| Show AMU all about the water SALT CITY august 11 til 1874 editor although july was a rainy m month oath the present season and although our summers of late lato aie ale years have been more showery than those of former years yet irrigation is still necessary for the perfection of fruit and vegetables and for lato late crops it is most necessary at this time of the year when there is the least amount of water to be obtained irrigation being necessary and the amount of available water being limited necessitates careful supervision over the distribution of the water which careful distribution does not exist at all times and in all places this careful distribution naturally de depends upon the water masters and it seems to me that the growth of this city and the increasing of interests demand that the position of water master be something more than a sinecure and that it be a position of active supervision and direction public offices are supposed to be for the public good and not for the exclusive benefit and aggrandizement of any person famil family sor or clique it is all very well to keep men in office year after year when they diligently and faithfully perform their duties but when they do not and other men can be obtained who will the sooner tle neglectful incumbents ale ate ousted and more attentive mi int 11 put ati t in irl their places the better for ti the io general welfare if another and more effective municipal ordinance is needed to insure more satisfactory conduct of this irrigation business let a new ordinance be made there thero is a great deal connected with the tiie water question that requires constant careful intelligent and authoritative direction that one portion of the citi elti citizens zens may not sunner suffer while others reap undue benefits or while waste of the vital fluid is going on anywhere that considerable waste does occur there vere vero can be no doubt when wo we see yme some of the streets and sidewalks irrigated freely while fenced and cultivated lots in different parts of the city are parched and dusty and the trees and vegetables 0 withering dust grows very poor fruit or vegetables it if any at all there are frequent leakage leakages through imperfect water gates or the incomplete stopping of sluices there Is also considerable water stealing going on and there is neglect of water masters to promptly distribute the water and properly advise the citizens of their time for using the water and the quantity they are respectively entitled to in regard to imperfect water gates it seems to me that it should como come under linder the water masters distinct and express duty to see that they are in the right place of a suitable kind and in good serviceable condition for the equitable distribution of the water the incline and force of the stream at different points being taken into thorough consideration everybody knows that as things are little or nothing of this kind is done but the distribution at many of the various water gates is done in the most primitive indeterminate and irregular way and fre frequently bently by anybody who takes it uto into his head bead to do it though he may thereby be undoing twe the work of some other equally unauthorized person while the water master lets jets things go as they may with the present irregular and unsatisfactory manner of doing little pleasure is there in man attempting to irrigate his lot if he lives ina lua in a lower ward and pattick batly if his lot is not upon a principal water sect atwould it would be far feir better for each lot or portion of a lot to be taxed a dollar or two every year to pay a water master who would attend to ills his duty who would see that each main watergate water gate at least had its proper amount of water flowing and at the proper times that there were no leakages no thefts of water no disproportionate davison of water as to time or quantity some such complete regulation and constant attention is certainly due and it ib is sadly needed for as water matters are now often managed or rather mismanaged there is a sup amount of annoyance and ago agg aggravation ora gra to say nothing of loss 11 of bf time diminution of crops and an d loss of neighborly respect among amon neighbors ebors nud and neighboring wa wards re s when boxes are put into the sects to supply cisterns or pipes for fountains or irrigation there should be some competent regulation about it dick tom and harry should not be allowed to obstruct or divert a str stream earil by boxes or gates rate 3 the water masters should be empowered to see that boxes if allowed should not be placed in the stream to obstruct it but at the side so that their supply could be burld turned off or on as t they ley lcy mi might k bo be entill entitled ed to have the tiro water without robbing the nel nei neighbors e labors or other citizens who have llave n no 0 such boxes and that the boxes at anytime any auy time would take no more than their due duo share of the water during the present summer for instance I 1 have no doubt that many hard working men would have been glad to act as water masters for a reasonable compensation I 1 and would have attended to their duty As it is the watering business is frequently a nuisance a perplexity a vexation an aggravation I 1 have hinted that considerable water stealing Is ia perpetrated this is the fact one man will have his lot soaked and soaked while the lot of another man with equal claim to the water gateris wa teris 19 drying up I 1 am aware it is ia very trying to t the he enthusiastic or ambitious cultivator to see his garden things wilting when it is not ills his turn to have the water but I 1 it t is more trying tut but to seu som them hem drying up when it is ills his turn to irrigate and ho ite cannot get the water or his rightful share of it in this respect it seems to me the ward is the greatest nuisance in the city when a citizen in the lower wards has begun to water liis his lot some sly and possibly pious warder will turn off a portion orthe ortho or the tho whole of the stream and not once only several lengthy journeys are induced to see where the leakage Is ia and to stop it 1 and when it is found perhaps wander lla lia ps the annoyed lower avard warder er does not indulge in strong expletives perhaps not now if this sort of unwarranted interference with the water mose nrose from crass ignorance or sheer stupidity charity might be extended to t the he interfering party but the ward people can hardly be so ignorant or so stupid as not to comprehend P that on eer certain aln ain d days ays nys and for tor certain hours they have no right whatever to meddle with tho the water for the ample reason that it belongs to others it seems to me that some persons III in that ward should be made examples of their affection for water is so wonderful such people are not likely to be afflicted with hydrophobia 1 I 1 might give names but the owners of them perhaps would not like to see them in print so I 1 refrain as I 1 am writing this partly to entertain and ani and please them I 1 do not know whether that ward has got something like the big head about the water but certainly the tho symptoms indicate some affection of that kind the other day I 1 asked a 2 warder what days the people of th that atward ward understood der stood they had a right aright to use the water he said he thought they reckoned to use it four days in the week and F some ome of them took it whenever they wanted it into the bargain which is probably true of some of the citizens up there pacts facts seem to point in that direction we ve hear a great outcry from the more northern and northeastern darts parts of the ward for water tf if those upper lots were taken up with the idea of claiming an equal share in the water previously going to the lower lots and wards then the takers up have strange notions of justice if those upper lots veme were not taken up with that idea then to make a great outcry for the water belonging to the lower lots and wards s shows how s an equal lack of justice of course there is a p portion or of the year when water is abundant for all when there is such a superfluity there can bo be no ab reasonable objection to those upper lots having a ditch to convey to them this surplus water or some of it as that would not injure the older settlers but in a dry time ought the old settled I 1 ts to be robbed to ac commo tte ic the upper lots not upon a y principle of right or justice that tha i know anything about let us go into this matter a little deeper twelve or fifteen years ago the settled portion of the ward was not more than a third or perhaps a fourth as large klarke as it it is t day and I 1 believe the population was far less dense in proportion but years previously to that time tile the lower wards were settled fenced and cultivated these lower wards had their ditches and streams of water when wilen tile the ward was the smallest and most insignificant in the city the main ditch from city creek which now supplies the loth ward if 13 not a ward nvard ditch it was not made by the loth ward it was dug b by t the e ward and called the ward ditch yet now I 1 should probably bo be within the tile truth if I 1 said that tile the ward uses three times the water out of that ditch that the ward does if the ward takes so much greater a proportion of the water than it used to have does it not obtain the excess largely at the expense of the lower and previously settled wards if so it is a thing neither just nor right excepting so 20 far as the lower wards are willing to accommodate the thirsty greedy and inflated warn warl the stream in this ditch is often diverted from the wards below and spread over the upper ward frequently to the injury of the lower ward wards which have the orin or original in claim to the water Is this rh night hight ht Is it equitable if it is technically equitable it is not really and morally equitable the same ditch lately has also been made to supply the lith ward with water owing to the usurping and monopoly of red bed butte creek by camp douglas this may be grateful to the dittli warders but is it right to the other wards not if it infringes upon their old oid established water rights to the I 1 injury IJ j arv of their gardens unless the other othen wards charitably acquiesce therein camp douglas did an engra ungracious 1 1 0 us unneighborly and very unjust thing when it robbed any parn pard portion of the city of the water which be longed to it such actions are altogether inequitable they are right only upon the rule that might physical might muscular might sheer brute force makes right in conclusion I 1 may observe that if the city streams of water were efficiently supervised directed and managed I 1 and ringers were promptly r fined ine lne d or otherwise effectively dealt with the irrigating and the tile whole water business would go on like clockwork and no person would have any reasonable cause of complaint IRRIGATOR |
