tion requires the Secretary of the Interior to enter into firm contracts for power, sufficient to provide complete reimbursement to the Federal Government, before the expenditure of any money for the construction of the project.

Alternative Power Program

In order that the Secretary of the Interior, who would be directly responsible for the financial success of the undertaking, might be assured of every assistance in the working out of such a plan, the proposed legislation contemplates that he may, in lieu of selling the power at the switchboard, lease units in the Government constructed plant, or at his discretion lease the right to develop power by means of the water discharged from the dam to applicants who would then build, under Government supervision, their own plants for the development of hydro-electric power, thus relieving the Government of this portion of the investment. Proceeds from the sale of power rights would take the place of revenue from power and be used in the amortization of the cost of the dam structure and project.

All-American Canal

In addition to constructing the above-mentioned project at Boulder Canyon, and in order to relieve the Imperial Valley from its present dependence on Mexico, the plan contemplates the construction of a so-called All-American Canal, approximately 60 miles in length, which would lie entirely within the United States. In the plans for this canal it is proposed to move the point of diversion to the present Laguna Dam, some 12 miles above the city of Yuma. At the time this dam was constructed the Imperial Valley entered into a contract with the United States Government and agreed

to pay and is paying for the privilege of this diversion $1,600,000 out of a total cost for the dam of $2,180,000. This will also enable the water to be taken out at a much higher level, making possible the irrigation at some future time of some 500,000 acres of additional land lying in the Imperial and Coachella Valleys.

A board appointed under an agreement between the Secretary of the Interior and the Board of Directors of the Imperial Irrigation District, composed of Dr. Elwood Mead, now Commissioner of Reclamation, C. E. Grunsky, consulting engineer of national reputation, and W. W. Schlecht, Engineer of the Reclamation Service, made a complete report including estimate on the cost of such canal, and also reported favorably as to its feasibility and desirability. In addition to this board, engineers of high standing have, with practical unanimity, after thorough investigation, endorsed the plan for such a canal.

The estimated cost of the all-American Canal is $31,000,000, exclusive of interest during construction. Although this appears large, the cost per acre for all construction charges as determined by the Secretary of the Interior including the present bonded indebtedness of the Imperial Irrigation District of $25.50 will be as follows: Imperial Irrigation District.......... $66.00 New lands under All-American Canal 90.40 When these figures are contrasted with the average construction costs of present reclamation projects they show the reasonableness and feasibility of such a project from the cost standpoint.

While the urgency of this canal cannot be questioned, yet it must be considered that it is wholly infeasible without control of flood waters and the storage reservoir for the removal of silt and the regulation of flood waters according to an irrigation program.

poses is practically exhausted, and with the rapidly growing population, it is evident that these additional lands will be required in the future along with a growing demand for farm products from other sections to feed the rapidly growing market of the Pacific Coast as well as the local markets in the states of Arizona and Nevada.

Manufacture

One of the most potent factors in the building up of an industrial community, and next to its supply of domestic water, is the ability to furnish its institutions cheap electric power. The construction of the dam will make available 1,000,000 horsepower of cheap hydro-electric power to the industrial markets of Arizona, Nevada and California, with its natural impetus toward increasing the production of present plants and the attraction of additional industries to the communities. Experience shows that as our population and industrial activity along our special lines increase our demand for food and manufactured articles from other parts of the country increases in even greater proportion.

Domestic Water

The storage of the flood waters and the removal of silt by the reservoir will furnish a supply of portable water for the cities of Southern California, and without which their growth must, at the present rate of increase, abruptly cease. It is, therefore, imperative that if the Southwest is to grow, additional water must be procured and the only available source is the Colorado River.

SIGNIFICANCE TO THE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE

The construction of the Boulder Canyon Project will have a decided bearing and significance to the country

at large as it will necessarily call for large quantities of construction material and equipment, practically all of which must be at present supplied from eastern markets. Large blocks of cheap power, permitting the growth of industry in the Southwest, will add materially to the shipment of commodities both raw and finished between the east and west.

As the land is placed under cultivation, in addition to supplying the local markets of the Southwest, due to the practically all-year growing season, it would be possible to ship to the eastern markets produce and staple vegetables at a time when they can be obtained from no other source in sufficient quantity except from foreign countries.

The construction of the All-American Canal and regulation by the storage reservoir will unquestionably stop Mexican interests from adding materially

to land they now have under cultivation, which is practically all utilized in the growing of cotton. This cotton is grown in Mexico not only by cheap foreign labor but enters the American market to compete with American grown cotton. While it has been feared that Imperial Valley lands would be used for the growing of cotton it is found by experience that they are better suited both climatically and financially to the growing of vegetables and similar commodities, and as pointed out these will either be used locally or enter the eastern market at a time when eastern farmers could not possibly supply them, and, therefore, they will not interfere with the present farming industry. The development of new lands by irrigation necessarily will be slow and will not equal an equivalent of the growing markets of this section.

HE Colorado River is one of the

large and important rivers of this country, but has a very fluctuating lischarge, due to changing seasons and hanging years. If completely reguated its magnitude is sufficient to urnish an ample domestic supply of water to all the inhabitants of the United States, and a considerable margin over. The low water flow of the river during the latter part of summer and autumn, is all utilized in irrigation, and the development has proceeded to a point where in the drier years there is a serious shortage of water during September and October for lands already under cultivation; but the spring and early summer furnish vast quantities of flood water that not only run to waste, but do great damage to lands along the banks of the river, and especially in the Imperial Valley, which being an interior basin, if flooded, would be permanently destroyed. The imminence of such destruction is the occasion of the urgency of this problem.

The problem of changing the Colorado River from a natural peril to a national asset, is mainly a problem of water storage. Reservoir sites of large capacity have been examined and found feasible on the upper tributaries of the Colorado, and while these can partially regulate these tributaries, and assist in their development, they are not large enough nor properly located for complete control and development of the river. The bulk of the storage

capacity must be provided within or

below the canyon region where it can intercept most of the entire flow of the basin. Otherwise, the waters will be largely wasted as at present, and continue to be a menace to the valleys on the lower river, which will probably be destroyed if regulation is not accomplished in the near future.

The only site of sufficient capacity and properly located to accomplish all these results is at Boulder Canyon, where it is feasible to construct a reservoir to any capacity from 20,000,000 to 45,000,000 acre feet, and while completely regulating the river at that point, at the same time will develop sufficient power to pay for itself. Aside from its paramount virtues in water regulation for irrigation and flood protection there is no other plan of development which will produce power so cheaply as a large reservoir in Boulder Canyon such as proposed.

ACTIVE OPPOSITION

It was first vigorously asserted by the opponents of Boulder Canyon Reservoir that 600,000 horse power developed at Boulder Canyon could not be absorbed by the available market for power for twenty years, and that in the meantime the interest charges would accumulate to such an extent as to make the development prohibitive. Finally the matter was referred to Mr. L. S. Ready and Mr. H. G. Butler, who made a thorough

examination of the subject, and proved that if the Boulder Canyon power were immediately provided, the power developed would be absorbed within three or four years after it could be produced.

OTHER SCHEMES FATAL TO

CHEAP POWER

Notwithstanding this authoritative finding, the opponents are still expressing doubts as to the wisdom of so large a development and repeating their former recommendations that the river should be developed by a series of small dams. As represented by actual schemes of construction submitted, five dams are proposed of heights, respectively 158 feet, 163, 194, 209, 223 and 225 feet, in portions of the canyon where much larger development would be far more economical. Such development would be fatal to cheap power.

In general, the power developed by means of a low dam in the Colorado Canyon is far more expensive per unit than the power produced by a high dam. In either case, the floods of the river must be controlled to permit the excavation of foundations, which are everywhere deep. These control works cost as much for a low dam as for a high dam. The same is true of the railroad which must be built to convey materials and machinery to the site, which is in any case, a heavy expense. This also is largely true of the great construction plant; while the production of power by a low dam would be less in proportion to the height of dam, due to the better regulating effect of the water by the wider pond produced by the high dam, and the fact that each reservoir must be provided with a margin for the rise and fall of floods, above its top without interfering with the next development above.

POWER 30 PER CENT CHEAPER
AT BOULDER

Careful estimates of cost, based upon extensive surveys at the Boulder Canyon site, show that a dam 555 feet high, proposed, will develop power nearly 30 per cent cheaper per unit than a dam 50 feet lower.

A still lower dam would be similarly more expensive per unit of power produced and in varying degrees the same principle applies to the development of any power site in the canyon region within the limits of feasible height of construction. Under such a plan power development on the Colorado would be no longer a menace to the investments in future power sites in the Sierras, for it would make the cost of Boulder Canyon power about as great as that produced in the Sierras, and it is such development as this that may be expected if it is turned over to private exploitation. This would largely destroy the great natural asset which the Nation owns in the power possibilities of the canyons of the Colorado.

One criticism of the Boulder Canyon plan is that a high dam would produce so large a pond that the losses by evaporation would be excessive and that the reduction of the floods to a maximum of 40,000 cubic feet per second as proposed is not necessary, but that a reduction to 80,000 would do about as well. A fair summary of the argument is that it is unwise to store this water because the reservoir would lose part of it by evaporation, and that it is better to allow the floods to continue to flow to the sea unused and to fight them on the way by means of high levees and other expensive and perilous provisions.

DAM IN MOHAVE CANYON The same authority proposes to substitute for the Boulder Canyon