Arizona sentinel Yuma southwest., 1915-12-23
(By B. F. Fly)

Saturday night, at Brawley
 before the Imperial Valley
 Agricultural Assembly, de-
 voting himself to four phases
 of the Imperial valley irriga-
 ton system: Source and ade-
 quacy of supply, conservation
 of supply, flood control, and
 the silt problem.
 l have copy of the esteem
 ed CaleXico Chronicle before
 me, which contains part of
 MT. Allison's S address, the oth-
 CT part to be printed in today's
 issue of the Chronicle, lack
 of space precluding the publi-
 cation of all of it in the same issue.
 In the first part of his speech, MT. Allison makes no
 reference to the fact that not very long ago he made at least a superficial survey or eXami- nation of a route for a canal from the Palo Verde valley to Imperial valley with the hope that he could find a route to divert the necessary water to Imperial valley from a point above Laguna dam, probably with the idea of taking all the water he want ed, regardless of whether the Yuma project got any water or not.
 But a 1O-year-old school boy could have told him before he made his ob that it is absolutely impos sible to divert the waters of the Colo rado at Palo Verde and make them run over the mountains and over a mesa that rises to height of three or four hundred feet. He may give details of this survey in the second install | ment of his address. 1 hope he will; | for I want to read it, and see why he | sought that route for an additional l supply of water, which is so greatly | needed, rather than come to Laguna | dam, where in the common nature Ot | things, Imperial valley is bound tC come, sooner or later, or go out O. business because of the silt.
 In dealing with this silt problem, MT. Allison gives some very interest ng figures-figures that will evident y make all who heard him, "sit up md take notice" I clip the following rom his speech:
 ''The importance of our silt prob ems is brought out most strikingly )y furnishing data as to actual quan ities. During the year 1914 there was discharged through Hanlon Heading nto the Imperial canal 30,324,0 ,000 cubic ards of silt in suspension and sand olling along the bottom. This quan- ity of silt and sand calculated for he year amounts to 40,532, ,580 tons, IT 1851, ,0S6 carloads, which, placed in
 single train would make it's length ,04S miles, reaching from San Fran isco to New York and half way back y way of the Panama canal"
 Just stop moment, my friends, and ee what all that silt, if continued to e dumped into Imperial valley, will lean to the people who have their 1 alP' invested in that country Ii t 351 ,0S6 car loads of silt are carrie- ( trough Hanlon Heading in one year, lere will be ten times that much in en years, or 13,510,S60 carloads of silt [ ) be disposed of-how? Spreading some of it over the lands, c ut eXcavating most of it and piling V
 along the banks of the canal until ley have reached a height that human | lgenuity can no longer cope with it 3 a condition that threatens the I'm 3 erial valley at this very moment D long the main canal, where two i'm ense suction dredgers are constantly work trying to keep the channel e Efficiently clear to permit the water o ) flow to it's destination. W But what must the condition be 2 |, ears hence? The very thought of it il appalling. My guess is that 25 years n ance there won't be a farm in cultiva- il on in the entire Imperial valley, un- II ss the directors of the c. D. com d my mend their ways, and at once n 9gin to make arrangements to get W cir water from Laguna dam, where W e settling basins take most of the silt h om the water before it is allowed