Arizona republican., 1913-03-19
HILL AND DAVIS
 OVER PROJECT
EverNthing Looks Good to Chief Engineer of Recla- nation Service. Nothing Wrong With Great Salt River Valley Works.

River Valley Works.
 In--ene of the most searching in- spect0ns of the Salt River valley he has ever made. Chief Engineer aArthuf~P Davis, of the United States reclamation Service, who returned yesterday from Roosevelt and the Gila Indian reservation has so far failed to find anything radically wrong with this, the greatest of the systems un- der his care. Il have absolutely mo- thing to say when addressed to a newspaper man, generally implies a desire for secrecy, but in the mouth of MT Davis it means that there is no trouble" in the valley worth con- sidering as such. and he brings ;o mind the old saying, Happy are the people whose annals are brief.
 The engineer party returned yes terday late in the evening from a long automobile tour into the ROOse- welt, Tonto and Sacaton countries. In the party were Chief Engineer Davis. Supervising Engineer L. c. Hill and Project Engineer c. H.
 Fitch. Mr Fitch drove the party
 
 Granite Reef and the diversion works, Roosevelt dam, the power canal where recent repairs were of interest 10 the chief and finally the
 TOnto road were points at which the
 party touched The road was the
 subject of about the only comment
 the engineers had to make. and they
 referred strongly to it's present dis
 repair. When the government turned
 over the road it was in good cOndi
 tion.. Since then, however. practically
 no work has been done on it. water
 and wind have played havoc with the smooth even surface. Pits and ruts
 have almost entirely spoiled the road surface, but fortunately the grade
 has not been injured The way is
 still wide enough for vehicles and the slopes haze not been altered.
 Work on the power line from
 Roosevelt to Miami has been progress
 ing satisfactorily in the base making stage, and this work so far as it has gone was thoroughly inspected by the !, visitors
 The flood canal on the north side : of the Gila. ditch which was built by the government for the Indians, came in for the most caustic comment that has been made this visit. IL will be recOllected that last fall the U. s. R. S turned over to another branch of the government a complete canal in good condition to supply the Gila Indians with the flood waters of the river of that name. In August the canal was whole. the structures in no, the ditch is useless owing to the wa shing Of the banks. Not only has the canal been neglected and not used by the Indians. but the gates in the wasteway and the checks have been left closed, and when a rain came some time back the water ran down I the hill side, entered the canal, and when it came to the first closed check backed up and washed out all
 the structures. The concrete walls are now standing in lonely grandeur 1 with the banks of the canal reduced | to mere mounds of earth nearby. I That is not all. The flood released l by the breaking out of the banks l around the check gates went down and
 washed out other structures. notably 8 wasteway A few hundred dollars worth of work withai and the canal | is in use again The washing of the banks did not hurt the cement gates at all. and all that will have to be :, done is to repair the earth banks
 | Speaking of the canal near Sacaton : Mir. Davis branched out bit and : handed down few opinions about 1 the report of the congressional in vestigating committee which convened 1 in Phoenix year ago. Let's see if MT. Davis words can't be recalled We. went to the reservation be- | cause l wanted to see some of the l canal lines over there. In the report | that the congressional Investigating ] committee made, there were some l things that l wanted to check Not only, were there a great many cOn- clusions in the report that were ab- l sOluteiy rpfuted in the testimony at 1 tached. but there was a set of photO- | graphs incorporated in the report, the authenticity of which l suspected T remember one set was taken of the gates washed high and dry and ', some others showed broken canal banks. We went to see the originals 1 of the photos. The gates were there just as in 2the pictures, but the photo grapher had taken some gullies back of the flood canal and called the whole works. Results of reclamation fservice work. This was bit unfair l The service had already turned over | the canals long before the damage l was done, and l noted particularly 1 that the canal bank nearest to the gully which purported to be reclama- f tor, al ,nrlr ho part of the entire system.'
 Messrs. Davis and Hill will be in Phoenix at least three days more checking up the local officials and getting in touch with the work. The next point of inspection will be the Ithe Elephant Butte project and the canal lines along the Rio Grande Consequently the engineers leave about Friday or Saturday for Fl Paso