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Show FARMERS SEE CKiLTIl NEBRASKA VALLEY IRRIGATION-ISTS IRRIGATION-ISTS HANG WORK AND MEAD IN EFFIGY No Immediate Agreement For Back Payments In Sight; President Coolidge Is Acting; Protests Pour In Scotts Bluff, Neb. With no imedi-ate imedi-ate agrement in sight and with their crops in dire need of moisture, the North Platte valley water controversy assumed an ominous aspect Friday, reports indicated, ooure the fight fear the more radical farmers farm-ers will resort to violence, which was openly intitmated late last Friday, when Secretary of the Interior Work and Reclamation Commissioner Mead j were hung in effigy here. The disagreement between the valley val-ley farmers and officials of the irrigation irriga-tion project, virtually the sole source of moisture for the valley crops, came over payment of operating and maintenance main-tenance costs of the project. Reclamation Recla-mation Commissioner Mead holds that all past dues must be paid or payment secured by proper notes, while the farmers claim all payments should be deferred until a reclassification feature fea-ture of the recent omnibus water bill, providing for downward readjustment of about $23,000,000 in construction and other charges levied against nineteen nine-teen western projects is made. Pending a settlement the dammed-up dammed-up waters are stagnant and the growing grow-ing crops are -without water. Friday telegrams cf protest from Nebraska leaders were wired to President Pres-ident Coolidge, Secretary Work and tJOmilllSSlOliei iiiciu. viu'v,". len wired that something must be clone immediately to save the crops. The Omaha Bee, a Republican newspaper, news-paper, also sent a telegram to the president and Secretary Work demanding de-manding the water be turned on and the payments settled afterwards so as to save a fast wilting beet and alfalfa al-falfa crop. The north Platte valley project comprises almost 200,000 acres of land lying on both sides of the North Platte river and extending from Lingle, Wyo., to Northport, Neb., a region approximately approxi-mately 150 miles long and 20 miles wide. Formerly used for grazing only the valley became a blooming garden after af-ter the constructing of the pathfinder dam and the reclamation system more than a decade ago. The soil is especially es-pecially adapted to the growing of sugar beets and after water was assured as-sured the Great Western Sugar Company Com-pany placed great refineries at the towns of Mintare, Mitchel, Gering, and Scotts Blubh, Neb. j |
