| OCR Text |
Show 67 In an attempt to enhance the role of the state as a joint partner with the federal government in water development, Utah had taken various steps to ensure that its interests would be represented. The 1903 legislature established the Arid Land Reclamation Fund Commission. As mentioned in the previous chapter, this commission's major responsibility was to attract federal dollars for water development41 In 1903 this commission, the Board of Land Commissioners, the Office of the State Engineer, and the United States Reclamation Service combined efforts to begin the work of planning the Strawberry Project; construction was initiated in 1906. The Strawberry Project was the federal government's first reclamation project in Utah and one of the first in the natioa The project involved an interbasin transfer of water by means of a tunnel 19,000 feet long. Bored through the mountain ridge separating the Great Basin and the Colorado River Basin, this tunnel delivered water to Utah's Diamond Fork Creek, which flows into the Spanish Fork River. The tunnel was capable of transporting water at a rate of 500 cubic feet per second. Water was drawn from a storage reservoir built on the Strawberry River. The reservoir's dam was 71 feet in height and 490 feet in length. Also included in the project was a structure 1300 feet in length and 37 feet in height around the rim of the reservoir where the natural basin elevations were of insufficient height. 42 The reservoir and tunnel allowed Utah Valley water users access to water from the Colorado River Basia The water was used to irrigate new land and supplement existing supplies. The project supplied water to a total of 60,000 acres. The project was designed by both state and federal officials, but funding came from the federal government. The Reclamation Service played the dominant role in construction. Initially, the water users agreed to pay back the costs of construction over a ten- year period after completioa The federal government did not require interest to be paid on the contract. As a result of the financial hardships caused by the depression years, repayment was eventually extended to a period of forty years, as it was on other federal reclamation projects. 43 The water users were organized into the Strawberry Valley Water Users Association; this group was legally responsible to repay the project's debt to the federal government Utilizing the water district laws and the provisions of the federal Reclamation Act of 1902, farmers were able to organize in such a way that each was liable for only the amount of debt assigned to their individual farm. The federal government had originally wanted to hold the entire project's farmlands as collateral. However, the individual farmers did not want to be in a position where profitable farming operations could be repossessed or assessments raised because other unprofitable farming operations were unable to meet their payment obligations. This twist of both the repayment organization's and the individual farmer's responsibility was a Utah innovation. The water users association made lump sum payments to the federal government, leaving this association the responsibility of dealing with individuals who did not meet their repayment 41State of Utah, Laws of the State of Utah ( 1903), Chapter 71, pp 60- 61. ^ See State of Utah, " Sixth Biennial Report of the State Engineer to the Governor of the State of Utah for the Year 1907 and 1908," Public Documents and State of Utah, " Eight Biennial Report of the State Engineer to the Governor of the State of Utah for the Years 1911 and 1912," Public Documents. Particularly p 158 in the " Sixth Report" for a good account of the work in progress. 43Two works which give excellent accounts of the project, the individuals involved, the state's activities and the projects long- term effects are: Thomas Alexander, " An Investment in Progress: Utah's First Federal Reclamation Project," Utah Historical Quarterly Volume 39, p 286. And David Merrill, and Donald L. Snyder, " An Historical Mitigation Study of the Strawberry Valley Project, Utah." Prepared for the Bureau of Reclamation, Upper Colorado Region, Salt Lake City, Utah. IS July 1982. |
