Arizona sentinel and Yuma weekly examiner., 1912-03-21

the river changed it's course, as 1t has been doing for countless ages past, and today the levees of the Reclama- tion service are 800 feet high and dry on the Arizona side from where the river ran at that time.
 On this side of the river the recla- nation service has built a solid and substantial levee, following the old Ilcourse of the river as it was in 1905, and from these has lately been con- structing spur dykes out into the bar, to prevent any cutting of levees on this side of the river during the com ing high waters. These spur dykes average probably three hundred feet in leng'h and are constructed of piles and brush
 And all this work is being done and has been done with the idea of ulti- mately strengthening the river and for the protection of the Yuma lands and the Yuma valley.
 i The changing course of the river has started bar to forming on the | California side which starts about half way between mile posts 10 and Il. and extends to point just below the 12 mile post, where the river dips off toward the California Development company's levee, and the sand bar shifts to the Arizona side.
 This is where Colonel Holabird in his message to Senator Works says: Proclamation Project Engineer
 Sellew has for many months
 been driving pile jetties from
 Arizona shore beginning about two miles below intake canal and
 now reaching eight miles below
 This has deflected current of Col orado river eight miles below intake, directly into Mexican bank
 of river which is rapidly eroding
 reaching to one hundred fifty seven feet of the foot of c. D. levee with the summer flood com
 ing which is due June 25." Now the above is bad enough, and simply shows that the citizens of the Imperial valley have been yelling and are continuing to yell for all sorts of relief, and sometimes without even knowing what they are yelling about.
 They have damned the government. damned the Southern Pacific, even after the Southern Pacific through 9 request of President Roosevelt, had saved their valley from destruction and for which the Southern Pacific has never been reimbursed.
 They, or at least, part of the valley have made it point to fight any thing and everybody on any old cause whatever, but listen to this from the same message of Colonel Holabird's:
 Proclamation service should
 be promptly compelled to DINA
 MITE jetties and cease construc-
 tion and protection, etc."
 In other words the Reclmation ser vice should be compelled to dynamite it's own work of months and years, 1 and the flood should be allowed to rage untrammeled through the Yuma valley and destroy all that the gov ernment and the farmers of the Yuma | valley have striven to build up in the past years.
 And if this were not strong enough | he goes still further in his message and says:
 HANDS IN ARIZONA SELL
 LEW SEEKS TO PROTECT,
 EVEN IF ALL IMPERIAL VAL
 LEY IS LOST, ARE IN A STATE
 OF NATURE, WHILE TWENTY
 FIVE MILLION DOLLARS IS A
 FAIR ESTIMATE OF FARMERS
 HOMES IN IMPERIAL VAL
 LEY"
 No more damnable attack was ever made on the peace and dignity of community than the above. Imagine man of Colonel Holabird's S | supposed standing wiring to United l States senator to have the reclamation service dynamite its protection of the