by HERBERT I. JONES, Soil Conservation Service, Denver, Colo.

Editor's Note.-This article by Mr. Jones describes the Soil Conservation Service effort and controlling hand on Nature's wrestling with water and soil-so meaningful to the security of the farmers and urban residents in three of New Mexico's southern counties.

The Bureau of Reclamation's Rio Grande project area totals 196,538 acres, of which 102,100 are in these valley lands in New Mexico. Water users in the area benefit substantially by the contributions of SCS control of sediment, erosion, and flooding of project lands. SCS developments are on tributary arroyos and creeks adjacent to Bureau project lands.

In utilizing flows of the river, these Reclamation project facilities produce electric power for the area and irrigate lands which in 1963, produced crops valued at $25,464.000.

Along the 100-mile stretch of the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico work is well underway in the protection of valuable reclamation work, farmland, and property from the destructive floods that have cost the rich valley millions of dollars in damages over the years.

The constant threat of floods kept land values down and taxes up, curbed community expansion, and made farming an extremely risky business in the vicinity of arroyos.

All this is changing. And though the start of the change began in the late 1940's as neighbors began pooling efforts to push the work, the big step forward can be traced to 1954 when Congress passed the Watershed Protection and Flood Protection Act (Public Law 566). Through this act Congress authorized the Department of Agriculture to work with local sponsors in the preparation of plans to design and construct flood prevention work on watersheds under 250,000 acres in size. The Soil Conservation Service was charged with administering Federal funds for planning and construction. Sponsors were to take care of easements, maintenance, land treatment, and varying shares of the cost of water management improvements.

The bill was hardly enacted when a flood hi Garfield, N. Mex., a village located along the Ri Grande in northwest Dona Ana County. The banks of the Garfield lateral were washed out delaying water delivery to scores of farms and drowning crops on others. More than 18 inche of water and mud swilled across U.S. Highway 85. into homes and business places.

Directors of the Caballo Soil Conservation District, Garfield folks, and their neighbors farming at the mercy of Velarde, Salem, Reed, Ralph, and! Rodey arroyos applied for Public Law 566 help for what is known as the Hatch Valley arroyo project. Work on six floodwater dams, one on the Garfield arroyo, began within a year. The loca groups agreed to underwrite nearly one-third of the estimated $185,000 installation cost and to op erate and maintain the project for at least 50 years

The contract for building the $35,000 Nort Salem floodwater dam became the first in the Nai tion to be signed-sealed-and-delivered under the new program. In all, the Hatch arroyo structurehave more than 1,100 acre-feet of capacity to take the brunt of flash runoff while the controlled release of floodwaters is made through the established drains and wasteways of the Elephant Butte system. 1

At the same time directors of the Elephant Butte Irrigation District found they could employ lav 566 and sponsor projects to safeguard immensely valuable irrigation improvements built over a spar of nearly 50 years by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The board immediately moved to sponso: the Dona Ana Arroyos watershed project located 25 miles down river from the Hatch project an north of Las Cruces, N. Mex.

This 7,000-acre project was designed to protect 24 farms and improvements. It includes tw flood prevention dams close by the Dona An lateral and the key Leasburg Canal, with a "con trolled-water" floodway to the Rio Grande. An

nual benefits accruing are estimated at over $20,000-not a surprising figure considering crop values in the potential damage area average over $185,000 a year.

Much of the upswing in watershed activity along the Rio Grande is attributed to the progressive directors of the Elephant Butte Irrigation District, headed by president, W. H. Gary, and assisted by district manager, John L. Gregg. Under the guidance of these men a cluster of small watershed projects and individual jobs virtually ring the 100-mile-long valley.

Six authorized projects covering 18 arroyos are either completed or in construction with Public Law 566 funding. At least 24 more projects are in some stage of planning. And the list of applications is perhaps double that figure.

Channels Became Blocked

Most of the side arroyos causing trouble along the Rio Grande probably once had natural channels emptying directly into the river. Deposits then were conveniently swept away during river floods. But gradual aggradation of the river blocked the channels so that virtually all tributary runoff now floods cultivated land.

The six arroyos making up the Hatch project are probably prime examples. At least once every 4 years severe damages occurred in their vicinity following late summer and fall thunderstorms. About 750 acres were hurt as water ponded up to 3 feet in depth. Almost always the Garfield lateral or Hatch drainage ditch banks eventually broke to release part of the water. But some damages could occur on as many as 2,000 acres. Railroads, highways, fences, buildings and equipment, and stored crops were subject to damages. Livestock invariably suffered.

A second category of arroyos being treated are those that interfere with irrigation and create expenses by their direct access to the river in contrast to those with no outlet to the river.

The Rio Grande channel through the HatchMesilla Valley is maintained by the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission as part of our treaty responsibilities with Mexico. Canalization work begun in the thirties prevents the river's wandering to and fro, losing water at every turn to phreatophytes and sand strata as it once did. But the straightening has intensified the need for side arroyo control in some special places.

Growth of a Mesilla Valley cotton crop on floodplain land in Dona Ana County, N. Mex., being inspected by Husin Ali, Indonesia. (Soil Conservation Service photo.)

Debris deposits from these tributaries can do severe damage directing the riverflow against a levee, by checking the channel and by forcing sediments into the Elephant Butte irrigation system.

Removal of the nuisance material is getting more and more expensive. And there are fewer places for spoil banks as land use in the valley becomes more intense. Recently it was necessary to rent considerable acreage for waste material from one reach of the river. Costs of trucking to off-river dumps is prohibitive, but it must be done where material can no longer be profitably used.

How well arroyo watershed projects have done their job of keeping debris from choking the canalized river is evidenced by the IBWC's willingness to fund planning. The agency has agreed to help with 11 arroyo plans and will contribute about $10,000 toward each. Commission officials are convinced that their work is sufficiently protected

to allow the Commission also to help with maintenance.

If John Gregg, secretary-manager of the Elephant Butte Irrigation District, has a favorite among the two dozen projects he is helping to develop, it is probably the Tortugas watershed.

This problem watershed originates on the mesa slopes east of the New Mexico State University campus, runs hard-by the college airstrip and in its old ways, took a wandering course to spread floodwater this way and that, seemingly never making any real attempt to reach the river.

As late as 1962, the "distributary" covered several hundred acres—a tangle of mesquite and salt bush hummocks. The area would have been bigger if the banks of the Las Cruces lateral canal would have held. But these washed out regularly to drain silt burdened water through the irrigation system that serves some of the most productive land in the Mesilla Valley. At least once every 2 years and occasionally twice a year, 1,000 feet or more of the lateral would be filled with sediment and debris.

With the lateral out and 16 farms flooded, 1,700 acres down the ditch were without water until emergency repairs could be made.

Mr. Gregg pointed out recently an innocent enough looking ditch south of Las Cruces. He explained this was the channel for the controlled release water of the earthfill Tortugas Dam. The dam was barely visible 2 miles to the east where it blended in with the semidesert shrubland that makes up the 15,584-acre watershed.

Traps Flash Floods

The 41-foot-high structure traps around 1,300 acre-feet of flash runoff, and through its alwaysopen concrete spillway, meters out floodwater slowly enough to allow safe delivery through the constructed channel. Over 405,000 cubic yards. of earthfill went into the construction of the dam. One interesting facet of watershed construction on the Tortugas arroyo is the way the project has freed New Mexico State University from the encroaching urban development of Las Cruces by providing access to an area east of the campus. Increased values of land now available to the university for use and development is estimated to be double the more than $13 million cost of the project.

So long as the Tortugas was apt to run uncontrolled it was not practical to expand university developments to the south.

John Gregg says, "Tortugas paid for itself: day it was finished by enhancing the land vali between the detention dam, the university campt Interstate Highway 10, and the valley croplan According to Gregg, upward of 600 acres of cre sote bush range jumped from a $50-an-acre vai to not less than $500 an acre.

One important role of the watershed dams in timing released floodwater to the river. Pr longing runoff and peak riverflows results in warcredits for the Elephant Butte project. T slowed, anticipated water is useful to the Tex irrigators. But uncontrolled flood runoff with e treme and short-lived peaks is not counted as wate delivery below the dam and on the Texas side the State line.

The structures are also contributing some othe interesting side benefits. One is the safety pro vided the Santa Fe Railroad at low arroyo bridge Over the years clearance at these was reduced b accumulated rock from the desert pavement so they water-activated signal lights were needed alon. the tracks at danger points to warn traincrews o flood dangers.

Santa Fe officials were among the first to see th potentials of Public Law 566 arroyo control. T start things off, the railroad contributed $3,00) toward the Hatch project.

Planners working on Interstate Highway? visited SCS and EBID officials numerous times t locate routes that would avoid completed water shed structures and construction sites.

The projects, though they help the irrigation district, the university, railroads, highways, busi ness, industry, municipal development, and who communities, come in for highest praise from in dividuals they aid.

Watershed project work has given some land owners an opportunity to build better farms and perhaps stay in business in the face of stiff competition.

Some of these men who have found themselve with less than efficient units considering the ability of modern equipment and methods have actually enlarged their farms and their abilities by soi swapping. Under this scheme they have take! old sand-choked channels, not needed after watershed construction or river canalization, and added heavy soil from other parts of the farm-backhauling sand to the too heavy land.

The crops one farmer grew the first year after he "swapped" brought in a thousand dollars more

an the job cost. More important in the longin conservation effort, was the economic water stribution which reshaping is permitting. High grade leveling, benching, ditch lining, pelines, and other improvements are now praccal on many farms. The result is a saving and etter use of irrigation water, supplies, and labor here once the danger of flooding precluded these nprovements.

The same enthusiasm for arroyo protection cares down river beyond the city of El Paso, Tex., > the Diablo Canyon and Camp Rice projects that ere among the earliest small watershed treated 1 Texas with Public Law 566 help. One special enefit of these projects beyond the protection of griculture and water resources is that afforded to ighways and the Southern Pacific Railroad. So ritical was the railroad's need that officials readily greed to move 5 miles of mainline trackage to perait the building of one dam.

Recently an engineer representing the Texas State Highway Department reported cost of Intertate Highway 10 bridges across the Alamo and

Diablo arroyos was half what it would have been without the floodwater detention structures.

Cities are not immune, either. A leading attorney in El Paso drowned in an arroyo near his home when his car was stalled and then swept away by a sudden flood of runoff across a residential street.

El Paso, taking a tip from some of the smaller communities, began long-range watershed protection and flood control in 1960, with $2,149,000 of construction work. Commissioner Joseph Friedkin of the IBW Commission was chairman of the mayor's advisory public works committee.

Floods in the city are spectacular, affect many people simultaneously, and are costly to correct. The cost of flooding in areas like the Hatch-Mesilla Valley can run into millions of dollars each year and affect thousands of people. There is still time for landowners in the farming areas to do something to help correct their flood problems. In the Rio Grande Valley, citizens aided by Public Law 566 are sharing the costs and shouldering the burdens of doing just that. # # #

This strange rain god was captured by Bureau engineers behind Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona. It measures 203 feet from top to bottom. Its habitat ranges from all over the upper Colorado River basin, to Lake Powell behind Glen Canyon Dam. To liquidate the rain god naturally, rotate picture to your left.

There is a whale of a lot of difference between dryland grain farming and diversified irrigated agriculture, and North Dakota's two irrigation development farms are providing many of the answers that will be needed to make the changeover as smooth as possible. Located at opposite ends of the sprawling Garrison Diversion Unit, separated by some 250 miles of prairie farmland, the two development farms have demonstrated that irrigation is a good business in North Dakota and have provided on-the-spot irrigation demonstrations to area farmers.

The Ransom development farm near Sheldon, in southeastern North Dakota and the Deep River development farm, located in the northern portion of the State some 50 miles northeast of Minot, were established by the Bureau of Reclamation, in cooperation with North Dakota State University, as part of the Missouri River Basin project's Garrison Diversion Unit. A third development farm in the central section of the State near Sheyenne, N. Dak., was operated for 5 years, but was discontinued in 1961 after it had served its purpose.

Ransom Development Farm

Situated in the heart of North Dakota's corn belt, the Ransom development farm is providing firsthand information on what irrigation can do in the southern portion of the huge Garrison Diversion Unit.

When the farm was established in 1958, Argil Froemke and his wife, Holly, not only leased their farm to the Bureau of Reclamation for development farm purposes, but were picked from a field of 15 applicants to operate it. A young hardworking couple, the Froemkes have not regretted their decision to act as contemporary "pioneers" in their community, and the results of 6 years of irrigated farming tells why. While their neighbors have been buying land to create larger and larger units to meet the challenge of the farm

price "squeeze," the Froemkes have been able to more than double the size of their cattle-feedin operation through the increased feed supply produced with irrigation without adding a single acre to their holdings.

The development farm site was selected in 1957 by an unofficial committee representing the Burea of Reclamation, North Dakota State University. and a group of interested and successful dryland farmers representing the southeastern portion of the State. After surveying several possible sites. and considering such factors as soils, topography. water supply, farm buildings, and availability for lease, the committee selected the Froemke farm on the Sheyenne River, 6 miles south of Sheldon. The Bureau then entered into a 5-year cash lease with the Froemkes to use their property as a develop ment farm, and began developing the irrigation system.

After the site had been selected, a talent hunt was instigated to locate a qualified farm operator who would be interested in the operation on a cropshare basis. Since part of the justification was to show local farmers what irrigation could do in their area, it was decided that the man operator should be a dryland farmer with no previous irrigation experience. The fact that he would have to learn how to irrigate put him on the same basis as all the potential irrigators in the State. This, then, would be a true test of what an average "drylander" could do with an irrigated farm. After screening 15 applicants, and studying in detail the qualifications of the 7 finalists, Froemke was selected.

One hundred and thirty-six acres of the 365acre farm were leveled in the fall of 1957, and provided with the necessary ditches, drains, and structures to provide a gravity irrigation system. The water is pumped from the adjoining Sheyenne River using electric power from the Cass County Electric Cooperative as an energy source. All costs