| Show secretary of interior takes tion n favor of conservation hundreds of thousands of acres are saed to people in utah colo rado wyom ng montana idaho and wash agton washington secretary ballinger Ballin gr of the interior department has aaben taben an open and avowed stand in favor of the conservation of the water ot the country or the public domain in conformity with the policy of the taft adminis ration he has withheld the announce merit of his position pending the ac of something definite and tangible secretary ballinger s order was issued on april 83 last and he has accepted the recommendation for eleven temporary withdrawals of water power sites these withdraw als aggregate acres of land in the tates of utah colorado wyom ing montana idaho and washington where the railroads and electrical power companies of the country as well as speculators have been at work in recent years grabbing up all the water power in sight this policy will be the policy of the new secre tary the director of the geological sur vey has assured the secretary that the temporary withdrawals of water power sites already made from data in the possession of the survey together with such as will be hereafter be made prior to the convening of congress will be ample to protect all the more important water power sites of on the public domain and enable congress to leg slate intel li gently for their disposition five of the eleven withdrawals al ready made include all the power sites available in the areas that were with drawn by secretary garfield and re stored to entry by secretary balling ers the present withdrawals how ever constitute a much smaller acre age one sixth or less of the areas oe the corresponding earlier withdraw als this reduction has been made possible in part by omission of lands patented or reserved prior to the original withdrawals but more largely by th excl slon of land in no wise essential or useful to power develop ment th vacated withdrawals in eluded uch large areas of public land of possible agricultural or mineral galui at uch distances from the riv ers AS to have absolutely no connect tion v tl the f tire development of the flater resources on the other hand the revised withdrawals in the same reg one in some instances cover po er s tes missed by the earl tion thus in the case of tl e salmon river in idaho where the original withdrawal totaled acres that based upon the recent recommends a lion of the survey includes acres |
