, 1914-12-03
Wyomins's Water.

and irving about the water lost to other states. For the love of a
great, wide state, cut it outl We have had enough of this bunch of
tommy-rot. Get something into your heads, and above all before
you undertake to explain or write about matters of this kind, first
fd out something about what you are using 8 a subject.
Several of the papers are copying some of this stuff from the
Cheyenne Leader of recent date, which is travelling over the state
giving out a lot of false Impressions, being devoid of a single fact.
Weeping over the North Platte river as having been appropriat-
ed to Nebraska! Claiming this river as a Wyoming river! Get out
your map and see where it heads, and then stop and consider what
would happen to Wyoming if Colorado put into effect what the Lead
er and others would have Wyoming do. On top of that, what is the
use sticking to a lie that originates in politics. ANY one who has the
gumption to look up the annual capacity of this river will find that
we can irrigate every inch of irrigable land in. it's water shed, and
still send more water across the Nebraska line than Nebraska can
find land for. For example, take the big Snake river and the MAORI
ty of its source in Idaho. So little of it heads in Wyoming that it
river is by far the biggest in Wyoming, and what little of it heads in
Wyoming would irrigate every acre possible to irrigate in its water
shed and pass on into Idaho, and the amount used in Wyoming
could not be shown by actual measurement.
The PICTURESQUE Green River could drown three times the terri
tory that could be watered with it in this state and still float steam
boats across the border. There Is, perhaps, loOVoooo to IAooooo
acre feet in the Green River, and if you will stop and consider what a
small body of land that is, then you can estimate how soon the Green
will go dry, Yellowstone river heads in Yellowstone Park in a lake
at the top of the Continental Divide, and drains off through a deep
canyon into Montana, within 40 miles of its head, and all the money
in the Rocky Mountain region could not divert its waters to Wyom.
the water that can be used along its water shed is now appropriated
to that land. and while considerable of tt IS being used, vet much
awaits capital to turn it onto the land, and what Montana does with
it after it crosses the boundary line, is none of our business, nor do
we care, as it in no way effects our rights in this state.
The writer has been on the head of every river that rises and
flows out of this state, as we'll as having seen them at food and low
tide, and we are reasonably we'll acquainted with the territory
through which they flow, and are, in a way, perhaps, capable of max
ing the above statements from personal observation.
We are also acquainted with the North Platte, Laramie and big
and little Snake rivers, which do not head in Wyoming, but which
traverses through a good part of this state. If preventing other
states from appropriating water from the rivers that head in Wyom-
ing a put into effect, then what would the greater part of Wyom-
ing dc If Idaho and Colorado refused US the waters of these rivers
that head out of this state. The North Platte, if diverted to. Colora-
do, as well as the Laramie, nearly one fourth of Wyoming (and the
best part, too) would be "dry", not prohibition, a we understand it,
but prohibition to use Colorado water, which would make us about
the driest spot in the west.
Legislation, nor any other form of amusement, would better our
condition. Natural conditions must exist, and they will correct the
trouble, but all must understand it, The first principle of irrigation
and it's effect at once bellies the cry of "no water Every acre put
under cultivation along the water shed of any stream, means that
much more water to the people down the stream, at the vital time OF
low It'd. The streams of this valley today are running twice to three
times the water at low tide that they did ten years ago, and the irri
cation of this valley would mean several times the low run of water
to either Nebraska or the Pathfinder.
What we need is an administration in this state who will forget
politics for a few minutes and grant every water permit asked for
and in doing it he is doing every appropriation, from the upper end of
this valley clear through to where the Platte dumps into the Mis-
souri,, a great favor. Get rid of sticks like we have had to deal with
in the State Land Commissioners Office and State Engineer, the past
four years, and give Wyoming a chance or two, and don't try to put
lit up to a legislature to correct the short comings of these officers oil
the state.