OCR Text |
Show f)80 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT have been omitted, and the suspension of all construction and operation and management costs on 185,460 acres which had become water-logged and saturated with alkali, leaving the soil porous, infertile, rough, unproductive, and subject to blowing or erosion. These recommendations became part of the Adjustment Act of May 25, 1926.13s By relieving the poorer land of heavy obligations, reducing the total construction costs of most of the projects and the per acre charges for both construction and operation and management, and by granting additional relief to the most distressed of the water users, whose payments were extended, Congress went far in rehabilitating the financial conditions of the projects, in addition, the Bureau of Reclamation encouraged water users to organize irrigation districts or cooperative associations to take over the management and collections from the government. This was the goal which it was hoped all projects would ultimately reach. From the outset of his appointment as Commissioner, Mead showed a concern not only for improving and making more successful the projects already underway or completed but an eagerness to develop new ones. Above almost anything else this was what the arid states wanted. In the midst of the bad years when reclamation farmers were falling despondently into arrears, when farms were being abandoned and producers were having difficulty in marketing some of their crops, Mead and Secretary Work proposed six new projects with estimated costs of $50 million: one in Oregon (which felt it had not been generously treated in the past), a second partly in Oregon and partly in Idaho, one in Utah, and three which would enlarge and perhaps make more feasible existing projects, either public or private. The Act of December 5, 1924, had declared that no new projects should be adopted without the most careful investigation of soil, drainage, topography, engineering, costs, and economic feasibility and Mead and Work made sure that all needed investigations were carried out. Possibly they did not give sufficient attention to the problem of recruiting settlers; there were still many vacant farm sites on existing projects which were not carrying their share of costs, to the annoyance of all administrators. Mead conceded that the costs of clearing desert plants and leveling and seeding the land on the proposed Powder River project would be from $25 to $40 an acre which, in addition to other costs, would be impossible for prospective settlers to meet and consequently he suggested that this work should be done by the Bureau. Furthermore, he recommended that "some advances" be made to get the settlers well under way. This was the farthest proposal yet made to draw settlers to the reclamation projects and if it had been noted by eastern critics would surely have stirred up a hornet's nest in Congress. On these new projects officials would be up against the same problem that had created so much difficulty in the past; the bulk of the land to be irrigated was privately owned, 348,000 acres as against 54,000 acres of public lands.136 All six of the projects were adopted, though their final costs were to be far larger than the original estimates, as was commonly the experience. Retrospectively, one may add that the proportion of repayment of construction costs 42 years later has been very small, insofar as the projects can be distinguished from larger ones, of which they were a part. Mead was carrying 135 44 Stat., Part 1, p. 636. 136 Twenty Third Annual Report, 1924, pp. 8-24. Mead recommended the abandonment of two of the early projects in New Mexico and North Dakota and the sale of the improvements and might well have written off another in Kansas. |