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Show Irrigation Offers Key To Full Growth Of Colorado River Basin In an address before the National Na-tional Reclamation Association convention, held in Omaha a week ago, William E. Warne, assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, presented present-ed the question of the Colorado river. Because the Colorado is of vital importance to Utah and particularly to the Uintah Basin. Mr. Warne's address should be studied carefully. It is a historical histori-cal account of the river and a general discussion of what has and what can bo done to put the stream to beneficial use. A few highlights of Mr. Warne's address are worthy of note. "This river," says Mr. Warne, "was not friendly, as were so many other American rivers. Instead of providing a highway for explorers, trappers, and emigrants to use in entering the country, the Colorado at many places proved an impassible impassi-ble barrier. Its canyons were high water marks of the northward north-ward march of the Spanish Dons and Padres. None knew where the river went after it entered the upper canyons. None knew whence the river came, as it reached the delta. Some old maps show two or more rivers in Its place. . . . "Since the Colorado was so difficult, it does not surprise us to find that the explorers, trappers trap-pers and early emigrants took a dim view of this river. Lieut. J. C. Ivors in 1857, three centuries centur-ies after the discovery of the river, in summing up for them said: 'The region last explored is, of course, altogether valueless. It can be approached only from the south, and after entering it, there is nothing to do but leave. Ours was the first, and doubtless will be the last, party of whites to visit this profitless locality. It seems intended by nature that the Colorado river, along the greater portion of its lone and majestic way, shall be, forever unvisited and unmolested.' "But little did Lieut. Ives know that the Mormons in the uoper tributaries and Dr. Oliver M. Wozencraf t on the lower river found, in irrigation, the key to unlock the wealth of the Basin. The Mormons in 1847 had to use the waters of Utah in order to exist in their newly chosen homeland. home-land. They were soon establishing establish-ing irrigation colonies along many of the streams that joined to make up the Colorado, "From the time of the cliff-dwellers cliff-dwellers right on down to today, to-day, men who have chosen to live in the Colorado River Basin have had to irrigate land to provide pro-vide food for themselves. Our irrigation methods have improved im-proved over those of the prehistoric pre-historic Indian who carried the water to his corn hills in an ollas on his head, but in the Colorado Col-orado River Basin, men have irrigated the land or moved on. Red men or White men. Pagan or Christian, Mormon or Catholic, Catho-lic, SDanish, Mexican or American, Ameri-can, irrigated the land or got out. "In the future, also, we will find that the number of Americans Ameri-cans who can live in the Colorado Colo-rado River Basin will have a direct relationship with the amount of water used there for irrigation." |
