OCR Text |
Show Shall The Livestock Be Liquidated? Since the big flood of July 24, 1946, there has been a great deal of discussion and some controversy concerning the causes caus-es of the flood. Some people who are not acquainted ac-quainted with or had experience experi-ence on the watershed, save perhaps per-haps a trip over the Skyline Drive where there are weather beaten strips, have attributed the cause of the flood to overgrazing over-grazing by the sheep and cattle cat-tle which graze on the watershed water-shed three or four months of the year, and are requesting that the livestock be eliminated from the watershed between Cedar creek and Birch creek. Men who have had experience experi-ence in mountain work and others oth-ers who have spent much time in the mountains with livestock are not willing to accept their argument for various reasons. If there had never been any floods out of those canyons prior to the time that livestock was first grazed up there, they would have some reason for making such requests, but according ac-cording to some of the best-trained best-trained specialists there have always been floods in all these steep canyons, even long before be-fore the white man settled this valley. We do know that there are a good many signs of floods such as ridges and hollows covered cov-ered with boulders and gravel, visible everywhere between Mt. Pleasant and the mouth of the canyon. The large hollows, some of which are still visible in some parts of town, must have been washed out by large streams of water or floods. Some of the older men who remember the poll tax law, remember re-member working on projects to fill up these hollows in the streets of Mt. Pleasant. There was the one through the old Hans Brotherson lot, through the Joe Johansen lot, the large one where the South ward chapel cha-pel now stands which ran down through Bishop Larsen's lot, Annie An-nie Jensen's, Henry Ericksen's lot, also over where Alt Brother-son Brother-son now lives, and ever so many more ran down farther into the fields. Much time and expense have been incurred leveling these off so that land could be farmed. Ray Seely, C. T. Madsen and others are still working on some of them leveling lev-eling off their farms. All these hollows gave evidence of having hav-ing been cuts by floods at some time. Regarding the flood of July 24, 1946, the Ephraim Enterprise published this story. Ephraim Family Sees Start of Flood While state papers report forest for-est officials and others conjecturing con-jecturing as to the probable cause of the flood, there is no doubt in the minds of J. Wm. Christensen and family of Ephraim as to its cause. They had gone up Fairview canyon and turned south along Skyline Sky-line drive for a mountain picnic on Pioneer Day. They were almost al-most due east of Mt. Pleasant when stopped by a sudden downpour of rain. Mr. Christensen Chris-tensen said he had never seen such huge drops or such a heavy storm. In a matter of moments muddy streams were tearing across the road both behind and in front of the car. Driving was out of the question so the family just waited in the cab of the pick-up truck. The downpour continued for about an hodr and a half, turning turn-ing to hail during most of the last half hour. The hailstones also were huge and crashed with frightening force against the windows, windshield and top of the truck. When the storm was over Mr. Christensen saiu mere wcts a suuu iuui inches of hail in the back of the truck. The whole area was white with the melting, rolling hailstones even though the accompanying ac-companying rain had melted much of the hail. Mr. Christensen rather laughs at the idea of overgrazing being responsible. Such a storm, he said, would have caused a flood to run off a comparatively level field of alfalfa or peas. Had the entire mountainside been covered with a layer of several inches of mowed hay, it would not have stopped the disastrous run-off, he believs. No matter how thick the vegetation it could not have held back a flood from such a downpour, Mr. Christensen states. Not daring to go back over the road to the north, the Christen-sens Christen-sens came on south, the truck being equipped with mud-grip tires. They had to move boulders bould-ers and trees and sort of make a road as they came on south. In a few miles, however, conditions condi-tions improved and they were able to get to the Ephraim-Or-angeville road and come on home, but not without many a scare and with a haunting memory mem-ory of the terrible storm. A U. S. government agent who was sent here to make a survey of flood conditions made the statement that there are many conditions that indicate that there have been floods here long before the white man settled set-tled in this valley and it was his opinion that if they removed all the sheep and cattle and even the deer from the Mt. Pleasant watershed there would iContinued on last page.) Shall The Livestock Be Liquidated? (Continued from first page) still be floods, because the mountains are high and the canyons very steep so that when a cloud burst comes like the one in July, there is nothing in the form " of vegetation that could stop the water from going go-ing down the steep slopes in the canyon and on down into the valley. If there were check dams and spreader dams placed along the path of that body of water it would have a tendency to slow up the velocity of the stream and the boulders would be more apt to go to the bottom and stop rolling, hence there would be less soil and debris accumulate, accumu-late, which adds to the volumn of the stream. TVio nitv nf TVpnh i also has a flood problem, so they have be- ' gun a flood control program. They have selected as thei ' committee representatives from all the different activities of j the community to work out this program, which has as its object, not to eliminate the livestock, but to improve the range or increase in-crease the carrying capacity of their range by a reseeding and flood control program. On this committee are representatives from the irrigation' companies. Xephi city, their industries, from the soil conservation district, the sportsmen, the' Farm Bureau, Bu-reau, stockmen. Wild Life federation, fed-eration, business men, County Agent, County Commissioners and Forest Service. Mr. Hansen, in charge of watershed wa-tershed management of the Forest For-est Service pointed out to members mem-bers of the committee that re-seeding re-seeding is the most feasible means of increasing both wate: and forage crops on the range. Livestock An Asset The livestock that graze on the Mt. Pleasant watershed should be considered an asset to the city. The sales from this source brings into the city well over S-0,000 each year, including includ-ing privately owned livestock and land within the watershed. The men who operate these units are among the large tax payers of our community. in fact it is estimated that the taxes from this source may be around $9,000 per year, part of which goes to Mt. Pleasant for the maintaining of our schools, etc. The number of livestock that are permitted on this watershed allotment have been reduced from 1485 animal units in 1927 to about the equivalent of 785 in 1947. This represents a reduction re-duction of about 50r , which includes in-cludes about 30 in time. How would the business men of our community or any community com-munity like it. if some agency should force them to reduce their stock or investment 20 or 30 or finally 50 or 100 ? How would an employee feel if he were to have 50 per cent of his income reduced permanently? Is there anyone who feels there is justice in such a program. If there was any assurance fiat it would do away with the l ood hazaard there would be justification for the move, but who is there who will guarantee guar-antee that such a move would end the flood problems, even in part. Another thought, someone said recently that "20 years ago Mt. Pleasant stockmen owned about GO.000 head of sheep and 1 today there are less than 20,000 and the town is just as well I off." Do the people of Mt. Pleasant, especially the busi-! busi-! ncss men and the laboring men I agree with that statement? I Stop and think what has become be-come of those people who owned own-ed those 60.00 head of sheep who were the backbone of our community at t'-'at time. Some have passed away, it is true, but where are their sons and daughters. They have been forced to move to other commu-jnities commu-jnities to get work or go into I business. And what of the large I number of men who were employed em-ployed by these sheepmen, Many of them were forced to go on V. P. A., some even to seek relief as a result. About .that time, or around 1924 there were from 12 to 14 thousand I lambs fed for market by Mt. I Pleasant men. compare that I with this winter when about 2000 head are being fed. One should be able to see that such a change in the in-j in-j come of a community would I have a serious economic effect, ' and whether that had any effect ef-fect when the depression came or not, we know that two hanks and 10 or 12 business houses were forced to close their doors. Do the people of Mt. Pleasant want to continue reducing the income from livestock live-stock by eliminating them from our range, The government, through, the agriculture conservation program pro-gram is urgi ig aimers in the nation to improve the soil. Since the strength of the nation defends directly on soil resources, re-sources, one of the practices they strongly recommend is the appJication of fertilizers to the land, and Director Peterson of the USAC says that there Is no substitute for barnyard manure. ma-nure. If we are to maintain and improve the soil we must have some kind of livestock on the farm, and a place to graze th m in the summer. Signed by: Committee of the Sheep and Cattle Association. WILLIAM L. SHELLEY president of Cattle Association. GEORGE C. SOR-ENSEN, SOR-ENSEN, chairman of the Sheep Association. |