Arizona republican., 1904-10-21
WORK AT THE BASIN
Engineer Hill and Contractor Futile
 in the City Yesterday.

1 Engineer L. c. Hill, in charge of the ! construction of the Tonto reservoir and | the Roosevelt road, spent yesterday | here, arriving the evening before from the dam site in company with Mr. John 1 Futile, the contractor for the tunnel work. Mi. Hill will leave again this | morning for Roosevelt and return to l Phoenix early in November.
 This is his first visit since going to Denver. where bids were opened for
 the construction of the three pairs of
 gates that are to be placed in the sluic- ing tunnel. He says the contract was awarded to the Llewellyn Iron Works
 of Los Angeles, though so far as he has been informed the contracts have not yet been signed. As soon as he is informed that they are signed he will begin the work Of dig ging the tunnel chambers. which it ! is thought can be more expeditiously | and economically done by the govern ment than by contract
 In explanation of what this work is
 he said that the six gates to be placed in the tunnel will be operated from the side of the mountain above the tunnel,
 through open shafts through the solid rock from the surface to the tunnel.
 They will not necessarily be large and l
 in a mine. The purpose of having so
 many gates Is preventive. that one may
 be used while another is being repaired should repairs be necessary. Without duplicate gates in the event of any thing happening to the single one it could be repaired only by draining the
 reservoir. They will work together in pairs. The upper pain will never be used except in an emergency and the other two pairs will be used inter changabiy as occasion may require Originally it was designed to have the sluicing tunnel in the dam and oper- ate the gates electrically from the crest of the dam, but later and better plans
 provided for digging the tunnel through the solid rock at one end of the dam and operating the gates through the chambers above mentioned
 Mir. Hill says the cement mill is equipped with a 15O horsepower engine with which they can run the plant at about one-half its capacity till the DOW
 CT canal is finished. which will be
 some time in March. By the end of the
 month about eight miles of the upper
 half of the canal will be finished and
 two or three miles on the lower half Concerning the work on the road MT. ! Hill says everything is progressing nicely. Both Fftzge-ald's anCt Thomp-
 sons forces are now working on a
 thousand foot section at the top of the Fish Creek hill which will finish things at that point. By the end of this month Harpham's and Utting's forces will be
 only l500 feet apart with a few other rough places to smooth up and he thinks that by the middle of Novenbo-
 the road will be open.
 Mir. Hill says that on November 9 there will be a conference of engineers here that will be attended by Geo. r. Wisner and Wm. H. Sanders. consult ing engineers. and Electrical Engineer
 Ensign. They will look over the pump
 ing plants in the valley and then go to
 the basin for an inspection Of the work
 there.
 Mir Futile, the tunnel contractor.
 says that Of the sixteen tunnels. the sluicing tunnel. the intake tunnel and
 several others on the canal are com
 pleted. Of the total of S.20O feet there
 is only 900 feet of excavat ton yet to be
 made to complete the work. The in
 take tunnel alone is 17OO feet long and
 to timber it properly required 303OOO
 feet of lumber. the hauling of which
 alone cost fifteen dollars per thousand
 He thinks the digging of the tunnels
 will be finished in sixty days more and
 the lining of the tunnels with cement
 in thirty days thereafter.