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Show M - y -- A1 tin- ted ed H CYoted 1 a r to tfeePi ogress &, Development qJ i Agriculture in t(ie Qre&l UinLanBasiu !: as 9.3.5 yol. m. 1. 3.i. ROOSEVELT, DUCHESNE NO. COUNTY, UTAH. MAY 1, 1926 8 1923 1925, RECLAIMED LANDS IN THE UINTAH BASIN nches. on during ' sho j By J. P. MAY imount n 1931 Over a period of years one is impressed by the wild guessing and apnoted in stories printproximating ed from ' time to time about the , short-?- ed e an! water , educe! lse the if they r t nteth- 11 , irri-- t ng the and if permit and of. in the and to farms, acreage, and other vital facFor tory on this Uintah Basin. the purpose of eliminating guess wprk, so far as is reasonably possible, this story, with data of real value, is prepared. The Uintah Basin is generally understood to be the Utah sector of that much larger area, essentially a part of this Utah sector, which extends into Colorado and Wyoming. Possibly ten per cent of the total area is in Wyoming, and the remaining 90 per cent is almost equally divided between Utah and This story concerns itColorado. self, only with the Utah part, that is, with Duchesne and Uintah counties. Population and assessed valuation are approximately 22,000 Actual people, and $12,000,000.00. value is much greater, possibly present market value, would be conservative. ' Following is the reclaimed lands. In many instances these figures are exact, as per approved water filings, and in other cases very close ap-- . proximations are given, per county records, and in still other, or a third class (minor intotal) close approximations are given. Private filings have been assembled in certain totals so that the list would not be ttoo long for a country paper. Reclaimed Lands. Dry Gulch company, Roosevelt, (all firures mean acres) 53,000. Uintah Farm- r : 1 Ouray Agency, 80,583. ers Irrigation Co., Bluebell, 5000. - t, in tec dice. 35-tf.- 1 - . . iirview Irrigation Co., Cedarview, Whiterocks Irrigation Co., 2,232. ,'h! . rocks, w,500. Boneta Western Ir; i ! Lion Co., Boneta, 2,000. Bon-- i 1 . C I"'. Mthern Irrigation Co., Boneta, Farnsworth Canal and Re- Lake l .il: Irrigation Co., Upalco, 2,500. UD.nd Ditch Co., Arcadia, 1,000 Ditch, Midview, 300. Ham. f:t;u Ditch, 160. The Moffat Ditch, Uintah Independent , 1,500. ( Fi1 Co., Hayden, 6,500. Colorado sent ir Co., Mt. Home, 7,000. Dij;rn I': 152. el , ' . izz , C. I' " Randlett, Six Bennett, Ditch, Jig irrigation . 2 Co., 1,-C3- C. 1,- - N. Dodd Irrigation Co., Ne384. Marimon Ditch, White-- i 300. 0. 00. Durrigan Ditch, Lee- Ouray Valley Irrigation filings east of Duchesne to 3, north of side of the river, The same on south side of e river, 1,600. Antelope south of Grey Mountain ditch, 1,400. Grey Mountain and Myton townsite canals, 6,500. Taylor Brothers canal, Myton, 4,000. Midview section, north side of Duchesne river, 1,300. Aggregate filings on Lake Fork, Upalco to Midview, about 2,350. Indian canyon filings, 800. Strawberry and Fruit-lan- d districts, total, 5,200. Willow Creek, (east of Green river, south of Ouray), 6,500. Lands between Jensen and Ouray on Green river, 1,250. Jensen, large ranches and small filings, total, 10,000. Ash. or old six main canals. ley Valley, Vernal, 30,000. Highline Vernal, 14,250. Blue Bench Irrigation District No. 1 (Knight project), 9,793. Duchesne Irrigation Co., Duchesne, 1,463, West Bench Irrigation Co., Duchesne, 250. Lands on Duchesne river, Duchesne to Hanna, 8,174. Total reclaimed land in the two counties, 284,478 acres. In addition to the above there is a large acreage of partly completed Several have had large projects. sums spent but are held up for capital, even, as in the New Hope district, the lands partly reclaimed. To these are added several areas that might be classed as new, but we know them as old, old stories. These farm lands are all cheap, good, and they must be farmed railroad or no railroad. New and Partly Completed Projects. Ashley Valley- - Development Co., recently financed and ready to go, Indian reserve of choice 20,000. lands on White river, 16,000. (There are not Indians alive to handle half of this land, possibly not more than one third). The cheap, choice part of the South Myton bench, one canal partly finished, considerable cash spent to reclaim 15,000 acres, but it is defunct, waiting for capital and farmers, 35,000. (This is only half o f the land that may be reclaimed and for which there is water, cheaper and better than Price river projects.) river, Provo-WebTaylor Bros, canal, ready this spring for additional acreage, but all the work is not done, 10,000. New Hope Irrigation district, about half of work done, three to five miles south of Roosevelt, 7,700. Ouray Valley Irrigation Co., east of Ft. Duchesne and Randlett, a natural reservoir, near the land, provides 30,000 acre feet, enough, with large evaporation Ba-sinit- es er to irrigate 5,000 acres, is ready. Other water filings and canal work will make the project reclaim a total of 27,500. Willow creek lands, which have water, needing only ditches and work, low cost, no expensive canals, laterals, or dams, Blue 2,500. Upper very cheap, Bench Irrigation district, work partly done, nearly all of the lands Ten years ago people homesteaded. thought this project would be all in crops long before this. Cash is and that is about ready, needed, 13,500. Total cheap lands, ready, partly ready, new lands yet to be reclaimed, needing men and money, 132, 200. The better part of Dead Mans bench, a mammoth tract of land north of White river and east of Green river, 300,000. This requires reservoir work, and main canal work in Colorado, and will cost, most of it, more than we can afford, but not more than the Provo-Webproject, and well informed men say it will cost much less. Total lands, reclaimed, ready to be reclaimed, and new projects, Take out Dead Mans 716,678. bench area, we still have, of the cheap lands and water, 416,678. In assembling this data credit is given to Louie Galloway, secretary of the Dry Gulch Irrigation company at Roosevelt, Ward C. lrealnd, recently in charge of Uintah and Ouray project, Myton, E. A. Man-keer r, Vernal alnd man, O. C. Lock- hart, county treasurer of Duchesne county, and L. C. Winslow, clerk of the board of education, Duchesne, and several others. Land reclaimed is not all in crops. Some is used for crops, some for pasture, other land has been plowed and used but is now idle because farmers are too few. These figures for reclaimed lands, per water filings, do not include many private The Dry Gulch company filings. originally filed on water for about 75,060 acres, and the U. & O. project was nearly 90,000 acres. In making final proofs these companies, like many others, cut down the This cutting down was acreage. caused by several factors, viz: Return flow water, streams and springs appearing where no water could be before the large canals above were water for many. made, furnished Rough lands were eliminated as far as possible. Thin soils, gravel areas, etc., all lowered the final figures when proof of beneficial use had to be made. Drainage is the best of any irrigated section of the west. Channels for waste water are ample and have good fall to carry the excess solvent salt3 rapidly away, never to return, as all drainage goes to Green river. In a number of districts where alkali has appeared, because of shallow water tables, or too much water, me mineral Has soon passed down and much of this land is today in. valuable crops. Many farmers who came to this country never before: had all the water they wanted, and a steady flow system gave them all they could use. Many of them surely used it altogether too much. A dry year, 1919, and another in 1924, compelled us to change to the rotation system, or turn system, and this has been good training and the water we find will do much" more. Nearly all of this land is 4600 to 5500 feet in altitude, giving good seasons for all kinds of farmnig.-Evemelons, corn, fruit, may be grown all over the central section or over 75 per cent of the area. There is some wind in the spring, and summer, not excessie. When cold weather conies in the late fall we know no more winds will blow until spring comes. The Uintah, mountains, our northern rim, with the Wasatch range on the west, keep out the cold winter winds well known elsewhere in the intermountain district. With more than half of the water that can be used for farming, two-thir-ds of all the timber in the state, coal veins all along the northern foothills, iron ore, vast deposits of s, and other natural wealth, we are independent of the outside world. Near Fruitland, a vein of coal, little known, underlies a wide area. Capitalists from Virginia own a lot of this, and a large part is still government property. This is near the Wasatch summit on the west, the closest coal to Salt Lake, and the biggest supply. Why is this big coal field not better known? The average unapropriated flow of water in the Duchesne river July 1st, is more than 500 second feet. This naturally belongs on the South On the upper Lake Myton bench. Fork, hi0h in the Uintah range, is Moon lake, one of the large lakes of our state. The Dry Gulch company has filing on 38,000 acre feet of storage in this lake, the cost of which will not exceed $15 per acre. The average season will permit the filling of this natural reservoir twice, insuring one late supplementary irrigation. But this is m6re water than this company can use and the excess will reclaim addition- n hydro-carbon- 40-fo- ot - (Continued on page 5) - |