Arizona sentinel and Yuma weekly examiner., 1914-11-12

users a rumor that by accept ing the terms of the Reclania- tion Extension Act the water users pledge themselves to pay an increased construction charge. This is not true in any sense. The only effect of signing the Reclamation Extension Act, insofar as it relates to your present con- tracts, is to extend the time of payments thereon for 20 years and to make it possible (should it become necessary in order to protect your land
 and property) to consent t( additional expenditures for drainage or other construc- ton purposes, without con- polling you to pay for the same immediately the work is completed.
 The necessity for requiring the ex- ecution of acceptances of the Recla- nation Extension Act was foreseen by the Congress in order to make this law effective. Otherwise it's effect would have been to impair the obli- gation of your contract, making it unconstitutional and therefore ineffec- tive.
 AS the law now stands, without the Reclamation Extension Act, and con- struction expenditures made subse- quent to the contract in which the price of the water right is agreed upon, can only be recovered by the reclama- tion fund through charges made against the annual operation and main tenance cost, in the guise of improve ments or betterments.
 If the cost of a drainage system, fol example, is charged to the operation and maintenance expense of one irrf- gation season and this expense con- stitutes Gas in some cases it has) an average of $500 per acre, the result is to impose on the water user a charge that is greater than he can af- ford to pay in one installment. If the installation of such drainage system is proceeded with only as the water users can afford to pay for it, and if they can afford to pay only an aver age of $1.00 per acre per annum for this purpose, then the construction of the drainage system is delayed for 5 years.
 Extension Act, the entire drainage sys- tenn may be put in (even though 1t costs $10 or more per acre to do so) in one irrigation season and the cost of such system may be distributed over the 20 years coincident with the other construction charges; or, if the secretary in his discretion desires to do so, it may be distributed over the several years beginning at the end of the first 2O-year period during which the construction charges are being paid.
 The above statement is made in or der to remove from your mind any belief that it is the purpose of the secretary of the interior or of the Reclamation Commission to fasten upon you an obligation to pay more for your water right than your pres ent contract calls for.
 The boards of review which have been proposed for the purpose of re- vising the costs of the various projects are intended to afford the water users of all the projects an opportunity to review the items which have been charged against the cost of their irri- gation system, to enable them to ob- ject to the inclusion therein of any items which they think are unfair or unreasonable charges against such system. The proposal to appoint such a board came from the water users themselves and was initially based on the theory that such a review would result in a decreased charge. But the insiduous rumor has been circu- lated among the water users that the purpose of this Board of Review is to fasten upon them a higher charge. | This cannot be done, It may be that on some of the projects the cost as determined by this Board of Review | will be found to be greater than that | named in the contracts, and in the | public notices heretofore issued. In | such case, the doubt will be forever | dispelled from the mind of the water | user that he has been overcharged | or is paying a higher construction | charge than he should have paid, but | the increased charge above that pro- vidpd in pYiStinp contracts cannot he |