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Show SMALL LAKES . CAN BE MM)l . Local Engineer Offers Original Idea of .How to Store the Waters of Weber and Ogden Rivers and Add to the Beauty of This Region Water Being Diverted. Plain City, Aug. 30. Engineer Jos. . A West r Ogden. In a little talk i't a farmers' meeting here one night last weed;, made, u suggestion with re ference to conserving the flood waters wat-ers of the Weber river for the purpose pur-pose of increasing tlie water supply 01 Weber county for irrigation purposes pur-poses that has. since met with much Uvorable comment. Mr. West first tailed tiie attention of his hearers to the fact that down In Utah county a movement is on . foot to divert the headwaters of the Weber at flood tlm? to the Provo. reservoir the water wat-er somewhere along that stream and then use it for irrigation purposes upon new lands in tlie Cedar valley. The people of Weber county, thought Mr West, shojild not be indifferent 1 to this scheme. Naturally the wat- ers if Weber river belong to them j iind to their neighbors up the stream Before any of the waters of this stream arc diverted to another channel chan-nel to lie used in developing the resources of a distant part of the 1 Hate, iiie people of Weber county and their neighbors up the stream Hiould tee to It that their own need; as regards a water supply, both present pres-ent and prospective, are well provi 1-ed 1-ed lor This year there uas been a scarcity of water. Farmers upon the lower lands adjacent to th:? Weber hae suf- . fercd considerable loss in their crops. And experience has shown that like losses must be sustained every few years unless tho flood waters are con-fervod con-fervod for use in seasons of scarcity. 1 lie need, therefore, .of making tho best use possible of our water supply J I and 0 providing for an increased j population and for the irrigation of new areas of land that can be watered wat-ered from the Wober becomes more) and more apparent as tho years go by. All suggerttions heretoiore mad' looking to the conservation of these early waters have met with little support. The reasons for this are many. In the first place, the farmers farm-ers of the upper valleys are not Interested In-terested in conservation as are tho farmers of tlie lower valleys; they do uot suffer so much. Again, all reservoir sites ever suggested have . been In or above the upper valleys. I This has always been a stumbling I block to the farmers of the lower val-j val-j leys. They have thought that the I loss incident to conveying the water I from the reserolrs to their lands bo-I bo-I low would be so great that they would , realize little benefit from such con- sc nation But now comes Mr. Went I with a proposition to build reservoirs I nearer home. He suggests that a 1 reservoir might be built on the We-I We-I ber just south of the Bomberger I bridge and between the Union Pacific I railroad on tbe east and the bluff on j the west. ) i Here a considerable area might be made to serve the purposes of a reservoir. res-ervoir. A second reservoir might also be built below the Bamberger bridge land above 'the wagon bridge at tho foot of Twenty-fourth street. And I while Mr. West did not suggest It. a j.ood reservoir sit? might be found, at the mouth of Ogden canyon. . Build a dam across the Ogden river at, or near, the old woolen mills and you have a basin of considerable ex-I ex-I tent Here a great depth of water micht be Impounded. The possibilities of such an undertaking under-taking are manifold In addition to Irrigating many acres of land, considerable consid-erable power could be developed at this dam, and the artificial lake would add new beauties to the farm? of Ogden Og-den canyon. Think of It conservation conserva-tion at home. |
