Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1895-10-23
WATER STORAGE AT SANTA FE
The Rural Californian Makes Report
on the Process of Constructing
Storage Reservoirs Here.
ECONOMIC PLANS FOR SOLID STRUCTURES
The Hydraulic System New Applioa-
ton of An Old Prinoiple-Im-
provement in Fruirs-Waste
of Water.
ECONOMIC PLANS FOR SOLID STRUCTURES

Mr.. G. M. Heintz, editor of the Rural
Californian, and the new secretary of the
national irrigation congress, was among
the delegates to the recent convention
who made up the excursion to Santa Fe.
In the current number of his journal he
speaks thus of the visit to this city and
gives some interesting facts on the sub
ject of water storage as put into effect
here:
'In Santa Fe great improvements in
waterworks and in the distribution and
handling of water over the old system of
few years ago were evident. We found
here large and complete earth dam
eighty-tive feet high holding back large
supply of good water for the city on
Santa Fe creek. Each layer was settled
to place and united to the next layer by
the continuous tramping of large band
| of goats. No better way could be devised
kind of material; except band Of Cali
fornia sheep, which could be warranted
to solidify anything in day.
"a mile or 80 from this dam another
eighty-five feet high is under way which is
to carry the irrigating water for the valley
and
STORE THE WASTE WATERS
of Santa Fe creek that the other ressr-
voir can not take care of. This is built
on plan not entirely new, but practical
ly so. The hydraulic miners of California
discovered long ago that the material
washed from the hills by powerful water
jet, dirt, cobble stones, boulders and all,
settled into place somewhere below al
most as solid as in the hill from
which they were torn. Where a
good jet of water can be had under
high head there is no way of trans-
porting material 80 cheaply. This dam
is built of hardpan, cobble stones,
gravel and fine earth washed from the
adjacent hills by two.inch jet from the
upper reservoir, some 800 feet higher.
Two walls of dirt on each side of the dam,
which are carried up as the solid part
rises between, retain the washed material
which is carried from the hills in four
teen-inch pipe. This distributes every
particle into it's proper place, the finer
grains among the coarser ones, and
makes mass more solid than hundred
years of settling could make of snch ma
terial put in dry with any amount of care.
The top soil, weeds and grass, were not
stripped from the foundation and per-
haps safe junction can be made with
out doing so, but if that were done and
good care used in all respects there is no
reason why safe dams of this type can
not be built in thousand places in
southern California, where there is no
large stream to ight), for one-half the
cost of common earth dam, aud in
many places for a third of it.
UNDER THIS SYSTEM
material can be used that would be un-
safe for the common method, and if the
hydraulic jet has high enough head
almost any hill that is not solid rock may
be washed into dam.
1--WE found at Santa Fe great improve
ment in the fruit. There is large in.
crease in the area in fruit as we'll as in
the number of varieties grown. There
are enough old trees of all kinds to show
that they can raise all sorts Of deciduous
fruits as we'll as any other section, while
the apples and plums can not be excelled
even in the mountains of California. The
town plainly shows the effect of the
water around it and is making a growth
quite remarkable for town so far from
the common track of travel. But all the
irrigation here, as we'll as along the
whole valley of the Rio Grande, is Of the
old style, wasteful and inefficient. The
results 80 far attained are useful more to |
show what could be done by following
improved methods than for the amount |
OF money they actually represent"