Imperial Valley press., 1909-10-09

An amazing and monstrOusly false Washington dispatch in the San Fran cisco Call of September 30 has aroused the people of Imperial Valley to Dit ter indignation against those who are suspected of responsibility for repeat ed assaults upon the irrigation enter prise of this region.
 An unnamed government oTlciap is quoted by the correspondent as having said: "The people of Imperial Valley do not know now slender is the thread upon which hang their lives and property. If the Colorado river should go on one of it's tangents, the entire region would starve for water within forty fight hours. The canal people realize their danger and have. intimated that they want gov erhment assistance, but there is no help for them as matters stand. The situation is, indeed, very dangerous.
 That is an exaggerated statement of a problem that is engaging the attention of canal engineers, and it is false because the anonymous gov ernment official is obviously ignorant of conditions and does not understand the factors in the problem, If the Colorado should do something very cratic and improbable the engineers would have to meet the situation with some new method of handling water at the intake, but the valley would not starve for water.
 So long as the canal system of the valley is supplied through an intake directly from the river below Laguna dam, there will be the remote pos sibility of lowering of the channel to a level that would leave the bot tom of the gate above the surface of the water at the time of least dis charge of the river, and because or that possible difficulty in getting wat CT into the canals, engineers that have studied the problem are convinced that 1t would be wise to attach the Imperial Valley system to the Lagunu dam.
 Relations between Imperial Valley settlers and officers of the Reclama- tion Service have been strained since the inception of the project, and be- cause some government officers have talked foolishly and been hostile to the project, the people of the valley have been reluctant tp have any deal ings with the Reclamation Service. It is natural, no doubt, to suspect that anonymous alarmist is an officer of the Reclamation Service, but no respon- sible officer of that bureau is so gross | ly ignorant of conditions and it is not | to be presumed that any officer who has knowledge of the situation is so criminally malignant as to utter such astounding falsehoods.
 The Calls Washington correspond ent is even more ignorant than the official whom he professes to quote and by combining with utter lack of true information his desire to concoct a sensational story, he produces a mon strous fabrication and infiicts incalcul- able injury upon the interests of thous- ands of people, This felonious fool asserts that the people of Imperial Valley and 500,O00 head of cattle "are in imminent danger of dying of thirst, and goes on to explain that the dam on the Colorado river, which supplies the arid region with water, is filling with silt and becoming more clogged every hour"
 There is no "dam on the Colorado river which supplies Imperial Valley with water" Water Is taken from the river directly through concrete headgate, and the more the river sill S up It's channel, the safer the supply Every settler knows these facts, bat persons who read the Call do not, and many of them are writing in great alarm to friends in the valley. The lie has a long start, and it will be hard for the truth to oyertake it.
 Last summer the Colorados flood was unprecedented and the river secured it's channel as t always does in the flood, but deeper than usual Opposite Che headgate the channel wa: livery deep, and the canal engineers were worried lest 1t might remain deer enought to affect the flow through tho intake at low water. As the flooC subsidies, silt Is deposited The bot tom comes up as the surface goel