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Show County Pumpers Seek More Power For Farm, Purposes Pump well farmers of Iron county, Including representatives from Cellar Ce-llar Valley, Parowan Valley, Beryl-Newcastle Beryl-Newcastle area, and the Weyl-Zuckerman Weyl-Zuckerman farm area, met In Ce-Ui.r Ce-Ui.r City Wednesday to discuss the possibility of obtaining more adequate ade-quate electric power and better service ser-vice for the 1947 growing season. The group conferred with Reed Gardner, President of the Southern Utah Power company, to determine whether or not It would be possible lor the company to provide the needed power to .gurantee pumping puwer for the expected expansion next year, particularly hi the west end of the county. It was pointed out at the meeting that approximately a $1,000,000 worth of farm produce would be produced on farms irrigated by pump wells this year, and that because be-cause of power shortages and in-t in-t eruptions in service during the present pre-sent summer, the farmers had suf-feied suf-feied a loss in crops, particularly potatos and carrots, of at least $100,000. The pumpers also claimed that they would need much more power next year than has been used during 1946, the Beryl representatives indicating in-dicating that they would use at least four times as much power next year as they have this year. Mr. Gardner pointed out that the extreme drouth of this year had curtailed power production this year, and that the load increase had been much greater than had been lanticlpated, adding to the difficulties. Instalaltlon of a new cooling system sys-tem at the steam , plant in Cedar canyon, tnd an Increase In the flow of water at the company hydro plants would do much to Improve the quality of service, and pointed out that he hoped to get premlssion from his company to build a large steam plant in Cedar City that would guarantee adequate power lor the entire area for a number of years to come. The pumpers presented two alternative al-ternative plans, one to purchase electric power from Nevada which would come from Boulder Dam, and the other to have the Rural Electric Administration build a new plant for the pumpers. However they deferred action on the matter until Mr. Gardner has time to confer con-fer with company officials on their .building plans. |