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Show By John P. Madsen If the present temperature, together with the hot, dry winds continue, our stream beds will be dry by August the first. The engineers will have apportioned to the various units the water to which they are entitled. Many farmers will be short and some canals will be shut off completely. com-pletely. This shortage is ironical, when this spring, as in years gone by. there were thousands of acre feet of water that found its way into the Green River. This wasted spring run-off held back by the simple method of storage and distributed through a practical system of irrigation would convert these many thousands of fertile acres, which are now baren waste, into a highly productive area. I'm certain many will agree with me that the Central Utah Project is not the answer to our problem. In the words of their president, it could be ten or twenty and perhaps fifty years before we can realize any relief from the Central Utah Project. By that time California Califor-nia will have developed its irrigation ir-rigation system to a point where its canals will carry all the surplus water in the Colorado. The Secretary of the Interior has decreed that the first to make beneficial use of water has an undisputed right to it. There is also a decree that the land in which the water rises and through which it flows has the first right to the water. We could create irrigation districts and tax the land up to $50.00 per acre if necessary, which would be ample to put water on areas such as Blue Bench Pleasant Valley, and Ouray Valley. That land with water would be worth at least $200 an acre. Well, what are we waiting for? With our present system of free enterprize, which is a prelude pre-lude to big business interests handling the wealth of the nation, na-tion, surely there can be found those who would be only too happy to invest in an enterprise enter-prise that would return the dividends di-vidends that any of these projects pro-jects would and at the same, time develop our aatural resources re-sources and increase production, which, after all, is the foundation founda-tion on which we stand or fall. |