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Show DIXIE PROJECT, UTAH 65 Then the factory was closed, bringing an end to the Dixie cotton mission, a unique page in the colorful history of the American frontier. The greatest need of the modern West is for water to nourish an expanding population for our cities, for industry, for fruit orchards, and garden plots. Utah's Dixie never again will grow cotton, but we do need water for our growing population. The Dixie project- which I hope to see the 88th Congress authorize- will take a long step in putting the waters of the Virgin River Basin to maximum beneficial use. [ From the Congressional Record, Oct. 30, 1963] DIXIE PROJECT, UTAH Mr. Moss. Mr. President, few moments in my years in the U. S. Senate have given me greater satisfaction than this one. The bill before the Senate, which I introduced, and on which it was my privilege as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation to conduct hearings, authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to construct, operate, and maintain the Dixie reclamation project in Washington County, Utah. The Dixie project is relatively small as reclamation projects go. Multiple- purpose in conception, it will assure supplemental and full irrigation water supply to about 21,000 acres in the county, and will supply municipal and industrial water to the city of St. George, the county seat. It will also generate badly heeded hydroelectric energy, will tame downstream floods, and will establish attractive recreation areas. Its total cost will he about $ 45 million- most of which will be paid back to the Government, with interest- and it has been calculated that the benefits from the project will exceed the costs by a ratio of 2 to 1. These " vital statistics" may make it seem that the Dixie project is just like any other sound reclamation project- better perhaps than most because of its excellent benefits- to- cost ratio- but important mainly because its enactment will represent another transaction in the West's most important business- that of conserving and making the best possible use of precious and scarce water resources. But back of these dull- sounding statistics on Dixie lies one of the most dramatic episodes of the settlement of the West. The people of Utah's Dixie are no ordinary people. They are the descendants of some of the hardiest and most resourceful pioneers the West has ever known. Their forebears went into the southern Utah wilderness at the direction of Brigham Young, and under the most heartbreaking circumstances developed a half- dozen self- sufficient communities. Their story has become a legend celebrated in stories and verse. The Dixie Cotton Mission, as it was called, was established in the winter of 1854. The first settlement was on the banks of the Santa Clara, one of the streams which the Dixie project will now harness, and settlements then spread to the Virgin River, the larger of the two streams involved. By cooperative effort the pioneers built diversion structures on the two rivers, and irrigated the lush green river bottoms to grow cotton, figs, sugarcane, tobacco, and other tropical agricultural products. They even experimented in the cultivation of silkworms so they could make silk as well as cotton cloth. Their accomplishments were won against the greatest of odds. Again and again the diversion structures built with such sweat and toil on the Santa Clara and the Virgin were washed out, and again and again the carefully tilled farmlands were strewn with mud and boulders. Lesser souls would have been daunted, but the hardy people of this southwestern area of Utah stayed on to rebuild and build again. They suffered greatly from food shortages, sickness, disease, and other setbacks. After decades of effort, permanent diversion dams were finally constructed, and the silt laden waters of the two rivers brought under some restraint, but never oyer the whole long century since the cotton mission was founded have the waters of the Santa Clara and the Virgin Rivers been put to full and beneficial use. That is what my bill before us here today would do. It would- at long last- make it possible for this arid and colorful area to realize its full potential. The project has been needed for a hundred years, has been a dream for over 50, and an objective actively and fervently sought for 25. Hearings were held on it in St. George, and again in Washington, D. O. It was almost unanimously supported- by officials of the State of Utah, and by businessmen and farmers and citizens, and even schoolchildren of the area. And it came out of the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee by unanimous vote. |
