USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume II > Part 65
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Having abandoned the idea of building the storage dam at El Paso, in 1893 the same individuals, associated with citizens of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and vicinity, incorporated, under the laws of New Mexico, a com- pany called the Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Company, for the purpose of erecting a great storage dam at Elephant Butte, located about 112 miles above El Paso, and a complete system of diverting dams and distributing canals for the irrigation of the valley below, as far down as Fort Quitman, in Texas. But on account of the condition of the money market in America at this time it was found to be impossible to raise, even at usurious rates, the large amount of capital required to construct and place in operation the proposed system. The unparalleled possibilities for a mammoth colonization enterprise in that region, the facilities for the cre- ation of a great storage reservoir and the economic distribution of the flood waters of the coy and uncertain Rio Grande del Norte over nearly 200,000 acres of exceedingly fertile land were so obvious, even to the in- experienced eye, that Dr. Boyd finally concluded that he would undertake to finance the enterprise. He returned to Europe in 1894, and after spend- ing nearly two years and a small fortune in efforts to provide the neces- sary capital, a firm of company solicitors in London proposed to form an English company to finance the American company. This was finally accomplished. An exceptionally influential English board was secured, the members of which invested heavily in the enterprise. It included Colonel W. J. Engledue, R. E., an irrigation expert of established repute; the Earl of Winchelsea and Nottingham, president of the National Agricult- ural Association of Great Britain; Lord Clanmorris, Lord Ernest Hamil- ton and Robert J. Price, M. P. Samuel Hope Morley, governor of the Bank of England; Rt. Hon. Arnold Morley, a member of the last Glad- stone cabinet, and four other of England's multi-millionaires also became financially interested in the great enterprise. Colonel Engledue came over and investigated the engineering features of the proposed works and the rights and titles of the domestic company. Work on the proposed dams
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and canals was begun, a great colonization system was organized, branch offices and agencies were established in Great Britain and on the continent, and contracts were made for the sale of large blocks of land for fruit and vine culture, the company undertaking to provide water within two years. Widespread general interest in the enterprise in particular and in the resources of the southwest in general was aroused, both in the United States and in Europe, when, at the instigation of the commissioner of the international boundary commission, the attorney-general of the United States, on May 24, 1897, instituted proceedings enjoining the completion of the work.
The news came like a thunderbolt from the blue to the inhabitants of the Rio Grande valley, who were congratulating themselves that the efforts of many years to bring about an improvement in their condition were at last about to be rewarded in a substantial manner. This action on the part of the federal government appears to have been the outcome of plans laid some time before by promoters of a proposed international irrigation sheme which, if successfully consummated, would have forever deprived the American states drained in part by the Rio Grande of the use of any considerable proportion of its water for purposes of irrigation. For several years prior to the inauguration of this proceeding there had been a great scarcity of water, especially in southern New Mexico and in that portion of Mexico bordering upon the river. This led to a complaint from the republic of Mexico, and as the result of diplomatic negotiations between the two countries, in May, 1896, the matter was referred to the international boundary commission for investigation.
The United States engineer who conducted the investigation, Mr. W. W. Follette, made an able report to the international commission, in which he showed the true cause of water scarcity. The commission in turn re- ported to the federal government, recommending as "the best and most feasible mode of regulating the use of water and securing to each country and its inhabitants their legal and equitable rights in said waters," that the United States government should buy all necessary land, pay all dam- ages, and at its own expense construct an international dam at "The Pass," about four miles above El Paso; submerge over 25,000 acres of highly productive land in Texas and New Mexico; extend the international boundary upstream to the dam site, giving Mexico additional territory in order that one end of the dam might be on Mexican soil; deed one-half of the dam, the reservoir and water supply to the republic of Mexico, and in some way prevent the future construction of any large reservoirs on the Rio Grande within the Territory of New Mexico.
While this investigation clearly established the fact that increased irrigation in Colorado caused a shortage of water in New Mexico, Texas and Mexico, the recommendations of the commission, had they been favor- ably acted upon, not only would have deprived New Mexico of all benefits to be derived from a project inaugurated for the ostensible purpose of making up this very deficiency, but would have utterly ruined the rich Mesilla valley in New Mexico, and put an end forever to all future irriga- tion projects on that portion of the Rio Grande within the borders of the United States !
B. M. Hall, supervising engineer of the Reclamation Service, acting under the direction of Mr. F. H. Newell, the chief engineer, and Mr. A. P.
Damm Site.
Engle Reservoir Site, Looking Down Stream Past Elephant Butte.
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Davis, assistant chief engineer, after a careful detailed investigation of the entire irrigation proposition in the southwest, generously suggested as a "reasonable explanation of these extraordinary recommendations," that the commission probably had no alternative plan for consideration. At that time the government had no Reclamation Service; but within a few years conditions have completely changed, and there has been presented an alternative plan by which it is practicable to satisfy Mexico's demand for "more water" and accomplish vastly more for the afflicted area of our own country than could have been effected by the consummation of the plans of the international boundary commission or of the private corpora- tion promoted by Dr. Boyd.
In its bill of complaint in the government's action referred to in the fore- going it was alleged that the company proposed to secure an improper monopoly of all the waters available for irrigation below Elephant Butte ; that the Rio Grande is navigable in New Mexico, and that therefore the proposed dam would obstruct navigation, and that its construction would be a violation by the United States of its treaty obligations to Mexico.
Years of litigation followed this action on the part of the federal authorities-litigation that has cost the government hundreds of thousands of dollars and ruined the chief moving spirit in the enterprise. Trial after trial has occurred, the result of constant appeals on the part of the govern- ment to the federal Supreme Court. and in each instance the contentions of the government have been overthrown. It was proven during these trials that the Rio Grande is not now and never has been a navigable river within the official definition of the war department, which controls the navigable streams of this country. It was established that the treaty be- tween this country and Mexico was violated in no manner whatever by the work done, and would not have been violated by the completion of any of the work then in contemplation. It was also definitely established that, through the efforts of the international boundary commission, the government was made sponsor for a gigantic scheme for an international irrigating dam-in the face of the prior efforts of this body to prove that any irrigating dam in the Rio Grande would interfere with navigation and be in violation of the treaty between this country and Mexico-proposing to furnish the occupants of lands in a foreign country coming under the system free water forever in consideration of their relinquishing certain preposterous claims against the United States for mythical damages to the extent of nearly $35,000,000 !
As a last resort, the government was induced to declare the rights of the founders of the project forfeited because they had not done the very thing the government had enjoined them from doing-namely, completed the work within the time limit originally prescribed. All of this litigation, it should be borne in mind. took place before the United States Reclama- tion Service came into existence.
Upon the passage by Congress of the Reclamation act for the arid and semi-arid west, a new question presented itself. Though the people of the valley had asked, by numerous petitions, for the discontinuance of the litigation by which the government sought to deprive this chartered company of the rights which it had previously conferred upon it, they found that they could obtain relief under the new law, and asked the government to inaugurate a reclamation project on the Rio Grande. In
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November of 1905 the Reclamation Service set aside the sum of $200,000 for the beginning of the work. This is only a small fraction of the amount required, but it is believed that the remainder will be provided for its completion, and that it will not be long before the great Rio Grande valley. in New Mexico and Texas, now little better than a desert, shall be made to "blossom like the rose."
The project recently inaugurated by the government contemplates the greatest single irrigation system in the United States, and, compared to the other irrigation undertakings in the world, second in importance to the great works on the Nile only. The storage dam across the Rio Grande near the little town of Engle, about one-third of a mile below the site selected by the old Elephant Butte company, the diversion dams, the canals and the auxiliary features of the system will cost the government, accord- ing to the estimates of the engineers in charge, the vast sum of $7,200,000. Two hundred thousand dollars of this sum is to be expended at once upon the construction of the diversion dam at Leasburg.
The main dam will create a reservoir 175 feet deep at its lower end about forty miles in length, with a storage capacity of 2,000,000 acre-feet (equal to a body of water one foot in depth spread over a flat surface hav- ing an area of 2,000,000 acres, or 87,120,000,000 square feet, or 3,125 square miles)-an area nearly twice as great as that of the state of Dela- ware and about three times as great as that of the state of Rhode Island. This means, in other words, that the flood waters to be held in storage in this gigantic dam, if suddenly loosed, would cover an area equal to that of the state of Rhode Island to the depth of about three feet.
The Engle dam will be arched upstream on a six degree curve, the upstream edge of the crest having a radius of 955 feet. From the bedrock foundation to the top of the parapet walls on the crest of the dam the dis- tance will be 255 feet, and from the sand of the river bed to the crest 190 feet. The concrete dam will be 180 feet thick at the bottom, 20 feet thick at the top, 1,150 feet in length at the top, and 400 feet in length at the present river level. On the top or crest of the dam there will be con- structed a roadway fourteen feet wide, with guarding walls of concrete five feet high. If it be found profitable to develop power by the pressure of the waters in the reservoir, it will be produced by means of iron pipes passing from the reservoir through a rock bluff at the end of the dam.
Although the river was practically dry for three months in 1900 and for five months in 1904, while the work of construction is in progress it will be necessary to provide a flume or other waterway 800 feet long that will carry all the water of the river and keep it out of the excavation for the dam. As bedrock is about sixty-five feet below the present river bed, it will be necessary to excavate that depth of sand and gravel to get the dam on bedrock.
A further idea of the gigantic proportions of the enterprise may be gathered by the estimates of the material to be removed and that which will be necessary to the construction of the dam. In the first place, 44,400 cubic yards of rock and earth and 335,000 cubic yards of sand must be removed, in addition to which 5,000 cubic yards of bedrock must be blasted out to afford ample anchorages for the dam. In the construction of the dam 410,000 cubic yards of cyclopean concrete must be laid, 114,000 yards of which will be built below the river bed, and 296,000 yards above
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the river bed. In the manufacture of this concrete about 300,000 barrels of cement will be used. The reservoir will store the entire flow of the river without waste and with a minimum evaporation, and will prevent the recurrence of disastrous floods along those portions of the valley now occupied by the railroad and by several important towns.
While all the money for this beneficent enterprise-upwards of seven millions of dollars, not counting the fortune which already has been ex- pended in surveys and the other labors of the Reclamation Service-is to be expended by the United States government, it is advanced merely in the nature of a loan to the people to be benefited, without interest. One hundred and eighty thousand acres of exceptionally fertile land will be irrigated, at an expense, it will be noticed, of $40 per acre. Proceeding on strictly business principles the government, before entering upon the project, demanded of those landholders throughout the valley whose prop- erty is to receive the direct benefits of the project, an iron-clad, irrevocable contract for the ultimate repayment of this enormous loan. In accordance with the requirements of the federal law, the first thing to be done was to organize and incorporate waters users' associations, which could deal directly with the government, the individuals becoming responsible to the associations, and the associations, in turn, becoming responsible to the government for the faithful fulfillment of the contracts. Two water users' associations were formed, one having headquarters at Las Cruces, New Mexico, and one at El Paso, Texas. Each association is composed of in- dividuals owning lands in the reservoir district. Upon their organization these associations procured contracts with the various land owners to the effect that the latter will repay to the government, in ten equal annual installments, without interest, the cost of constructing the irrigation system. In other words, each acre of land irrigated must return to the government, through one or the other of these associations, four dollars per annum for a period of ten years. Upon the expiration of that time the dam will be- come the property of the landholders, though its operation thereafter will be administered under governmental supervision by the water users' asso- ciations. The legal effect of this undertaking on the part of the govern- ment is practically the making of a mortgage to the association upon all the lands to be benefited, to secure to the government the annual payments mentioned.
This vast governmental undertaking has been placed under the per- sonal direction of B. M. Hall, supervising engineer for the Reclamation Service in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. W. H. Sanders, a prominent member of the board of consulting engineers, is especially available for consultations in this region. Inasmuch as this Rio Grande project is the greatest single task in the way of irrigation to which the federal govern- ment has put its hand, these men have become almost national figures. To Dr. Nathan Boyd, who took the first practical steps toward saving and developing the many billions of gallons of water annually going to waste in this great arid region, belongs the credit for the inception of the enter- prise. Unfortunately for him and his associates, however, their plans for the storage of the water and the irrigation of the land appear, according to expert government authority, to have been'imperfect ; and it has remained for the Reclamation Service to amplify and complete the plans now per- fected and soon to be put in operation. The task was beyond question too
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great for a private corporation of relatively limited finances, large as was the sum of money pledged to the undertaking. The government is now simply occupying the same ground that Dr. Boyd and his associates under- took to occupy, and is working out plans conceived and advocated many years ago by Major J. W. Powell when he was director of the U. S. Geological Survey. He died without witnessing the fruits of his labors, but his nephew, Arthur Powell Davis, who was his constant companion, is now assistant chief engineer of the Reclamation Service. Mr. Newell, the chief engineer, was also a companion of this grand old man; and these two men have utilized his ideas in planning the Rio Grande project. Under their direction Mr. Hall worked out the details of a practical project and persuaded the warring elements to accept it.
To a greater or less extent the importance of this long and sinuous stream as a means of irrigation most vitally affects the agricultural inter- ests of a region fully 1,200 miles in length. Owing to the great aridity of the climate, agricultural pursuits in that section of the country are practically impossible without water artificially procured, and the waters of the Rio Grande and its tributaries constitute the chief source of supply for all the irrigable lands of the Territory. Under irrigation, small hold- ings, worthless under natural conditions, when carefully cultivated, are rendered exceedingly profitable. This permits a happy combination of urban and rural life favorable to the development of the best and noblest institutions of society. The most valuable and productive farming lands on the American continent are to be found in irrigated areas, and the largest yield of nearly every staple erop known to the temperate and sub- tropical belts has been obtained by irrigation with the fertilizing waters of the "American Nile."
The United States annually produces more precious metals than any other country in the world; but the annual wheat crop of Minnesota alone exceeds in value the annual output of all of the gold mines in the country. Colorado leads all the other states in the Union in the production of precious metals, but the value of the products of her irrigated farms is nearly double that of her mines. In New Mexico productive mines have long been operated, but with such irrigation as the physical conditions of the Territory permit, her farms inevitably must become her chief source of prosperity, and at a relatively near period add many millions of dollars annually to the agricultural wealth of the nation.
It is estimated that the products of irrigated lands throughout the arid West give an average annual net return of $12.80 per acre. The lands of the Rio Grande valley-the alluvial deposits of ages-are of un- surpassed fertility, and under proper irrigation and scientific cultivation returns are exceptionally large. Owing to the richness of the soil, and the perfect climate farming, with an adequate water supply, is attended with great profit. The Department of Agriculture shows that the valley is the center of the sugar belt of the United States. If devoted to the culture of this product alone, it would support a population of from a quarter to half a million.
"Experiments have proven that in addition to sugar beets, alfalfa, ma- caroni wheat and kaffir corn, most varieties of grain, sugar cane, cotton, potatoes, sweet potatoes and many varieties of fruit can be grown most profitably in the Rio Grande valley. With agriculture still an infant in-
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dustry, no man can accurately gauge the full possibilities of the country. But such definite knowledge as has been gained as the result of years of experiment has demonstrated the fact that in that portion of this great valley lying under the proposed irrigation system, thousands of people will soon find not only a pleasant ahiding place, but abundant opportunities for laying the foundations for generous competencies for their offspring. And, without the aid of the government, a durable basis of this future wealth would be impracticable of aeeomplishment."
Settlement of Old Rio Grande Irrigation Fight .- A case of more than ordinary importance to the Territory, and particularly to the inhabitants of the northern part of Otero county, was brought to a climax, in 1906, by the action of the United States government. The disposition of the waters of the Tularosa river was the source of the trouble, which dates back to 1858. In that year a number of the inhabitants of the Rio Grande valley attempted to settle on the fertile and easily irrigable lands in and around the townsite of Tularosa, but were driven off by the Indians. In 1860 they returned, and this time succeeded in appropriating some of the water from the Tularosa river for irrigation purposes. In 1862 the town- site of Tularosa was platted by government surveyors, ditches built and water concentrated from a number of streams that flowed westward from the mountains.
During the Apache Indian troubles an Indian agency was established by the government, and a farm laid out for them near the headwaters of the Rio Tularosa, and water from the headwaters was taken to irrigate the farm. Settlers who had earlier water rights objected to this, but in vain. Other settlers located along the eanyon had helped diminish the supply. Protests against these settlers were also in vain. Farming at the Indian agency, which had been small at first, now began to assume large proportions, in spite of repeated protests. The original colonists who had settled there in 1860 soon began to find their water supply reduced to almost nothing. Seeing ruin before them if they did not succeed in get- ting more water, these settlers made up a party and went into the foot hills, demanding of the squatters that they cease diverting the water from its natural route. Their answer was a rifle volley, and the little party of original settlers from Tularosa returned to that place minus four of their numher, who had been left behind, dead. This was the beginning of the feud.
Matters went on thus for some time, with an occasional killing, until the settlers of the valley, grown desperate, in December, 1904, resorted to the courts. Those feeling themselves aggrieved secured an injunction against the further use of the waters of the Rio Tularosa by the Indians, but the injunction was dissolved in the summer of 1905. Suit was then brought by the Community Ditch against J. S. Carroll, agent for the Indians, to restrain the latter and the inhabitants of the canyon from using the water for irrigation, on the ground of prior appropriation. The government, through Edward L. Medler, assistant United States attorney, raised the contention that the Indians and the inhabitants of the canyon, having used the water for ten years or more, enjoyed equal rights with the people of Tularosa. Pending the settlement of the case in the courts, in 1906 the contending parties divided the water by stipulation. The Masealero In- dian agency has 230 acres under irrigation, the settlers in the eanyon have
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about 200 acres, the Tularosa Land and Cattle Company has about 400 acres, and the people of Tularosa, as individuals, have about 1,000 acres.
FOREST RESERVES OF NEW MEXICO.
Obviously, the object in the creation of forest reserves by the general government is to protect standing bodies of timber from the ravages of fire and the waste of commercial exploitation; but the main value of the movement to those states and territories whose development largely de- pends on their wise conservation of their water supplies does not consist in the simple salvation of timber as building and fuel material. It has been learned by observation and experience that forests regulate the flow of water for irrigation purposes, being the most effective natural means of preventing floods. As enumerated by the "Forest Reserve Manual," they accomplish these ends through the following means: By shading the ground and snow and affording protection against the melting and drying action of the sun ; by acting as wind-breaks and thus protecting the ground and snow against the drying action of the wind; by protecting the earth from washing away and thus maintaining a storage layer into which rain and snow-water soak and are stored for the dry seasons when snow and rain are wanting; by keeping the soil more pervious so that the water soaks in more readily and more of it is thereby prevented from running off in time of rain or when the snow is melting.
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