The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-10-13
BLAME FOR sALToN SEA.
Complications Between United States
and Mexico LikpIv.

and Mexico Likely.
Associated Prcns 10 The Evening .rimes.
Washington, Oct. 13.-The question
of who is responsible for the creation
of the Salton Sea, in southern Califor-
mia, which already covers an area of
four hundred square miles and threat
ems to spread over two thousand
square miles If some means of divert
ing the Colorado river cannot be de-
vised, is perplexing Mexican and AM
erican diplomats. For the time, how
ever. diplomatic representations 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 Cali
fOrnia Development company to irrl-
gate lands in northern Mexico and
southern California.
Interesting complications of an in
ternatiOnal nature are threatened when
the two governments attempt to set
tie their differences and make good
the damage which has been wrought
by diverting the Colorado from its old
channel. The California Development
company originally tapped the river
below Yuma, Ark, and carried water
from Arizona through a canal into
northern Mexico and back into great
valley in southern Mexico. In 1904
it was found that this canal was in
adequate, and Il Mexican corporation,
controlled by the California Develop
ment company. was authorized by Mex
leo to take water from the Colorado
in Mexica a short distance south of
Yuma. The irrigation canal was only
one-fourth OF mile from river at
the point in Mexico where ditch was
cut through the sandy bank of the
river connecting with the great irriga-
tiOn canal. There was delay in putting
in gates. and with the high water of
1905 the Colorado river was diverted
from its channel. cut away its banks,
and went raging into the lowlands in
California far below sea level. Re-
peated attempts have been made to
turn the river back into its old chan
mel, but without success.
In the lowest part of the sink the
water is now seventy feet deep. 1t
has been estimated that if the en-
gineers fail to check the river in forty
years all the basin beneath the main
cours of the Colorado will be covered
with water. 4 part of this basin is in
Mexico, and the failure to control the
river would give this country and Mex
leo lake comparable to the great
lakes, separating the United States
and Canada. Al present the lake 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 created
in Mexico merely to assist the Califor-
mia Development company in making
success OF an irrigation project
which was partial failure when water
was taken from the Colorado in Arr
IONA. Most of the land to be irrigated
was in the United States, and the
Mexican government had comparative
ly little to gain from the concession
granted to the irrigation company.
Existing treaties provide that the
Colorado shall be maintained as u
navigable stream, which is not now the
case, because it has been completely
diverted from the Gulf of California
into the sink Expert engineers are
struggling to control the flow of water
and the Southern Pacific railroad.
whose property is suffering greatly. is
cooperating with the Mexican and
American government engineers in an
effort to construct another channel
with floodgates into which the Color
ado can be diverted long enough to