OCR Text |
Show 730 INTERSTATE ADJUDICATIONS finder, with a capacity of 1,026,400 acre feet; the Alcova, thirteen miles below Pathfinder, with a capacity of 190,500 acre feet. Casper Canal will divert the water at Alcova and serve the lands of the project. The combined storage capacity of the reservoirs of these two federal projects-Kendrick and North Platte-is 2,313,270 acre feet which, as the Special Master found, is 175 per cent of the long-time average annual run-off of the river at Pathfinder. There are also two projects in Nebraska-Sutherland, with a capac- ity of 175,000 acre feet, and Tri-County with a capacity of 2,000,000 acre feet. The latter is expected to bring under irrigation an addi- tional 205,000 acres in Nebraska. Including that acreage but exclud- ing the 60,000 acres expected to be irrigated in Wyoming under the Kendrick project, the Special Master found that the acreages under irrigation in the three States would be approximately as follows: Acres Colorado ______________________-__________________ 131,800 (12%) Wyoming_________________________________________ 325,720 (29%) Nebraska_________________________________________ 653,355 (59%) Total_______________________________________1,110,875 (100%) Prior to the time when the North Platte project went into operation there was a serious shortage of water for irrigating in western Nebraska and to some extent in eastern Wyoming. Many irrigation enterprises were closed. After the North Platte project had been in operation for a while most of the projects which had been abandoned were reopened. From then until 1931 the supply was reasonably ade- quate for most of the canals. But the year 1931 started the driest cycle or swing in the North Platte and Platte River valleys of which there is any record. The annual flow at Pathfinder 6 had always fluc- tuated widely.7 The average flow for the 37 years commencing in 1904 was 1,315,900 acre feet, the maximum was 2,399,400 in 1917, the minimum was 382,200 in 1934. But a critical condition arose in 1931 with the advent of the dry cycle. The flow for each of the years be- 8 Which the Special Master found to be the best single index on the river due to the fact that the main accretions of Colorado and Wyoming are already in the river and the natural flow is not appreciably distorted by storage releases as it is below Pathfinder. Year Acre Feet 1904________________________ 1,262, 000 1905________________________ 1, 159,400 1906________________________ 1,351, 000 1907________________________ 1,851, 100 1908________________________ 918,600 1909________________________ 2, 381, 800 1910________________________ 918, 1O0 1911________________________ 1, 123, 400 1912________________________ 1.820, 500 1913________________________ 1,265, 000 1914________________________ 1, 550, 900 1915________________________ 900,200 1916________________________ 1, 253, 400 1917________________________ 2, 399, 400 1918________________________ 1, 486, 100 1919________________________ 859, 700 1920________________________ 1, 870, 100 1921________________________ 1, 782, 000 1922________________________ 1,148, 200 Year Acre Feet 1923------------------------------------ 1, 500, 800 1924------------------------------------ 1, 489, 900 1925------------------------------------ 1, 244, 700 1926------------------------------------ 1, 776, 500 1927------------------------------------ 1, 456, 200 1928------------------------------------ 1,725, 400 1929------------------------------------ 1, 902, 700 1930________________________ 1, 072, 800 1931------------------------------------ 706, 300 1932------------------------------------ 1, 506, 600 1933------------------------------------ 1,149, 500 1934------------------------------------ 382,200 1935________________________ 696, 200 1936------------------------------------ 1, 045, 600 1937________________________ 1,130, 600 1938________________________ 1,334, 900 1939------------------------------------ 698, 200 1940________________________ 569, 800 |