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Show PUBLIC F 0 R U M j Editor Iron County Record Dear Sir: I would like to enter your column col-umn once more on the water question, as some readers are aware, that for a long time 1 have tried to Increase the water supply for the area around Cedar, Ce-dar, but hae met a grat deal of resistance from our southern neighbors and the State Engineer's Engin-eer's office which deliberated from 1912 until 1949 when through a protest from some of the local leaders the State Engineer En-gineer rejected my application for 2100 acre feet of water from the Virgin river watershed which flows into Lake Mead. The State Engineer informed me recently, that the state had applied for the surplus water of the Virgin river 26 years ago, but 1 fail to see where a single shovelful of dirt or rock has ever been moved to protect the rights which belonged to Utah before that time. I have an application pending in that office at the present time for 3000 acre feet from that source and again the same resistance. They seem to be holding it up in favor of the Dixie project which has never been definitely set up and if and when it is set up, will not benefit bene-fit the Cedar area in the least. We have certain rights to portions por-tions of the Colorado river water, wa-ter, and we are letting them slip by to California and northern Utah while we sleep on our rights. The rejected application and the pending one are the only sources of increasing the supply for the Cedar area from a source that is not already over apportioned. Your local committee commit-tee is working on a project to divert some Sevier river water to Cedar City which is going to be a long hard fight, as the Sevier Se-vier river is already over appropriated ap-propriated and the upper Sevier people are going to put up some real resistance to any diversion from thaL source. I know be-couse be-couse 1 tried that once. If Cedar is to expand, some one had better get busy before California gets the rights to the rest of the Colorado river water. Owen Motheson. |
