LAND APPRAISALS COMPLETED

The completion of the appraisal of all irrigable land of the project was reported on January 16, 1942.

Three experienced and well-qualified real-estate experts appraised a 1,689,000acre area at its dry-land value, without reference to its prospective irrigation, and reported values averaged as follows:

Lands which, in their present state, have value for grazing purposes or marginal dry-farming purposes only, approximately 70 percent of the project area, $1 to $10 per acre.

Lands where soil and heavier rainfall permit successful crop production by dry-land methods, about 30 percent of the project area, $5 to $30 per acre.

The average appraised value for 1,209,909 acres, about two-thirds of the basin area, was shown to be $8.18 per acre of the land only or $11.05 per acre with existing improvements.

On the strength of incomplete figures, the value of the irrigable area, land only, will be between $13,000,000 and $14,000,000, and with existing improvements between $18,000,000 and $19,000,000.

Appraisals were made of each 40-acre tract or smaller subdivision where the ownership was smaller than 40 acres or where lands have been legally subdivided into smaller subdivisions by platting. About 44,000 separate investigations were made.

Three major surveys preceded the appraisal work. The first was retracement of land lines and the reestablishment of section and quarter-section corners; the second, the topographic survey, which consisted of mapping the land at 2-foot contours, at a scale of 1 inch equals 400 feet, and the third was the classification of land according to its suitability for irrigation, described above.

The retracement survey covering 2,427,789 acres and the topographic survey covering 1,967,554 acres provided the base maps on which the results of land classification were delineated. The land classification was carried to considerable detail and was based on the careful consideration of soil and topographic conditions in the field. Except in regions obviously nonarable, test pits or borings were put down at the rate of one or more for each 40 acres of a 1,913,871-acre area. Over 15,000 laboratory tests were made of soil samples brought in to check field judgment.

LAND OWNERSHIP

About 90 percent of the land in the project area is privately owned. Most of the area was homesteaded during the latter part of the last century by persons who intended to develop dry-farms. Much of the land was unsuited to that purpose, however, and most of the farms were abandoned after a few years. Individual private holdings range in size from a few acres up to several thousand acres. A few large corporations are among the big landowners. These include railroads. The largest landowner among these, the Northern Pacific Co., has voluntarily been withholding its lands in order that they may be disposed of in accordance with the plan of the Bureau.

The remaining 10 percent of the land is owned by the Federal Government, by the State of Washington, and by counties. The State lands, for the most part, were granted for the support of schools. The county lands are those taken over because of nonpayment of taxes. None of the publicly owned land is open for homesteading.

PRESENT LAND USE

Lack

Grazing and dry-farming are the chief present uses of the project area. of water for stock and scanty forage limit use of the greater part of the grazing land to spring sheep range. Grazing is the principal use of project lands in the western two-thirds of the area.

Wheat is the only important crop produced on the dry-farms of the project area. The land is cropped only once in 2 years, but, nevertheless, yields are uncertain and generally low. Dry-farming is largely confined to the eastern and northwestern parts of the project area, where precipitation is above average for the project and where the soils are particularly retentive of water.

Small areas within the project boundaries are used for irrigation farming. Near Moses Lake about 3,000 acres are irrigated by pumping from the lake and from wells in the vicinity of the lake. There is another smaller project, which secures water by pumping from the Columbia River, near the southern tip of the

project area. These small, established irrigation projects have not been included in the lands of the irrigation districts to receive water from the Columbia Basin project.

TOWNS, RAILROADS, AND HIGHWAYS

The total population of towns and farms within the project lands is approximately 10,000. About two-fifths of this total is concentrated in the southern tip of the area, in and near Pasco, the largest town in the project area. There are 8 other incorporated towns in the project area, but none has as many as 1,000 inhabitants, and most of them have fewer than 400. These towns, spaced at about 20mile intervals along the railroads, are minor trading centers. In addition, there are several unincorporated villages, which, in most cases, are merely cross-road hamlets or railroad sidings for grain elevators. Large areas of the more arid lands in the southwestern part of the project have no inhabitants. The rural population in the project area is largely confined to the dry-farming lands in the eastern and northern parts of the basin, and to the small irrigated areas.

The Columbia Basin is well provided with railroad transportation. Three transcontinental main lines cross it. The Great Northern Railway traverses the northern edge of the area, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific passes through the middle, and the Northern Pacific runs through the southeastern quadrant. The latter area is also skirted by the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railroad. A branch line of the Union Pacific enters the project area, and branch lines of the Northern Pacific and Milwaukee further increase the services available.

State Highway No. 7 runs along the northerly border of the project, United States Highway No. 10 crosses the north-central section, and United States Highway No. 395 crosses the southeasterly section. Highway bridges span the Columbia at Vantage on the west and at Pasco on the south, and a free State ferry is operated at Hanford. Secondary State highways and county roads form a loose network throughout the inhabited portions of the project area.

THE IRRIGATION WORKS

The irrigation works consist of a huge system of pumps, reservoirs, and canals. The key structure of the system is Grand Coulee Dam. It impounds water of the Columbia River for the production of electric power and the improvement of downstream navigation, as well as for irrigation. The river flows in a deep canyon, far below the level of much of the project land, and water must be raised a vertical distance of several hundred feet before it can be utilized for irrigation. The surface of the reservoir behind the dam is about 350 feet above the former level of the river. A huge pumping plant, using part of the power generated at the dam, will lift the water required for irrigation an additional 280 feet to a balancing reservoir in the Grand Coulee, an ancient channel of the Columbia River. As the river has it high-water season in the summer, both the water for irrigation and the power with which to pump it will be provided by surplus floodwaters during the summer.

The balancing reservoir, some 27 miles in length, will have a usuable storage capacity of 340,000 acre-feet, to adjust the supply of water from the pumps to the varying demands of the irrigation system. From the reservoir irrigation water will flow by gravity to the canals of the project. A canal will extend several miles south from the balancing reservoir to a bifurcation works. There it will be separated into two main canals: One, 100 miles longs, will water the western part of the project lands; and the other, 150 miles long, will provide water for the eastern and southern parts of the area. Supplementary pumping from the main canals will permit irrigation of lands above main canal levels. Power for supplementary pumping will be available from plants to be installed at drops in the canal system. Hundreds of miles of laterals will distribute water to farms.

ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT

Determination of the three blocks of lands which most appropriately could be irrigated first in the area encompassed by the project was reported on July 16, 1941.

The three blocks, one in each of the irrigation districts which have been organized to cover project lands, will be developed substantially concurrently, subject, of course, to appropriations by the Congress adequate to fulfill the plan. The

three blocks would be irrigated before a second block is started in any of the three districts, according to the plan.

The combined area of these initial developments is 60,600 acres.

The project area is so large that it has been determined to be desirable to begin the development at several points in various areas of the project to avoid uneconomic development of village, school, highway, and railroad patterns. For example, if all the early development should be made at the extreme of either side of the project, it is probable that urban and other developments would occur there to the great disadvantage for all time of the settlers on the later blocks at the far extremities of the project area, who might be forced to drive 60 miles for a Saturday night haircut.

The initial blocks, as selected, are 27,000 acres in the Quincy-Columbia district, which will be served by the West Main Canal; 27,400 acres in the east district, which will be served by the East Main Canal; and 15,300 acres in the south district, which will be served through the Pasco pumping canal.

PROSPECTIVE CROPS AND LIVESTOCK

The crops and stock adapted to the project area are those which have been successfully produced under comparable natural conditions on other irrigation projects in the Northwest. Types of farming which combine livestock and crop production seem to have greatest promise. On other projects where experience affords an indication of what will prove successful in the Columbia Basin, at least half of the farm land is in alfalfa and other forage crops.

The eastern part and some of the northern parts of the Columbia Basin project area have natural conditions comparable to much of the Boise project in Idaho. There, diversified livestock and crop farming predominates. In one district in the Boise project, where the soils are comparatively shallow and where dairying is of major importance, almost 75 percent of the irrigated acreage is used for alfalfa, pasture, and other forage crops; about 20 percent for cereals (wheat, barley, corn, oats, and rye); and the small remaining area for other crops. In another district which has deeper lighter soils, and where row crops are of more importance, about 50 percent of the irrigated area is given to forage crops; 25 percent to cereals; and 25 percent to seeds, fruits, and nuts, and sugar beets, potatoes, and other vegetables.

Although dairy cattle are the leading stock in both of these districts of the Boise project, other kinds of stock are raised. In the district where dairying is the major enterprise, for each 100 acres of irrigated land there are 27 head of dairy cattle, a few head of farm beef and of farm sheep, and about 15 hogs. In the other district, the number of dairy cattle per 100 acres of irrigated land is about half as great (13). However, there are 12 farm sheep and 18 hogs per 100 acres; and considerable numbers of range beef and range sheep are fed on farms of the district.

The Sunnyside division of the Yakima project has physical conditions not unlike those of the slopes and benches in the Columbia Basin project which lie at intermediate altitudes between the Pasco Slope and the higher lands northeast. In the Sunnyside Division, about 57 percent of the irrigated acreage is given to forage crops, and about 18 percent to cereals. The remaining 25 percent is divided roughly as follows: Apples, 2 percent; peaches, pears, and small fruits, 9 percent; potatoes, 2 percent; asparagus and other vegetables, 9 percent; and miscellaneous crops, including sugar beets and hops, 3 percent. For every 100 acres of irrigated land in this division, there are maintained approximately 22 dairy cattle, 7 farm sheep, 21 hogs, and a few head of farm beef. In addition, a few head of range beef and about 45 range sheep are fed per 100 acres of irrigated land.

The comparatively small southern part of the project area known as the Pasco Slope has natural conditions very much like those of the Kennewick Highlands division of the Yakima project, just across the Columbia River. In comparison with the other districts noted, larger proportions of the Kennewick Highlands division are used for the production of cherries, grapes, and asparagus, lettuce, and other specialized truck crops.

Although the natural conditions in the project area are suited to a rather wide diversity of crops and stock, it is obvious that success with any of them will also depend upon market outlets. These are being given careful study so that information will be available to indicate which of the alternative crops and stock can be more profitably produced. It seems apparent, for example, that in view of present production and prospective prices, the planting of apple orchards is likely to prove

a far less profitable undertaking than one or more of several possible combinations of livestock and crops. The information being obtained on those farm enterprises which hold most promise for a continued satisfactory farm income will be available to settle before irrigation water is delivered.

WATER CHARGES

Charges for water on project lands will depend upon the construction costs allocated to irrigation and the annual cost of maintaining and operating the water-distributing facilities. It is estimated that construction costs chargeable to irrigation, which must be repaid to the Government by water users on project lands, will average about $80 per acre. The charge, it is expected, will be adjusted to the economic productivity of the different classes of land, and may be higher than $80 for the better class, and lower for the poorer class of irrigable land. This charge will be levied against the land as a water assessment. Payment, however, will be made in annual installments over a period of 40 years, without interest, probably in conformity with the "normal and percentage" plan as outlined in the 1939 Reclamation Projects Act. Moreover, payment of the first installment may be deferred by the Secretary of the Interior until several years after water is first delivered. Charges for operation and maintenance of the irrigation system, however, must be paid from the first. These charges, it is estimated, will be about $2.60 per acre per year. Construction charges, when payments are started, will be over and above operation and maintenance charges. The two together will probably be about $5 per acre per year.

Mr. PAGE. I submit the following statement as a fuller explanation of the reasons for the policy that the Government buy privately owned lands:

STATEMENT RE PROVISION IN H. R. 6522 OF AUTHORITY FOR THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO PURCHASE THE LANDS ON THE COLUMBIA BASIN PROJECT

So far as known, all agencies and persons that have studied any phase of the prospective settlement and development of the Columbia Basin project believe that effective control of the lands of the project is essential to its success.

Problem No. 15 of the Columbia Basin joint investigations, designed to provide a plan and program of settlement and development, reads as follows: "What methods exist or could be developed for establishing the requisite control of privately owned lands? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each method? What method, all relevant factors considered, would be best? What policy or policies should be adopted with respect to the administration or disposal of lands brought under effective control?"

The investigators of the problem, all of them lawyers of long experience in the legal problems of irrigation, were Mr. B. E. Stoutemyer (chairman), district counsel, Bureau of Reclamation, Portland, Oreg. ; Mr. Fred Cunningham, Spokane, Wash.; and Mr. B. H. Kizer, Spokane, Wash.

This committee considered the nature and extent of the controls now authorized by law over privately owned lands within Federal reclamation projects and reached the conclusion that an adequate marketing and developmental program for the lands of the Columbia Basin could not be organized under them. The committee concluded, further, that the United States should be afforded ample authority with respect to the private lands of the project and that "to be practicably effective this authority should include the power to acquire title to such lands and to transfer such title as and when most advantageous to the proper development of the project." H. R. 6522 will, if enacted, confer such power on the Secretary of the Interior.

In support of its findings the committee made the statements quoted in the following numbered paragraphs:

1. "If the Government acquires title to the land, the Government can adopt the method of settler-selection which has been found most successful by the Reclamation Bureau in selecting settlers for public lands under the various reclamation projects. This the committee considers highly important, both for the protection of the settlers and the protection of the Government, and for the success of the project."

A judicious program of settler selection is, indeed, of prime importance. This bill, if passed, would permit such a program, Without such legislation it would be impossible.

2. "If the Government secures title to large tracts, the tracts may be subdivided along lines and in units which conform best to the contours of the land and the location of the ditches, roads, and other facilities for convenient and economical and successful irrigation; while if the land were handled by private owners, it would probably be sold according to legal subdivisions which might not so well conform to the lines which would be most convenient and desirable as the limits of the various farm units."

Another committee, composed of engineers representing the Bureau of Reclamation and Soil Conservation Service, has delimited in detail the lands which should be subdivided into farm units having boundaries based on topographic features. They are lands with respect to which such a procedure would yield definite and material advantages in reduced costs of constructing irrigation facilities, annual savings in maintenance, and conveniences of various kinds in farm work. They are, of course, the rolling lands of the project. As the committee on farm-unit patterns remarks, control over all the area which should be thus subdivided is the first requisite in laying out topographically controlled farm units. Only by Government acquisition of title can adequate control be established.

3. "About 300,000 acres of the best land in the Columbia Basin project is now being farmed in large units (many of several thousand acres) as dry wheat lands. The owners and operators of these large wheat farms are equipped with large amounts of heavy machinery for handling their farming operations, and are accustomed to that method of farming and do not as a rule wish to engage in any other, many of them being already past middle age. The majority of these wheat farmers are willing to sell their entire holdings to the Government at the appraised price, but are not willing to subject themselves to the possibility of being required to sell their holdings piecemeal and thus disrupt their present methods of farming without giving them the necessary cash to buy other dry farms elsewhere. Consequently, if Government funds were available for the purchase of such lands, these large wheat farmers would be more disposed to allow their lands to remain in the project and to sign them up under the excess land contracts. It is quite desirable that these lands should remain in the project and be signed up because they include some of the best lands in the project and also since it is important that the irrigated area should be in a solid body as nearly as possible and not checker-boarded with lands which are kept out of the project."

The lucid statement of the legal committee, embodied in the preceding paragraph, may be supplemented by the categorical affirmation that fair and equitable treatment of the large wheat farmers, most of whom are stanch friends of the project, requires that they be afforded an opportunity to sell their entire land holdings to the Government at the appraised price.

4. "If the Government should desire to make use of lands of the Columbia Basin project for the purpose of establishing on the lands competent and worthy farmers who have been forced off the Dust Bowl lands, this plan could be better carried out if the Government itself had acquired and owned the lands on the Columbia Basin project."

Unquestionably, provision must be made on the project for many poor or even destitute settlers. Both official opinion and public opinion have demanded such provision ever since the project was started. The war will create a new demand. Post-war readjustments will call insistently for new opportunities for settlement on reclamation projects, particularly if the early post-war years coincide with subnormal rainfall in the West. With or without such coincidence, large numbers of returning soldiers, sailors, and marines, and many workers released from war-production plants will seek economic security and social welfare in the Columbia Basin project. If the project is to provide in truth new and reasonable opportunities for such citizens, then the lands of the project must be acquired by the Government and needy settlers selected for their industry and integrity must have financial aid in necessary and reasonable amount. They must be permitted to pay over a relatively long period for their land and for essential initial improvements-they must have a chance to pay as they earn. H. R. 6522 will establish, if passed, a firm legislative foundation on which all these requirements may be met.

Government purchase of project lands would facilitate various procedures and afford various special controls not already noted that may prove highly desirable