The Parker post., 1914-05-23
RECLAMATION
BY PUMPING
NEARLY THREE MILLION ACRES
OF LAND IN SOUTHERN ARlz-
ONA WITH UNDERGROUND WA
TER SUFFICIENT FOR IRRiGA-
TiON.

wear area, with underground water
sufficient for its reclamation and lr-
rigation and available for pumping
is between two and three million
acres.
The early attempts to reclaim land
by pumping water in Arizona were
almost invariably failures. The equip
ment usually consisted of a boiler
that had been discarded on account
of extravaganza in consumption OF
fuel, any old engine and pump that
could be recovered from scrap heap
and bought cheap, using mesquite
wood cut on the land for fuel. TINS
type of installation giving total
plant efficiency Of Twenty-Five 10
thirty per cent and the cost OF labor
necessary to handle the wood being
more than the entire cost OF power
should be- Five or ten years ago an
engineer installing a pumping plant
would estimate the full plant eff
cheney at not over forty per cent,
while today the plant efficiency is
estimated at not less than sixty per
cent. Formerly the prime mover In
stalled for theoretic forty h.p. plant
would have been 100 hip Today a
100 hip plant would be installed for
a theoretic so hip, being reduction
in cost of fifty per cent.
The we'll, the source of the water.
is the most important factor of all
in the installation of a pumping irri-
CATION plant, and there are more vi
tai errors made in designing the well
than in either pump or engine. The
we'll must be of such type that the
water can readily reach the pump. II
it is not sufficient that you penetrate
the water plane a few feet with pit.
or that a pipe be sunk fifty or one
hundred feet into the water-bearing
plane
The Eastern Sugar company of
Glendale had wells $50 feet deep.
The factory required three million
gallons of water per day of twenty
four hours. After two weeks of Op-
Grating the water was drawn from
the immediate vicinity of the wells
and they failed; not because the wa,
ter was not in the ground, but be
cause it could not reach the wells
and pumps as fast as it was re-
moved.
The Southwestern Sugar and Land
company. when it took over the
plant, replaced the old wells with
others $50 feet deep and have the
required amount Of water with a
moderate drawdown OF the water
plane.
This well is cased for 800 feet and
the casing perforated The usual
practice in pump installation is to
set the pump and start the engine.
Had such practice been followed here
the water available for the pump
would have been three to four hun
dred gallons per minute. The per-
centage of fine, that is, fine sand in
The water bearing material, was such
that the vOids were very small, al
lowing but small percentage OF wa
ter TO accumulate within a given area
and retarding the velocity of the wa
Ter in It's efforts to reach the we'll
and pump. The writer, who was in
charge of the installation, before set
ting the pump repeatedly washed this
well, removing from it several times
the amount of material that was or
iginally taken out in sinking the cas-
ing. In this way the finer sand and
gravel was washed into the we'll ,leav-
ing a clean bed of gravel, in places
several feet wide, to gather water
for the we'll and pump.
This well. after three or four
months continual use. will furnish
fourteen TO sixteen hundred gallons
of water per minute, with a twenty
foot drawdown. Sufficient water for
the full irrigation of a half section of
land.
Under the Salt River valley project
the duty Of water is commonly con-
sidered as four acre feet Der wear
This is more than is actually re-
luired. The land would be more
productive with less water and more
Under pump irrigation system the
intelligent farmer will soon determine
he amount of water that is required
or the full productiveness of his land
With proper intelligent cultivation.
When this is determined it will usu-
IITT h<, 1,0frr Tp I