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Show 48 DIXIE PROJECT, UTAH the United States and their Government will never regret any money that's spent on the Dixie proj ect. Thank you. Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Mr. Foremaster. Mr. Ray Smutz, secretary of the Virgin River Distribution. STATEMENT OF EAY SMUTZ, SECRETARY OF THE VIRGIN RIVER DISTRIBUTION Mr. SMUTZ. Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee and State officials, I speak as a farmer who would draw supplemental water under this project. By nature agriculture is pretty hazardous under modern economic conditions even when all of the natural resources are present, but when water is absent it is doubly difficult. I'm sure that you recognize, as do all of the rest of us, the advantages and the desirability of rural living and the kind of people who come from rural areas. The Department of Agriculture is very much concerned with it, and there is rural area development programing, and they spend considerable money promoting this. This is an opportunity to establish a great deal of rural area development in one project, and it will all be reimbursed. May I further say one comment in regard to the saline water condition that has been mentioned earlier. We have been using that saline water ever since we have been irrigating here and we are still in business, and there have been times during the low water season when it has constituted 25 to 30 percent of our total supply. Thank you. Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Mr. Smutz. Mr. Wayne Wilson, Washington County Commission. STATEMENT OF WAYNE WILSON, WASHINGTON COUNTY COMMISSION Mr. WILSON. Mr. Chairman Rogers, Governor Clyde,, and delegation, I don't know whether pecans are surplus or not. I hope they are not, but along with Mr. Squires' peaches and almonds, I brought a new crop to show you some of the things that we have here, and there's a sack of pecans for you people to have and enjoy while you are staying here. Just a statement relative to> some of the conditions that happen to us here in Washington County, because we are unable to have water sufficient for our crops. There's plenty of water, but it is the regulation of it. This year on our irrigation system we were* cut to one- half stream at one- half time. We had planted and prepared for a full water supply. After that full water supply was diminished to a half time and half stream, you know what happened to the rest of our crops. I've been mainly interested and been growing fruit most of my life. A lot of times when the water supply would get low we would get inch and a quarter peaches which would bring us a dollar. If we could have got 2^ inches, we could have gotten $ 2%; where there would have been a little profit. One extra turn of water on that crop would have made the difference, with a dam like that which has been proposed. That difference will come to us in our fruit growing. The amount of imports that we make of grain into Washington: County with the part that we are now irrigating and working with,, with the other coming in, we will import many more hundreds of tons of outside grain to supplement us for what we need for the area |
