The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1906-10-11
sA[T0M SEA STILL GROWS
Colorado Stream Flows Into New
| Inland Ocean.
COMPLICATED QUESTIONS COME UP
SITUATION PERPLExEs MEXICAN
AND AMERICAN DIPLOMATS
TO SETTLE.
QUESTIONS COME UP

| WASHINGTON, Oct. 11.-who is re-
sponsible for the creation Of the SAL
ton Sea in Southern California, which
already covers an area of 400 square
miles and threatens to spread over
1000 square miles if some some means
of diverting the Colorado river cannot
be devised?
| This question is perplexing Mexican
and American diplomatists, but for
the time being diplomatic representa-
lions have been suspended and both
the United States and Mexico are
bending every effort to check the river
which has been accidentally turned
from it's course through the efforts of
the California Development company
to irrigate lands in Northern Mexico
and Southern California
| Interesting complications of an in
| ternatiOnal nature are threatened when
the two governments attempt to settle
their differences and make good the
damage which has been brought by
diverting the Colorado from its old
channel.
The California Development COM
pany originally tapped the river below
Yuma, Ariz., and carried water from
Arizona through a canal into Northern
Mexico and back into a great valley
| in Southern California. In 1904 it was
| found that this canal was inadequate
to supply water required for irriga-
ton project and a Mexican corporation
controlled by the California Develop
ment company was authorized by
Mexico to take water from the Colo
RADIO in Mexico, a short distance south
of Yuma.
The irrigation canal was only one
fourth of mile from the river at the
point in Mexico where a ditch was cut
| through the sandy bank of the river
connecting with the great irrigation
canal. No gates were provided and
when the Colorado river was diverted
from it's channel it cut away it's bank
and went raging into the low lands in
California far below sea level. Repeated
| attempts, have been made to turn the
river back into the old channel but
without success.
Again and again the Southern. Paci-
fic railroad has been compelled to move
ton Sink, and has been forced to the
foothills surrounding the great basin,
which is being converted into sea-
Several small towns are now beneath
the waters which the Colorado has
poured into the basin, and in many
places only the tops of the telegraph
poles indicate where the roadbed for
merly was In the lowest part of the
sink the water is now seventy feet
| Colorado raised the sea at the rate of
six inches a day and it has been esti-
mated that granting the failure of en-
gineers to check the river in forty years
all the basin located beneath the main
course of the Colorado will be covered
with water.
4 A part of this basin is in Mexico.
and a failure to control the river would
give this country and Mexico lake
! 70 al
ating the United States and Canada.
At present it is greater than any body
| of water wholly within the United
States except Salt Lake and Lake
Michigan.
The Mexican company, to which per-
mission was granted to take water out
of the Colorado in Mexico, was merely
created in Mexico to assist the CALI
fornia Development company in MAX
ing a success of an irrigation project
which was partial failure when wa
ter was taken from the Colorado in
Arizona. Most of the land to be frri-
gated was in the United States and
the Mexican government had compar-
atively little to gain from the conces-
sion granted to the irrigation COM
pany.
international complications have fol-
/ lowed growing out of the fact That
existing treaties provide that the Colo
RADIO shall be maintained as a navi-
gable stream, which is not now the
case because it has been completely
diverted from the Gulf of California
into the great sink. Expert engineers
ara struggling to control the flow of
| the waters and the Southern Paclnc
railroad. whose property is suffering
greatly. is cooperating with the Mex
| ;oop ond American government eng1n-