The copper era., 1910-09-02
Government to Make Report on Under
ground Water Flow in the Sulphur
Springs Valley.

Springs Valley.
Douglas, Arizona,-A letter has
been received from II. G. Rizer,
Acting Director of the Geological
Survey of the Interior Department,
Washington by the Douglas Chamber
of Commerce and Mines, in which
Director Rizer, addressing Secretary
E. P Grindell, says:
"The Sulphur Springs Valley, Ari-
zona, is region which the Survey
has long had in mind as worthy of
study, aud although appropriations
are insufficient to finance all fields,
it has been possible to finance an in
vestie alton of this area during the
present fiscal year. Mr.. o. E
Meinzer has been assigned to this
task, and will enter upon his duties
there within a month. 1t is expected
that three or four months will be
required for the study, which it is
hoped to make complete and accurate
so that the results when published
will serve as a reliable foundation for
such future development of the valley
as may be based upon its underground
water supply"
This practically means that at last
the two million acres of Government
land in Cochise county, southern Ari-
zona, with Douglas as he adquarters,
is to have the attention of the Govern
ment experts, and that the we'll
known underground water flow in the
valley, which is already being used
for the two big smelters at Douglas,
which have through their wells a
supply of fifteen hundred gallons a
minute at each plant, and by hundreds
of ranchmen and farmers who have
homesteaded upon the land which is
now earning them a living. So far
the water has been developed by
three systems; first by compressed air
at the smelters, second by windmills
which dot the valley for distance
of one hundred and fifty miles north
and south, and third by propeller and
centrifugal pumps, operated by
gasoline engines.
There is an artesian flow of water
in the San Simon valley
directly east of the Sulphur Springs
Valley, and also in the San Pedro
valley to the west, and it has long
been the dream of the people in south
ern Arizona that only a test is neces-
de-
Springs Valley also, one of
the few great areas of vastly fertile
land open to Government entry.
If the through tests made by the
Geological Survey prove the adequate
supply of underground water for
pump irrigation, whether or not
artesian flow is demonstrated, the
valley will during the coming winter
see one of the greatest inhuxes of
homesteaders recorded in the South
west. With two months of rain, dur
ing July and August, irrigation flow
is necessary to the harvesting of a
full crop for the month of June alone,
as the rainy season natures any stand
of crops well started before the first
rainfall, which usually occurs about
July 4th. In fact the valley is a.
ready producing heavy crops of beans,
sorghum, milo maize, kaffir corn, all
vegetables, peaches and grapes and
potatoes and melons, with a very
limited development of its under
ground water resources. 1t is only
natural that the Governments an
nouncement TO demonstrate the value
of the water flow has been received
with rejoicing by everybody inter
ested in southern Arizona. Douglas
especially will be largely benefited,
for with two great smelters, which
treat ffty-ive per cent. of the copper
mined in Arizona, as well as nearly
all the ores brought over the border
from Sonora, an active market well
for everything grown in the
great and rich valley at last brought
to the attention of the Government. |