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Show Thirty Years of Conservation Reported by Leo Harvey (The following are excerpts from the President's report, given at the recent convention of the Utah Association of Soil Conservation Districts held in Salt Lake City recent iy.) This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Soil Conservation Con-servation District movement in Utah. In 1938 the Miners-ville Miners-ville Soil Conservation District Dis-trict was created under the Utah law passed in 1937 by the legislature. Since that lime 49 SCDs have been organized, or-ganized, covering the entire state except the Navajo Indian In-dian Reservation in San Juan County. Consolidations of districts dis-tricts have reduced this number num-ber to the present 41, still covering cov-ering all of the land area in Utah. SCD supervisors are now working on many conservation conserva-tion projects on private, state and federal lands throughout the state. They are laying plans to further help landowners, land-owners, groups, communities, towns and counties in broad conservation and natural resource re-source development responsibilities, responsi-bilities, We you and I as supervisors sup-ervisors need to look at our progress over the past 30 years of district work. We have been charged with stewardship stew-ardship of these lands, and their development and use. What progress can we report on this conservation and development de-velopment work at this 30-year 30-year mark? tion and resource .development shows an annual return on investment of 12 per cent. This means the total cost of conservation and improvement improve-ment work placed on a farm or ranch, or on an irrigatici system, is returned in about 8Ms years. As you can see, conservation conserva-tion and resource development develop-ment is big business in Utah. It is good business for the landowners and operators; it is good business for irrigation companies, communities, and towns and counties. The effect of our work is to build temporary tempor-ary and permanent jobs for Utah. This builds the economy along main street. We estimate estim-ate that some 3,500 man-years of work have been provided in he installation of this work and that over the past 30 years some 1,000 permanent fuU-itme jobs have been created. cre-ated. In addition, the purchase pur-chase of equipment, supplies, tires, gasoline, cement, steel, fertilizers, and lumber for a $179,000,000 investment over the past 30 years, make economic eco-nomic sense to our many Main Street merchants. A good part of the time and effort that we supervisors are now spending in the state of Utah is devoted to the development devel-opment of resource conservation conserva-tion and development "program "pro-gram of action" on a multidistrict multi-district basis. This, in my opinion, is one of the most necessary and challenging jobs facing soil conservation In 41 Soil Conservation Districts Dis-tricts we have worked on individual in-dividual farms and ranches, on drainage and irrigation group work, on flood preven-ition preven-ition projects, on water distri- button projects, with livestock groups, on holding ponds and irrigaion reservoirs, on erosion ero-sion control structures, ditch and canal lining, on a thousand thous-and different projects and ideas of local people. Taking these ideas, each board of supervisors, su-pervisors, working as a team with local, state and federal agencies, have placed a tremendous tre-mendous amount of conservation conserva-tion work on the land. Our most accurate estimate estim-ate shows a state-wide investment invest-ment of farmer, state and federal fed-eral funds of 179 million dollars dol-lars over the past 30 years. This amounts to almost six million dollars each year, state-wide. Our best estimate for the annual return for this investment invest-ment to the landowners and to the economic life of the State of Utah is some $21 million each year. This means for each dollar invested an-ncally, an-ncally, in conservation and development work, $3 annual return can be expected. To put it another way, statewide, state-wide, investment in conserva- districts in Utah, and in the nation. The challenge is for the soil conservation districts to-align to-align themselves within the framework of the several state multi-county organizations organiza-tions to prepare a resource development "program of action" ac-tion" which will provide for the necessary rural improvements improve-ments making rural America Ameri-ca economically compatible with its urban neighbors. . We are pushing toward this end in Utah, for we have placed plac-ed into operation six-multi-district organizations dedicated dedica-ted to determining the resource re-source development needed within their boundaries. If done, this will make each of these multi-district land areas a more desirable place in which to live and work. I believe we are living in an era of exciting times. If I could make one point with you today, it would be that I believe each Soil Conservation Conserva-tion District in Utah has a major role to play in developing develop-ing and further developing rural America to the extent that it becomes for each of our soil conservation districts truly a "Community of Tomorrow." |