tains about 5 miles east of the old Eldorado Ferry; thence down the west slope and around the southern extremity of the Black Mountains crossing the Santa Fe Railroad about 3 miles south of Yucca station; then down the east side of Sacramento Valley and through a long tunnel to the Williams River Valley at the head of Mohave Creek; thence up the Williams Valley crossing Big Sandy and Santa Maria Rivers about 10 miles above their junction; thence in a southwesterly direction across Dato Creek and Bullard Wash, under a low divide into Butler Valley and down the west slope of Harcura Mountains to a crossing of the Santa Fe Railroad about 3 miles east of Vicksburg station. Here the main body of irrigable land would begin and the first main lateral would branch off. Thence the main canal would extend eastward through comparatively level country across the Hassayampa and Agua Fria Valleys, through Paradise Valley to a siphon crossing of Salt River at Granite Reef Dam, the canal level being 157 feet above the dam crest, then southeasterly to a crossing of the Gila River about 7 miles below Florence, then southwesterly to Casa Grande and westerly to a point 8 miles southwest of Maricopa, the elevation at this point being approximately 1,300 feet. The length of this canal is given by the promoters as approximately 548 miles but measurements following the course outlined, on the best contour maps available, give 360 miles to Santa Maria crossing, 420 miles to Vicksburg, 555 to Granite Reef Dam, and 645 to the end. If the canal were actually located it is safe to say that it would be even longer and possibly over 800 miles long. It is our belief that the average length water would have to travel from diversion to land would hardly be less than 700 miles. The irrigable area ears to include all the lands that can be reached from this canal. It is known that a portion of this area, particularly in the lower Gila Valley below Sentinal Butte, is unsuited to irrigation, and there are also about 300,000 acres now irrigated from other sources which seem to be included. However, it is impossible, from information furnished by the promoters of this plan, or any other data at present available, to determine even approximately the area of lands which could be properly classed as irrigable, and we have grave doubts that so large a body of irrigable land exists under this proposed canal. Land in this locality requires for successful irrigation at least 3 acre-feet per acre delivered. Considering the great length of this canal system, even though all the main canals are concrete lined, loss from seepage and evaporation would certainly amount to 25 per cent to 40 per cent. Taking the smaller amount, it will be necessary to divert 4 acre-feet for each acre of land, or 14,000,000 acre-feet for the season. The maximum use of water in irrigation in this section occurs in July and averages about 13 per cent of the total for the year. This demand will require a canal with a capacity of 30,000 secondfeet. The first 35 or 40 miles of the canal would be located in shale along precipitous cliffs and narrow benches within the canyon. Considering the well-known treacherous character of shale when saturated with water, we think it would be necessary to place the entire canyon section of the canal in tunnel. Further on the main canal would traverse a great deal of country with steep slopes and so irregular that the construction of a surface canal of the necessary capacity would be exceedingly expensive and might be infeasible. Throughout its length the main canal would cross thousands of watercourses varying from small gullies to deep wide canyons. This region is characterized by local storms of very violent character and at each drainage crossing adequate provision must be made for safely carrying storm waters across the canal. This again would add to the expense of the undertaking. Messrs. Sturtevant and Stam state that the total length of tunnels will not exceed 27 miles. Our estimate is over 80 miles, the tunnel from Sacramento Valley into Williams River Valley being alone as long as their total. The low-water level at Spencer Canyon as determined in the survey made by the Geological Survey during the past summer is 1,112 feet. It will therefore be necessary to construct a dam for diversion about 900 feet high above low-water level. It is not known how far below water level satisfactory foundations can be found. With our present knowledge of the principles of dam design it is questionable whether a dam from 900 to 1,000 feet high, developing stresses within ordinary allowable limits, is practicable or economically feasible. It is known that the upper 200 feet of this dam would have shale abutments which probably would not be found permissible in a dam of this character. There is still to be considered a difficulty which is perhaps the most serious of all, the operation of a canal system 700 miles long with 500 miles of main canal in rough mountainous country. The difficulties of handling a river with three times the low-water flow of the Colorado River along canyon walls, rough lava mountain slopes, and across wide detrital washes for 500 miles are hard to visualize and one break in this canal would mean the shutting off of water to this entire area for a period which would ruin crops. A storage and regulating reservoir on the canal line near the irrigable area of sufficient capacity to tide over such an emergency or indeed to meet the ordinary requirements in operating so huge a system, seems to be unavailable and no mention of such a necessary adjunct to the system has been made by the promoters. Messrs. Sturtevant and Stam state that the construction cost of their project, including dam, high-line canal, and lateral canals will be $290.000,000. It is believed that the actual construction cost of such a project, if indeed it is feasible at all, would far exceed this estimate. We consider that this project is inadvisable and is not worthy of serious consideration. SPENCER COSBY, Corps of Engineers, United States Army. E. B. DEBLER, Engineer, Bureau of Reclamation. Chief Engineer, Federal Power Commission. Chief Land Classification Branch, Geological Survey. F. E. WEYMOUTH, Chief Engineer, Bureau of Reclamation. WALKER R. YOUNG, Engineer, Bureau of Reclamation. The CHAIRMAN. A few days ago I received from the Secretary of the Interior a letter, dated March 17, 1924, commenting upon the proposed improvement of the Colorado River Basin and transmitting to the committee reports, in eight volumes, in manuscript form, with a great many maps and photographs, one of which is the report of the Reclamation Bureau. The Secretary also submitted the report of the engineers, six in number, appointed by the Secretary to consider the problems of the Colorado River, which report, together with the letter from the Secretary of the Interior, transmitting all of the reports, will be made a part of the record. There are also two separate reports of engineers, one by Col. William Kelly, chief engineer, Federal Power Commission, and one by Mr. Herman Stabler, of the Geological Survey, which will also be made part of the record. The eight volumes referred to are too voluminous to have printed at this time. It will probably take several months to have the maps lithographed, but they are here and available for reference by the committee. Mr. RAKER. Mr. Chairman, as I understand, simply the letter and report of the six engineers are to be printed in the record? The CHAIRMAN. Yes; they are to go into the record, also the memorandum by Herman Stabler. With regard to printing these eight volumes, that is a matter that we will have to take up later. Mr. HAYDEN. Mr. Chairman, I suggest that before any action is taken with respect to the printing of these eight volumes an estimate be obtained from the Public Printer of the probable cost of printing and of the time that it will take to make the necessary cuts to illustrate the report, so that we may have available an accurate understanding as to what will be the total cost of this work. The CHAIRMAN. That will be done: an estimate will be obtained from the Public Printer. Mr. RAKER. Are you going to read the report of the Secretary, Mr. Chairman? The CHAIRMAN. Not at this time. Mr. RAKER. But it will be printed? The CHAIRMAN. It will be printed in the record. Mr. RAKER. Those will be printed in the record which you mentioned a few moments ago? The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Hon. ADDISON T. SMITH, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, Chairman Committee on Irrigation of Arid Lands, House of Representatives. MY DEAR MR. SMITH: Herewith is transmitted findings of engineers engaged in surveying the Colorado River Bas'n together with their detailed technical observations bearing on H. R. 2903. Attached hereto is a copy of their resolutions. The Colorado River Basin has been under observation, survey, and study. and the subject of reports to Congress since the close of the Civil War. More than $350,000 have been expended by the Bureau of Reclamation since the Kinkaid Act of May 18, 1920. More than $2,000,000 have been expended by other agencies of the Government. The time has arrived when the Government should decide whether it will proceed to convert this natural menace into a national resource. The scope of this subject in many directions, its urgency in some, and its opportunities for development together demand the determination of a definite Government policy. Not temporary expedients but plans comprehending the immediate necessities and those of succeeding generations, especially for power, which is now the pressing necessity of this country as a whole and is going to become an acute problem for the territory within distribution distance for electrical energy of the Colorado River. The engineers' estimates tell us that the energy equivalent of a man-day can be produced at Boulder Canyon for 2 mills (0.2 cent). At a modern steam electric plant, located, for illustration, at Needles, Calif,, using coal or oil, the total cost of a man-day of energy would be a cent and a half. Expressed in terms of conservation of energy, every 0.6 kilowatt hour or 0.8 horsepower hour of Colorado River energy used will do a day's work of one man and save 14 pounds of coal or 1 pound of fuel oil. The Colorado River is now a local menace. It may be converted into a public utility of first importance, particularly to southwestern United States. Its possibilities rank with those of the Panama Canal, the St. Lawrence waterways, or the Territory of Alaska. There enter into this subject many features which have been treated separately in this report. Some of them joined and discussed as one. The Colorado River Basin contains about 244,000 square miles, and studies of tributaries and contributing streams are included in the report of engineers herewith presented. The Fall-Davis report of two years ago has been before Congress since then and no doubt has been analyzed by it. Its recommendations stress the Boulder Canyon Dam, which is the paramount feature of it. The proposed Boulder Canyon Dam treated in these studies will raise the water surface 605 feet, a height greater than that of the Washington Monument, and more than two and one-fourth times as much as the Don Pedro Dam in California, which has the highest lift of any in this country and probably in the world. The dam would contain over three and three-fourths million cubic yards of concrete, which is more than three times as much as the Assuan Dam in Egypt containing the greatest amount of masonry of any dam heretofore built. The cost of the Boulder Canyon Dam will be about $50,000,000, two and two-thirds times as much as that of the Assuan Dam. The reservoir formed by the dam will be 120 miles long and will have an rea of 157,000 acres, which is one and one-half times as much as that of Gatun Lake on the Panama Canal. The proposed reservoir will have a capacity of 34,000,000 acre-feet, eight times as great as that of Gatun Lake, and nearly thirteen times as great as that of the Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico, the largest in this country. The total cost of the enterprise, including the building of the dam, power plant, and transmission lines, will be about $130,000,000 (estimated), which is about one-third of the cost of the Panama Canal. The cost given does not, however, include that of the all-American canal which would add $31,000,000. The total cost of the three features, the dam, transmission lines, and allAmerican canal, should be estimated at $200,000,000. The Boulder Canyon Dam recommended in the Fall-Davis report is described as beginning 150 feet below the bed of the river; to be 605 feet high, 1,350 feet long, and 650 feet thick at its base; estimated to cost $50,000,000. It must be built in a normal current 20 to 30 feet deep ordinarily, with a flood crest in the canyon of 30 feet, having a velocity of 15 feet per second of time. All of which indicate engineering difficulties attractive to ambitious engineers if not to Government or private capital. An opinion is no better than the reasons for it. Whether or not it is practical at any cost to divert, through tunnels in the canyon walls, such a body of water from the river long enough to build this substructure; whether a mass of masonry unapproached in size in the history of engineering is prac ticable; or whether it is possible to give more than an intelligent guess of its cost are problems not to be passed upon by one man alone, but should challenge the judgment of the country's ablest engineers and be subject to deliberate review by the Congress. Congress should itself appraise the necessity of an outlay of such magnitude and justify the financial obligation to be assumed by the Government before beginning this project. The reports herewith submitted are intended to cover investigations and analyses largely made in the past two years by the chief engineer of the Reclamation Service and his assistants. Three outstanding engineers from the War Department, Federal Power Commission, and the Geological Survey, respectively, all except one having had long service on the Colorado River, have been contributing their knowledge and time to its preparation. engineering reports and findings contain all the late technical information in possession of the Government. These Before further appropriation of Government funds is made for an undertaking of such magnitude several separate and distinct features should be studied separately by Congress : (a) Flood control. (b) Impounding water for farming. (c) The use of stored water for generating electric power to be sold on the open market to points two or three hundreds of miles distant. (d) An all-American canal for better service to the people in the Imperial Valley. (e) A possible future necessity for domestic water for growing California cities 250 miles distant. Flood control is separately treated in these reports, because it has long, by common consent, been regarded as an obligation of the Government to guard life and property of its people against recurring forces of nature beyond their ability to resist. Flood control of the Colorado River appears to be practicable, considered for that purpose alone, and would invite the minimum expenditure to effect, approximately $28,000,000. Flood control, considered alone, promises no direct return of expenditure to the Government. Irrigation of farm lands has been a recognized practice of the Government for more than 20 years; but reclamation has not made adequate, direct returns to the Government in dollars, although it has invited agricultural development not otherwise possible and is a policy that should be fostered. Experience has demonstrated that absentee ownership of private irrigation projects fails. To be permanently successful, irrigation projects must be owned, repaired, and operated by the farmers on the land. Agricultural features under the Boulder dam project should be disregarded as an investiment asset to the Government in the near future in computing income from this project. If reclamation water rights are associated with those for municipalities for domestic use or power production the rights of the farmer would become sub servient to the organized influence of greater numbers, with conflicting necessities, should a seasonal or temporary shortage of water occur, always a con-. tingency to be guarded against in the semiarid West. A dam only high enough to raise water for gravity irrigation of mesas, or to give fall for power production, ceases to offer flood control unless constructed above these determined levels. The generation of electric power by the Government under any conditions is precarious financial practice. The manufacture of it primarily for sale on the open market in competetion invites subsidies and is without congressional sanction at this time. The Government, instead, may exercise its authority to fix rates to consumers for the'r protection. However, no intimations have come tome that private enterprise is interested in developing the resources of the Colorado River, with one exception in a small way, which was denied by the Federal Power Commission, nor has expressed opposition to the Government proceeding in this direction on its own motion come to me. In view of the urgent need for flood control and the growing market for power, Congress should decide at this time whether the Government will proceed with the development of the Colorado River. GILA RIVER The Gila River enters the Colorado River below all proposed dams and presents problems independently. The State of Arizona can, it is believed, and doubtless will in time, utilize its waters, removing it as a flood menace, and relieve the Government from the necessity of its consideration. ALL-AMERICAN CANAL Water for irrigation is now carried to Imperial Valley through Mexico. For obvious reasons this is open to many and substantial objections-tampering, excessive cost of repairs, beyond control by our laws and customs, no right of way, and a possible source of international dispute. The rights granted to Mexico to the use of half the capacity of this canal, if taken up now, would cut off half the water from the Imperial Valley at low water and limit further expansion of irrigated area and increased shortages on the present area. The estimated cost of an all--American canal is $31,000,000. Four hundred thousand acres are now irrigated in the Imperial Valley, 100,000 acres in the irrigation district are not irrigated, and 200 000 acres could be brought into the district, making a total ultimate irrigable area in the Imperial Valley in California of about 700,000 acres. The reclaiming of this valley was not undertaken by the Government, but its people are appealing for protection. They feel insecure and are restive. Their fears are justified from previous experiences and they should be sympathetically heard. PASQUADERA CUT-OFF It is believed by those familiar with the behavior of the Colorado River that the Pasquadera cut-off, an artificial deflection of the Colorado River, completed two years ago and now obviating the danger from floods, may not serve for more than 15 years, after which this basin may become silted and filled. One hundred thousand acre-feet of silt is deposited annually. The river will then return to its old channel and again threaten life and property. This temporary protection should not be permitted to delay permanent structures for flood control at least. COLORADO RIVER COMPACT A compact has been formulated and approved by the legislatures of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and California, intended to regulate, control, and protect the rights of the several States named, including Arizona, to the distribution and use of the waters of the Colorado' and its tributaries for domestic and agricultural purposes. It will be necessary to have the State of Arizona join in this compact before it becomes binding on any of the signatories or before further appropriation of water for any purpose on the lower basin may be undertaken by common consent. The wisdom is doubted of the Government consenting to private enterprise, or itself proceeding with any structure on the Colorado River that contem |