Arizona republican., 1905-09-15
THE MOFFATT ROAD
Threatens the UndeveIOped
 Wealth of Arizona
Its Proposed Occupation of the Only Two Reservoir Sites Above Grand Canyon.

There has been for some time a railroad projected to extend westward from Denver, having its avOwed west ern terminus somewhere on the Pa cific coast. The road is generally spoken of as the Moffatt road. It seems that the projectors of the road made application to the secretary of the interior some time ago for a right of way through some reservoir sites on the Upper Colorado river. The ap- plication was refused, and the build CTS of the road have had recourse to the courts, where the matter is yet undetermined.
 The building of the road along the way sought by it will render useless two magnificent reservoir sites on the river, one of them known as the Kremling site, and the other as the Browns Park site. It is asserted that a feasible route can be found for the road outside of these reservoir sites, but for some reason the railroad peo- pie insist upon the use of these sites for their road. Tie importance of the matter to the people of Colorado, New Mexico. Utah, Wyoming, Arizona and California Is apparent when the mat ter is even only casually examined. There are now lands lying along the
 
 with the proper conservation of the water of that river may be irrigated. aggregating nearly 2.00O,00O acres of splendid land, distributed approXi- mately as follows: In Colorado. 100000 acres; in New Mexico, 5O,OOO acres: in Utah, 100000 acres; in Wyoming, 10000 acres; Arizona. S0,00O acres; total 47O,0OO acres. All of these are above the Grand Canyon. and in Ari- zona, 394.0 .0OO acres, and in California, 417OOO acres below the Grand Can yon. In addition to these there are in old Mexico 6SS.OO0 acres. making a total of 1,969,OO0 acres.
 In an ordinary dry season the Colo rado river without regulation will serve 40O.00O acres of land Tn like dry years with complete regulation it will serve a million acres. Any re- serve water held over from wet years will be a gain over the above estimate.
 Now below the Grand Canyon of the Colorado there are no reservoir sites that can be used on account of ab- sence of bed rock in the stream.
 Above the Grand Canyon there are the two dam sites mentioned above. that is the Kremling. having a capac- ity of 1.5OO,0O0 acre feet, and the Browns Park. of 2,5OO,0OO acre feet. making a total storage capacity of these two reservoirs of 4.O00. 900 acre feet. From these figures it will be seen that at least 6OO.0OO acres of land can be by the construction of these two reservoirs added to the irrigated area of the arid lands. California and Arizona being the lowest divertors, are most greatly interested.
 If the railroad company obtains a right of way through these reservoir sites their efficiency will be greatly impaired, or wholly destroyed. and the loss to Arizona and California would probably be 500. GOO acres of irrigated land which would be readily worth $10O per acre. or in the aggregate S5O.000.0 900, without any compensatory gain whatever to the country at large.
 \ little consideration of this matter shows it's great importance to Arizona With these reservoir sites preserved it makes it possible to irrigate in Ari- zona nearly 3OO.OO0 acres more of val uabIe land than would be possible if these sites were destroyed.
 Arizona ought to vigorously protest against this needles loss to her re sOurces-it means upon the cOnserva- tive climate above made a loss of at least S30,OOO.O0O of the wealth of the territory