The Churchill county standard. (Fallon, Nev.) 1908-1920, 1915-04-28
OUR PROJECTS PROPOSED
RETALIATION BASIS
MANY ITEMS SHOULD BE
CHARGED TO GENERAL FUND.
In Equity Settlers. Should BE Re.
Iieyed of Expense Attaching to
Past Mistakes.

named by the Truckee-Carson water
users, was published in these col
umns two weeks ago asking that
suggestions be made by any of the
water users along the lines indicat-
ing portions of work on this project
that should be charged to the gov
ernment instead of the project lands.
In this connection the following
article from the Irrigation Age may
suggest some things that are appli-
cable to this project. The article,
in the April number, follows:
IL looks as If the hour had come
to straighten out affairs in the Rec
/ lamation Service. The water users
seem to have decided to take the
project valuations seriously, and
make. the forty dollars per day or
more cost to each project pay legiti-
Mate returns. The returns, which
the settlers ask, are fulfillment of
their solemn contract with the
United States government and the
assessment of charges for only those
works which are of actual benefit and
which represent legitimate expendi-
lures.
II required several conferences
with Will II. King, chief council of
the Reclamation Service, to induce
that eminent lawyer to agree that
the settlers should be permitted to
plead" their water contracts with
the government as part of the re-
cords of the revaluation hearings.
Good This is the first foundation
stone In the case. which the settlers
must build up If the final verdict of
Secretary Lanes supreme court on
reYaluations or Congress, where, no
doubt. the issue must go for ultimate
settlement, is to be favorable to the
water users.
Every water user. as The Irriga-
ton Age has urged since Secretary
Lane first suggested the revaluation
idea. should make 1t his personal
! business to see that the revaluation
hearings are thoroughly and not
merely farce in accounting. Even
though the revaluation board may
look lopsided and leaning in favor
toward the Reclamation Service,
make yourself heard. II a settler
knows of the expenditure Of one dol
lar upon unnecessary or incompe-
tent work, or of any wrong-doing,
| foolishness or blue sky engineering,
he should insist upon placing this
information before the revaluation
board. This is no time to be
shrinking violet.
Officers of the Lower Yellowstone
project figure that the sustaining
of their present water right contracts
will be worth at least s1,500,000 to
the settlers.
On another project a S2,000,0 900
diversion canal has proven praetic-
/ ally yalueless because there is lit
/ tie VI NO wafer W run tuiOubH IL
during the irrigation season, and the
Reclamation Service has been forced
to spend S2,000,000 more to build
storage dam, not figured on in the
original project estimates. Should
1.-THE settlers be forced to pay $4,000
600 for something from which they
are obtaining only $2,OO0.o00 worth
of benefits?
There are similar monuments of
asininity on other projects. Each
one of these. large or small, should
be marked in glaring letters and
brought into full light of day. The
revaluati)n boards should be forced
to sift such matters to the bottom
and learn just how much, II any,
value thero pieces of work may have
for the water users.
The settlers should not be made to
pay one dollar for any piece of work
which does not represent actual value
to them.
Any attempt to make the revalua-
ton political buncombe should be
resented sharply by the settlers.
They have to pay its costs and they
have accepted 1t as a sincere effort
TO right the wrongs which the Newell,
bureaucracy inflicted or attempted
to inflict upon them. But without
most earnest participation by every
settler, these revaluations are liable
to prove of more damage than good,
for If only the Reclamation Service
presents evidence of costs and val
eus, what opportunity will the se,-
tiers have when the day of judgment
comes--the day when either the pres
ent administration or some other
must go to Congress and ask per-
mission or legislation to charge off
The charges for lost work" or ex-
cessive costs, probably $4,000, 900.
This will be bitter pill for Con-
gress to swallow and one around
which mach politics will be juggled,
but If the settlers have made out a
good case at the revaluation hear
ings, Congress will have to accept
H. And while the amount which
probably viii be charged off looks
very big, II considered In the right