, like that on the Salt River, private entrepreneurs had previously built canals and low diversion dams and other works which the government had to take over at considerable cost, though they might not be useful in the enlarged plan. The main dam on the Salt River, Roosevelt Dam, as it was later called, was to be 220 feet high, 723 feet long, and to impound 1,382,000 acre-feet of water. Before much headway had been made, an earlier diversion dam was washed out, inflicting great damage on farmers below, and at the site of Roosevelt Dam all temporary dams and flumes and considerable machinery were destroyed by an unanticipated flood. The privately built canals the government took over were in poor condition and long neglected. Defects in design had permitted 64 These early projects were bold undertakings: Arrowrock Dam in the Minidoka-Snake River development, 350 feet high; Elephant Butte on the Rio Grande, 301 feet high to store 2,207,000 acre-feet of water; Shoshone Dam in Wyoming (later Buffalo Bill), 325 feet high; and Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River in Arizona, 220 feet high to store 1,382,000 acre-feet of water. Lampen, Economic and Social Aspects of Federal Reclamation, pp. 54-55. 65 Reclamation Service, Fifth Annual Report, 190(>, pp. 43-45. much silting and Johnson grass, sour clover, and various noxious weeds had intruded into the canal, and had to be destroyed at considerable expense.'1'' On the Pecos River in New Mexico private developers had proceeded without due regard to the formation of the rock-base on which piers were built. Careless methods of construction in building a canal resulted in heavy percolation losses, the washing out of the pier and the cracking of the conduit, and improper flow of the water. Private planning was bad enough but when the government compounded some of the errors, as in the Pecos project, the results were ludicrously bad.''7 Initiation of Federal Hydro-Electric Power It is striking that as late as 1902, and even later, those who promoted Federal reclamation seemed to have had no definite plans for using the dams and falls in canals for generating electric power, ft may be said that the Reclamation Service backed into the use of power at dam sites to carry part of the cost of developing the projects. Nothing was said in the New-lands Act or preceding its adoption about the generation of power for sale, though there was discussion about power to pump water from underground sources. One of the first uses of power was in connection with the construction of the Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River where much energy was needed for making cement and carrying it to the dam site. Water power having thus been used to generate electricity for construction work, there seemed little sense in not continuing and in fact enlarging upon the opportunity the high dam provided. Long before the dam was completed Director Newell was exploring the possibility of generating power for pumping water to irrigate land not reached by grav- 68 Seventh Annual Report, 1908, pp. 53-54. 67 Fifth Annual Report, 19()fi, pp. 90 ff., 209 ff. |