| OCR Text |
Show 71 Of the eighty- nine reservoir plans approved by the State Engineer's Office through 1922, four were funded by loans from the Board of Land Commissioners. The private efforts of individual companies apparently resulted in the construction of many of the others. 54 These private efforts came at a time when the state's own efforts at direct development were meeting with little success. The success of the reservoir loans to private companies is indicated by the fact that most of these projects paid back the money and provided the services for which they were designed. 55 The total effect of the private, local, state, and federal efforts was an increase in the amount of irrigated acreage and an upgrading of the existing irrigation facilities throughout the state. The Utah Bureau of Statistics reported in 1915 that there were over 500 reservoirs in Utah, 6,000 miles of canals, 2,000 miles of laterals, and over 650,000 acre- feet of storage capacity. The bureau also reported that over $ 20,000,000 had been spent by Utahns on irrigation structures and water facilities up to that time. 56 Effects of the 1906 to 1921 Period on Water Policy The lessons learned by state water management officials and lawmakers from 1906 to 1921 shaped water policy for many years to come. By the end of this period, state officials had virtually completed their involvement with the direct development projects, the Strawberry Project, and the privately owned projects financed by the reservoir land grant fund. The state had established the right to be involved in the nature of a water right, in developing institutions for granting and protecting that water right, and in setting up institutions to oversee the distribution of water resources based on the defined and recorded water rights. State lawmakers, through the earlier 1903 law, had decreed that the public owned the water resources. The State Engineer's Office had been appointed to oversee and protect the right of use of individual water users. The legislators had also implemented a system in which most of the major water development decisions were heavily influenced by state water development officials. By placing major water development decisions more in the realm of the public interest rather than purely in the private sphere, the constitutional provision requiring beneficial use could be stricfly upheld. It was also recognized that state agencies could not afford to both make the development decisions and have the financial responsibility for funding desired developments. Though the officials sought to exert influence over, or, in some cases, control water development decisions, they shifted the financial risk associated with those decisions onto the parties who would benefit most from the development. Those parties were private corporations, associations of water users, or other levels and branches of government Most notably, the federal government's resources were utilized to assume substantial portions of the risk. Local city and county governments, Jay M. Bagley, " Utah's Water Development Framework". Prepared for a series of symposiums proposed by Governor Scott Matheson, March and April, 1979. Private reservoir locations are displayed on a map of the state on p 11. ssOf the four privately designed and sponsored dams which were funded by the land grant loan program, one, the Mammoth Reservoir, washed out. This resulted in a great loss and the owners were unable to repay the fund. At the time of the default, the balance owed was $ 95,254.60 ( 1920). Since the original loan was for $ 100,000 in 1907, the owners apparently had only been able to repay a little more than the interest. The Land Board was able to find willing buyers for the remains of the dam and its water rights. Details of these transactions are found in State of Utah, " Biennial Report of the Board of Land Commissioners for the Years 1919 and 1920," Public Documents, p 8. 56State of Utah, " Eleventh Annual Report of the Utah State Bureau of Statistics for the Year 1915," Public Documents. |
