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Show ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF WATER DEVELOPMENT 11 " To substitute lake water for mountain water to irrigate these lands appears the least expensive and most practical means of securing the mountain water for city use and is certainly the most desirable . . . " The exchange of lake for mountain water would be a mutual benefit, inasmuch as the growth of the city is essential to the prosperity of the farmer, and the farmer is equally as necessary to the growth of the city." This is more than ordinarily interesting, not only because it is the first clear- cut expression of the exchange idea on the large scale afterwards carried out, but also because it recognizes the interdependence of the municipality and the adjacent farming and suburban territory. It is a striking fact that the action repudiated by Mr. Doremus as contrary to the municipal interest again was proposed and rejected some forty years later. At the time of the Metropolitan Water District election in 1935 it was proposed as an alternative to the " Deer Creek" Project that the City buy up all of the waters remaining still used by farming interests to the southeast of the valley and thus, as Mr. Doremus put it, " degrade" them to arid wastes. FIRST SUGGESTION OF FEDERAL AID FOR UTAH LAKE IMPROVEMENT Still another report of peculiar relation to recent developments is that of J. M. Harvey, " Water Master," also made during 1892: " I recommend that Congress be asked to appropriate $ 100,000 for the improvement of Utah Lake as a storage reservoir, but if Congress will not grant the amount, I do most earnestly recommend the different canal companies unite" to this end. Here, though the plan in mind was somewhat different, we have the germ of the idea which, also about forty years later, became that of the Utah Lake Division of the Provo River Project of the United States Bureau of Reclamation. BIG COTTONWOOD CONDUIT AND FIRST BIG COTTONWOOD EXCHANGE AGREEMENTS The Big Cottonwood conduit, proposed by the City Engineer in 1892, was commenced during 1904 and was completed in 1905 with a capacity of 62 cubic feet per second, and during those years there were also completed four Exchange Agreements between the city anoV various ditches diverting water from Big Cottonwood Creek; part of the - Hill Ditch and the Big Ditch in 1904, the Lower Canal and the remainder of the Hill Ditch in 1905. These exchanges were eminently fair and satisfactory to the city and have continued to be so. By them it acquired the right to approximately 50 per cent of the primary flow of Big Cottonwood Creek. It gave to the former owners very little more than it received of mountain water during the irrigation season and during the remainder of the year it gave nothing at all except a small amount for culinary use largely supplied from return flow and seepage. |