| Show irrigation legislation NEEDED ladles ladies and gentlemen of the congress it has been relegated rela gated to me to call your attention to a matter vitally affecting the present and future progress of irrigation especially in ehleb western wester n region and wherever the natural flow of our rivers and streams has been practically utilized the amount of this natural flow during the period when needed for crop production is but a small proportion of the winter or flood flows of these same wate sources hence the conservation of them would admit of five or six times as much land being thoroughly reclaimed as at present the results from such storage in the creation of water power and electric plants it is to compute com puta but their value for manufacture transportation in fact all industrial du pursuits we may safely consider as exceeding vastly that for agriculture ri alone in mining and ore production who can foretell the future in money values to be divided from what is now wasted completely and which when harnessed for use in no wise restricts the water volume needed in agriculture natural sites for reservoir storage in the large way are not nearly as plentiful as Is generally suppose dand the cost of thus conserving the flood waters Is a most important factor in undertaking their construction so important that only communities or companies can as a rule bring such construction about practically such sites as are available are on the public lands of the united states lying within the mountain ranges way above the arable lands and utterly worthless for any other purpose than converting into arti artificial fical lakes scarce as are these natural sites a few years ago the government in a spasm of apprehension withdrew the greater part of the most available from occupancy or acquirement by the people while thus depriving the country of their possible use as reservoirs without any intention of so making them as a government it is hard to understand the motive the only reason given was that they would be gobbled for speculative purposes by individuals inasmuch as individuals to hold them would have to expend thousands and thousands of dollars it would seem that this course of gobbling would have been preferable to the governmental action which while unable to do anything itself effectually es topped all others fortunately our national congress has seen its past error and bills are now before it to restore these sites either to the national domain or donate them to the states in which they lie for many years past it has been ap parent to those familiar with the subject and to the congress itself that some clearly expressed law taking the place of such as are extant should be enacted whereby private capital capi taJ can be induced to undertake land reclamation by storing waste waters such 4 law as will give to investors proper time for construction and ensure them a title to the lands upon which their works have been built the secretary of the interior hon D R francis in his report to congress december last thus speaks on 0 this subject existing laws are ineffective to lecure secure the reclamation of the lands susceptible of irrigation the demand for congressional action comes to us with irresistible force of the million acres of arid lands about million might be reclaimed but unless some plan is adopted by which the waters of the perennial streams which are wasted during the winter months could be stored and reservoirs constructed ted upon appropriate sites to tm im pound the storm waters the percentage will be very much reduced with a secretary of the interior so apparently in favor of congressional enactments it will naturally be asked why is this matter now brought to t the h attention of your body it to is because after passing a law in 1891 which faulty in many respects yet enabled the attaining of title to reservoir sites and under which hundreds of thousands of acres ac s have been reclaimed and mi millions IliS of dollars havo have been spent the national can congress ress in 1895 entirely undid all the good it hadt had done and passed a new law which pro pre eludes any obtaining of grants to governmental ern mental lands for irrigation or power purposes it is therefore especially desirable that some new act should be passed analogous toa to that of 1891 1891 amending its faculty portions and while conferring title to investors vill be the means of securing new homes to millions of our people if after a 9 brief recital of the facts and what tt it is in proposed to have enacted this convention should resolve to support a meas ure of such great importance to the whole arid and nepion re res pion lion the object of this paper will have been effected the act of congress approved march ird rd 1891 granted the right of way brough the public lands and reservations of the united states for the use if f canals ditches and reservoirs heretofore and hereafter constructed by corporations orp orations individuals or associations of individuals upon the filing nd approval of the certificates and maps therein provided for the limits of f the right of way were theao becu pled pied by the water surface of the P volra and canals and fifty feet on each side of the marginal limits thereof with the right to take from the public lands adjacent to the line of the canal or ditch material earth and stone necessary for the construction of such canal or ditch the granting of the right of way conferred no powers as to the use of water that being relegated to the states and territories no title could be had for sites on lands and the approval of the secretary of the interior must be had before the lands occupied by such right of way were withdrawn from general entry two sets of regulations and instructions of the general land office for carrying out this law were issued march 1892 and february 1894 respectively the first ruled that the law did not contemplate the damming of rivers so that the adjacent country should be overflowed nor the appropriation of natural lakes As there is nothing in the law to justify this peculiar ruling which cut out more than one half of the storage sites it was withdrawn in the subsequent instructions of 1894 to the average man outside of the department at washington it Is difficult to understand how water can be stored without overflowing ever flowing some adjacent land the of february 1894 were generally such as would ensure the bona fides of the applicant and anly such as axe are intended to carry out two requirements of the law itself cian can be criticised criticized the law permitted no legal of the right of way until the application had been approved nor were the lands over which the applicant was to construct his works withdrawn from public entry until such approval of the secretary of the interior this nooks looks harmless enough to the applicant but experience has shown that after complying with all the requirements of the department and filing the maps affidavits band and certificates in the local U S land office between such filing and approval by the secretary a period of from six months to three aars elapsed the right of way meantime being displayed on the local tract books but the land being still open to entry it was soon oon found that unscrupulous persons were quick to perceive that a reservoir site is the key to the whole operations ot of the applying water company and a desert or homstead entry was made for purposes of blackmail black mall whole neighborhoods sometimes became afflicted filc ted with land proclivities within reservoir limits and owing to the uncertainty of condemning lands and still worse of jury trials serious pecuniary damage accrued to ue the I 1 have in mind a case in point in utah where the company will have to pay over tor for quasi tend land titles within its reservoir sites sit said company being over two yea years in obtaining its grant by withdrawing the lands at time of filing in local land office as to Is customary in other land entries and if not approved by the secretary restoring them all this hold up business can be avoided A grave lack of the law of 1891 was that no right of way could be secured over other than the surveyed lands ands of the united states As the bulk of the reservoir sites like our mineral claims are in the great mountain ranges and as a rule unfit even for grazing we fall fail to see why any s uch such discrimination should be had for all locations can be described and defined define d with reference to the nearest government surveys certainly as clearly as mineral locations are now moreover these sites being neither mineral nor arable lands will never be officially surveyed under our present system of government surveys hence never a title is possible one of the ana and molles of the law of 1891 was that the instruct eions minutely stated how the reservoir and canals should fe be located with reference to the earths surface and the nearest official surveys yet refused to grant title except when when surveyed As before stated under this law of 1891 thousands of new homes have been created and millions expended not such a great many miles south of us one company is now spending upward of two million dollars to reclaim two hundred and fifty thousand acres four hundred and fifty thousand dollars alone going to build one reservoir dam and all this being done under the act of 1891 with this law in successful operation and leading to the up building of the country congress in january 1895 passed a new act which completely contravenes all previous ones and does away with all incentive for any further reclamation of lands where storage Is necessary it differs from the previous right of way acts in that it authorizes merely a permission instead of making a grant and that it gives no right whatever to take from the adjacent lands any material for construction etc furthermore the instructions of the land department even if the law itself were not practically prohibitive completely deprive it of any value whatever it is expressly to be understood in every case that the permission extends only to the public lands of the united states not within the kimtis of any park forest military or indian reservation that it is at any time subject to modification or revocation that the disposal by the united states of any tract crossed by the permitted right of way is of itself without fur ther act on the part of the department a revocation of the permission so fax far as it affects that tract and that the permission is subject to any future regulations of the department cam ment is unnecessary for what the act left undone the department completed by entirely annulling the act itself so all the law we now have might most appropriately be termed an act to prevent any settlement or development of the public lands where irrigation can be effected by storage of waste waters I 1 returned a few months ago from the survey of an aqueduct line for power electric and irrigation purposes which involves in its construction a half million of dollars annually of many millions of dollars worth of gold ores which without the water thus furnished cannot be worked at all in a paying way and further brin brings gs under cultivation some thousands of acres of fertile lands now worthless without water with every engineering difficulty solved and a clear showing of its paying ability there is no possible way in which the investor can obtain title nor be safe from government entries filed subsequent to that for far a right of way A long experience as an Is engineer leads me to conclude that at least a right of way for storage reservoirs on united states lands should be so granted by the government that it would have defined boundaries with precedence for ownership over all subsequent locations or entries on the public domain I 1 can see no other way in which any investment of this nature can be made safe it is furthermore essential that any new act of congress to this end shall be so worded that no department of the government can by arbitrary construction st or technicalities which afford no additional safeguard make such act inoperative the entire perversion of the intent of the congress has heretofore been only too apparent in the carelessly worded acts themselves but such perversion has been too often insured by the instructions which prevent their being carried out I 1 present for the kind consideration of this convention a draft of a bill to partially at least meet the present state of affairs and to give some sort of security to farming and manufacturing communities to transportation companies and to citizens of the united states generally for their investments in this class of work this bill has been prepared by lawyers and engineers of long irrigation experience and should you resolve to endorse its it general provisions and recommend its passage to the national congress it Is desired that you will request the senators and representatives from bour respective states to enact it into a law to this end I 1 would respectfully suggest some of the benefits that will inure to the people of the united states and the general government from tile the act proposed the opening up of a new agricultural cult nral and manufacturing resources 2nd and enabling the government and states to sell lands to the best class of settlers land otherwise 3rd ard securing water powers for mining and milling ores for producing electrical energy and again using the same waters for irrigation ath inducing the investment of capital by making titles secure for grants over public lands ath the reclamation of millions of acres of land that must otherwise continue to remain arid ath affording settled communities opportunity to obtain increase of water supply from storage ath preventing land entries for blackmailing purposes esth insuring a better conservation and protection of the water sheds and basins ath promoting the saving and utilization by storage and the surface transmission of underflow waters water snow now practically lost measurably preventing floods and making communities interested in saving forests alth by settling the status of reservoir and canal holdings much needless litigation will be saved A general feeling of security as to permanency of water supply hence the building of a better settled class of cities and towns following are the resolutions as passed by the national irrigation con gress upon the subject treated in the foregoing argument whereas there Is at the present time no law of the united states whereby a permanent right of way over the public lands can be granted for reservoirs canals or other artificial waterways hence grave detriment to irrigation and manufacturing interests in fact a national calamity preventing the up building of our western country especially therefore be it resolved by this Trans mississippi congress that the congress of the united unite states at its coming session be urged to pass such a law as will provide a remedy whereby communities and citizens of the united states may be enabled to obtain title to the public lands ands as a heretofore for such purposes and foster the settlement of millions of acres of such lands of the public domain |
