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Show State Waterusers Now Organized ! ! The Utah Water Users' association associa-tion completed a permanent organization or-ganization Tuesday at a meeting in the capitol, and decided to send a committee to study projects on the lower Colorado river in the .light of the pending treaty with Mexico, says Wednesday's Salt Lake Tribune. Wlilliam R. Wallace, Salt Lake City, former chairman of the Utah water storage commission, was elected president; D. D. Harris, Har-ris, Layton, manager of the Wfe- ber Rier Waters Users' association, associa-tion, first vice president; George D. Clyde, Logan, dean of engineering, engineer-ing, Utah Sta'te Agricultural college, col-lege, second vice president; and Alonzo W. Watson, Salt Lake attorney, at-torney, secretary-treasurer. I Directors from various districts of the state were named as follows: fol-lows: No. 1, Mr. Clyde; No. 2, J. A. Howell, Ogden, and Mr. Harris; Har-ris; No. 3, Mr. Wallace, Dr. John A. Widtsoe and! Ray Hammond, Grantsville; No. 4, R. J. Murdock, Provo; No. 5, Nels L. Peterson, Hinckley, and Joseph F. Peterson, Redmond; No. 6, Wallace Mathis, St. George, and Byron Howard, Huntington. Directors at large are: Orson A. Christensen, Brigham City; W. D. Beers, Salt Lake City engineer; George Marshall, Minersville, and Horace Allred, Duchesne. iMx. Wallace declared that California Cali-fornia is "making a desperate effort" to defeat the treaty, now pending in the senate foreign relations rela-tions committee, and under which Mexico would l-eceive 1,500,000 acre feet of Colorado river water a year. He reiterated his belief that it is a good treaty, and asserted that '"in my opinion we can ratify the treaty and no harm will come to the state of Utah." He said the "careful people" of six upper basin states and Texas "are not going against one state (California) unless un-less there is a reason for it. The men who wrote the treaty in the state department are career men, not politicians." It was on Mr. Wallace's suggestion sugges-tion the association decided to (send a committee to study Color-jrado Color-jrado river projects in Arizona, California and Mexico. Included jin the group 'will be the three directors di-rectors from the Colorado basin in Utah Mr. Howard, Mr. Mathis 'and Mr. Allred. Also at the president's suggestion sugges-tion it was decided to invite the newspapers to send representatives. representa-tives. Mr. Wallace said the purpose pur-pose of the trip would be not only to study projects using Colorado river water, but also to make first hand inquiries into the reasons for California's opposition to the treaty. Mr. Clyde urged the association not to overlook one of the most pressing problems now facing water users greater conservation of existing supplies. "In our effort to develop new projects," he said, "we have overlooked over-looked this: "We are now using only 50 per cent of the water diverted di-verted from our streams. The cheapest water we can get is that which can be developed through better utilization of the supplies we now have through reduction of conduction losses and better ap-' plication to the land. We must i teach farmers how to apply water j more effectively." Mr. Clyde warned that irriga-1 tion "is now at the crossroads" j and that economists of the United States department of agriculture ; have said that following the war there will be an excess in this j country of from 10 to 20 million acres of agricultural land. "Machinery is now being put In motion," he declared, "to oppose new reclamation projects." He said 1,300,000 acres of land are now being watered in Utah, 1 and that the maximum of arable land which could be put under ir-j ligation is only 1,!)00,000 acres. State Engineer Ed H. Watson ' said another important problem is to prevent wastage of water from wells, and suggested the legislature be asked for an appropriation appro-priation to plug wells from which water is now wasting. I William Peterson, Logan, said j it was his experience that wastage from intact wells is greater than j that from uncontrollable wells. He appealed to the association not to give its entire attention to the Colorado river, important as that j problem is. ! j Mr. Harris said that for 25 years ' he had seen the people of Utah misuse water, and he hoped the U. S. A. C. could do more to combat com-bat improper irrigation. It was the concensus of the meeting that an effort should be made to increase the membership of the association so it can speak for all Utah irrigators at such important gatherings as meetings of the National Reclamation association. asso-ciation. : A committee was appointed consisting con-sisting of Mr. Murdock, chairman; Mr. Beers, Mr. Clyde, Mr. Harris ! and Mr. Wallace to consider appointments ap-pointments to five committees finance, projects,, policy, legislative legisla-tive and Colorado river and report re-port back at another meeting in about two weeks. I |