much in earnest in their desire to obtain in the Boulder Canyon Dam a substantial block of hydroelectric energy; in fact, such substantial share as the Government agencies decide should be allocated to the needs of the city.

We have in mind the needs and desires of all other States and communities to participate in the benefits of the project. Such benefits as they desire may be obtained by going there themselves or engaging an appropriate agency on their behalf, but after satisfying the reasonable needs of other communities the city of Los Angeles desires to engage and to pay for whatever and any power opportunities that the appropriate agency of the Government may feel Los Angeles should be permitted to have.

In making this statement I have in mind the fact that under the proposed legislation the city of Los Angeles would be required to pay its proportionate share of the Boulder Canyon Dam. We also appreciate that this entails financial obligations of a very considerable amount, and with this phase of the situation in mind I have given you in brief the condition the city of Los Angeles faced in 1905, when we provided $25,000,000 for the present aqueduct, and for your information I have given you a comparison of our present. financial situation and population, both of which have increased manyfold in the past 20 years.

When and if the Federal Government authorizes the construction of the Boulder Canyon Dam, as proposed, we have no hesitation in assuring you that the business interests in Los Angeles, together with the remaining citizens, will commit themselves to issue bonds and thereby make good their oral statements-commitments.

We are again looking into the future, as we did in 1905, when we went 250 miles into the high Sierras for water and power. The city of Los Angeles does not require and does not ask any contribution by the Federal Government the full return of which is not guaranteed by our firm contract. We can develop hydroelectric energy for our use with our own resources, but such development would not meet the wishes of other communities, so we are asking for Government construction of the dam, and we will finance and distribute such hydroelectric power under Government control as we can use. but we would have no objection to the cooperation of other agencies. provided mutually satisfactory contracts could be arranged.

We therefore ask that the Federal Government furnish the machinery by appropriate legislation and act as the agency for the distribution of the benefits therefrom, and our city is an applicant, among others, to quickly and promptly meet and finance a program that will return to the Federal Government in full, with interest, its appropriation covering the construction of the Boulder Canyon Dam.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Souden. Mr. A. L. Sonderegger.

STATEMENT OF A. L. SONDEREGGER

Mr. SONDEREGGER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the coastal belt includes a strip of land bordering on the Pacific Ocean from Los Angeles to the Mexican boundary, a distance of about 150 miles and of a width of 20 to 60 miles. It includes the

counties of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange, and San Diego, south and west of the high mountains; in other words, exclusive of their desert areas.

The coastal belt has a population of 1,825,000 and an irrigated area of 560,000 acres. Los Angeles County has approximately 588,000 acres of valley land, of which 291,000 are irrigated, and it has 131,000 acres of hill land, subject to limited development. Its present population is 1,425,000, of which over 1,000,000 are within the city limits of Los Angeles. Other large cities are Pasadena, with 76,000 inhabitants; Long Beach, with 100,000; Pomona, with 25,000; and numerous other cities of 20,000 or less. Los Angeles County south of the high mountains is also termed the metropolitan area of Los Angeles.

San Bernardino County has about 150,000 acres of irrigable land, with 100,000 acres under water and a population of 85,000, of which 30,000 reside in San Bernardino, the county seat. It is 60 miles from Los Angeles.

Riverside County has 65,000 inhabitants, the county seat being Riverside, with 30,000 people. The irrigable area is 220,000 acres, of which in 1925 120,000 acres were under water.

These four northern counties of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Orange, being contiguous, are commercially and from the standpoint of ultimate water supply, a unit.

San Diego County is somewhat detached from the others and for both geographical and topographical reasons presents a unit of its own. Its population is now 150,000, of which 125,000 live in the city of San Diego. Irrigable area, 100,000 acres, of which about 50,000 acres will be under water within the next few years.

The coastal belt of southern California during the past 25 years has experienced a land development undreamed of in magnitude and probably without precedent. The result of it has been an increase in population from a total of 270,000 in 1900 to a total of 1,825,000 in 1925. In this growth Los Angeles County participates with a lion's share, its population having grown from 170,000 in 1900, to 1,425,000 in 1925, while the City of Los Angeles has grown from 120,000 to approximately 1,000,000. The population of this city has practically doubled in the past five years, having increased by about one-half million since the last Federal census.

The four other counties to-day have three to six times the population they had 25 years ago.

Statistical data as to increase in population and irrigated lands is submitted in Tables No. 1 and No. 2.

The factors which have contributed to this development are analyzed as follows: First, a land development due to climatic and other conditions in which the irrigated area increased from 214,000 acres to 560,000 acres in 25 years. Second, the development of a back country, with an irrigated area of 520,000 acres, including Coachella Valley, Imperial Valley, Yuma Project, and Palo Verde Valley. Third, the advent of industrial development in the Metropolitan Area of Los Angeles and the growth of commerce. Fourth, the influx of a large population of comparatively well-to-do people whose means have enabled them to improve irrigable lands and to develop them to a point of highest productivity.

Farming development in southern California depends solely upon the artificial application of water as distinct from rainfall. Since 75 per cent of our water supply is derived from underground sources, its development is expansive. Irrigation practice is the most economical in the world; there are practically no earth ditches, all water being conveyed in lined conduits or pipes. The cost of irrigation water ranges from $5 to $50 per acre foot and is particularly high in the choice frostless foothill sections.

High land values and expensive irrigation have forced the farmers to specialized agriculture and the selection of crops which bring a high price, such as citrous fruits, walnuts, fancy deciduous fruits for table use and canning, beans, beets, winter vegetable, and a multitude of semitropical fruits and crops which require special climatic conditions and intense cultivation.

Put in another way, economic conditions concerning the utilization of land in this area forced such extreme specialization, that the crops produced are not competitive with products of the soil from the rest of the United States. The United States census for 1919 shows a total irrigated area in the five counties of 572,000 acres and a crop value of $155.000,000, or a gross return of $270 per acre. The citrus crop of 1925 is estimated to bring about $60,000,000. We are a large market for staple food crops. We buy potatoes from Idaho, wheat from the North and East, corn from Iowa, apples and pears from Oregon, steers for fattening are brought from Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Texas to the Imperial Valley.

The farming population of this prosperous country is in a class of its own; of the urban and suburban type that live well and maintain their connection with the metropolis by a system of first-class roads and up-to-date transportation facilities by rail, bus, and private auto, telephone, and radio. In the year 1924, there were 541,000 automobiles registered in Los Angeles County; one automobile for every 2.64 people. The growth of our back country began between 1900 and 1910, during which time Imperial and Coachell Valleys experienced a large influx of settlers. The Yuma Project was initiated about 1905 and was completed about 1908, while Palo Verde Valley was opened up about 1910.

The land under crop and the value of agricultural products raised in these tributary valleys is about as follows:

The contributory mining country of Arizona, Nevada, and Utah has an annual output of mineral products going into millions. Industrial development has kept pace with land settlement. We have to-day 5,500 manufacturing establishments of all kinds within the metropolitan area, employing 170,000 people. The United States

census shows the following value of manufactured products: 1899, $15,134,000; 1909, $68,586,000; 1919, $618,772,520; 1924 (C. of C.), $1,200,000,000. In 1923 the weekly pay roll was $6,234,377. The tonnage entered and cleared at Los Angeles Harbor was as follows: 1890, 158,766 tons; 1900, 253,855 tons; 1910, 1,709,294 tons; 1920, 4,210,176 tons; 1924, 22,214,137 tons. These are the fundamental factors and conditions which have brought about the rapid and steady growth of southern California.

Continued growth is conditioned upon the further development of the back country by the utilization of the irrigation supply and potential power of the Colorado River and further industrial and commercial development in the valley of southern California itself. The possible additional irrigable area along the Colorado River is given in Senate Document 142, Sixty-seventh Congress, second session, as follows:

An abundance of cheap power will induce the development of the great now dormant mineral wealth of Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, while industrial development in the valley of southern California has only just begun.

The water supply of the coastal belt of southern California is characterized by extreme irregularity. Practically all the rainfall occurs between December and April. It is irregular from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year. Records of seasonal rainfall date as far back as 1850. It has now been fairly well etsablished that there are cycles of wet and dry periods, periods of 10 to 12 years in which the average rainfall and stream flow are below normal followed by periods of the same duration in which they rise above normal. The difference in wetness and the resulting water crop is very marked. For Los Angeles and vicinity the

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average water crop of a wet period is about three and one-half times that of a dry period, while in the eastern portion the proportion is about 22 to 1. The San Gabriel River in its driest year of record had a seasonal run-off of 10,000 acre-feet and in the wettest year a maximum of over 400,000 acre-feet. The average seasonal rainfall on the valley floor is about 16 inches, while for the mountains it averages about 3 feet. We are now in a dry period which began in 1916. The rainfall for the last three years has been about 50 per cent of the normal.

With these extreme fluctuations it is not practicable to utilize the average water supply of a cycle and it requires enormous storage to regulate the water supply so as to make at least a portion available during the latter years of a dry period of long duration. Surface storage reservoirs of such capacity are not available.

However, the coastal belt of southern California is naturally equipped with underground basins of colossal dimensions and capacity. They are "sunken basins" filled with materials brought down by the streams-sand, gravel, and clay, and capable of absorbing large volumes of water. In the natural order of things these basins are the recipient of portions of the stream flow as it traverses the valley and of seepage from the rainfall on the porous valley floors. It is this underground supply that has made possible the development of southern California; in fact, it forms the very foundation of its prosperity; 75 per cent of the developed water supply is from underground sources. The largest of these underground basins underlies the coastal plain, which extends from Los Angeles about 20 miles south to Long Beach and southeasterly for about 40 miles to Santa Ana and Newport Beach. Similarly, the San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley, and San Bernardino Valley have underlying deep basins suitable for storage in which water remains potable for an indefinite time and can be stored for long periods.

In order, therefore, to regulate the erratic water supply it is necessary to store the same in these underground basins, in which manner it is possible to utilize as much as 75 per cent of the supply. There are still unavoidable losses, such as evaporation and the escape of water underground into the Pacific Ocean. In years past there has been considerable flood waste amounting from 10 to 30 per cent of the water supply. Steps have been taken to salvage portions of this waste. Two years ago Los Angeles County voted à bond issue of $35,000,000 for conservation and flood control. This was eight years after the last capital flood which occurred in 1914. This bond issue was voted purely on the strength of the conservation feature. Two-thirds of the voters had never seen a heavy rain in this county, as they came subsequent to 1914. But they were much impressed with the effect of the dry years and the necessity of conserving the water supply.

The counties of Riverside, San Bernardino, and Orange, which are watered by the Santa Ana River, many years ago formed the conservation association for the conservation of flood water and lately have appointed a board of engineers to report on ways and means to effect the complete recovery of all flood waste. It is in