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Show 60 Irrigation district legislation gave water users the ability to enter into contracts with the Board of Land Commissioners for loans. It also established an acceptable organization to enter into contracts with the Reclamation Service on future projects. The district legislation could be used whenever a financially secure repayment organization was needed to represent the water users as a group. This made the Utah State Conservation Commission's job of attracting federal dollars for joint water projects one of matching up interested parties and organizing the potential water users into districts. 19 These advances in the institutional arena were coupled with new ideas and initiatives dealing with the state's role in the development arena as well. Between 1906 and 1921, the Utah State Conservation Commission, the Board of Land Commissioners, and the Office of the State Engineer were involved in the planning and development process. Increased Development Activity The period after 1906 was a time of great water development effort. The largest and most spectacular undertaking was the Reclamation Service's Strawberry Project, which was launched in 1906 and completed in 1922.20 Underway at the same time was the Uintah Indian Irrigation Project in which the federal government's Bureau of Indian Affairs channeled $ 915,000 into irrigation developments on the Uintah Indian Reservation between 1902 and 1917.21 At the state level, the Board of Land Commissioners and the State Engineer helped plan the Strawberry Project and participated in various ways in the Uintah Irrigation Project More important here was the state's increasing involvement in water development. The State Engineer's Office, the Board of Land Commissioners, and the State Conservation Commission worked with individual water users and with irrigation and drainage districts in an attempt to establish priorities and schedule development according to the urgency of need. A significant point to bear in mind is that almost all of the development activities of the period were coordinated or designed by some agency of state government The State as the Total Developer In addition to participating in joint projects, the state also committed many of its own resources to the job of developing water and marketing the associated land. Because they controlled the reservoir land grant fund, the Board of Land Commissioners was the state agency most involved in financing and promoting water projects directly during the early decades of " State of Utah, Laws of the Suite of Utah ( 1909), Chapter 3, Section 4, Second. ^ See State of Utah, " Fifth Biennial Report of the State Engineer to the Governor of the State of Utah for the years 1905 and 1906," Public Documents through State of Utah, " Fourteenth Biennial Report of the State Engineer to the Governor of the State of Utah for the years 1923 and 1924," Public Documents; also see the Annual Reports of the United State Reclamation Service, included in the Annual Reports of the Department of the Interior for the same time period. 21 For an excellent treatment of the Uinta Reservation's water development process, and the individuals who influenced it see Craig W. Fuller, et al. Beyond the Wasatch: The History of Irrigation in the Uinta Basin and Upper Provo River Area, Editor Gregory D. Kendrick. Introduction Charles S. Peterson. ( National Park Service Regional Office in Denver, 1989), Chapters 1- 3. Also see State of Utah, " Fifth Biennial Report of the State Engineer to the Governor of the State of Utah for the Years 1905 and 1906," Public Documents through State of Utah, " Eighth Biennial Report of the State Engineer to the Governor of die State of Utah for die Years 1911 and 1912," Public Documents for general information. For a specific description of die project and die state's role in it see State of Utah, " Seventh Biennial Report of die State Engineer to die Governor of die State of Utah for die Years 1909 and 1910," Public Documents, p 133. |