Rocky Ford enterprise., 1915-08-27

ity. There are few small reservoirs
in the valley that / have not taken
into consideration in connection with
this report, as they are being worked
on and are not available for irriga-
ton purposes at this time.
The Clear Creek reservoir supplies
storage water for the Otero canal and
reservoirs in Clear Creek county near
Lcadville: it also supplies water for
land IN Otero county, around La Jun-
ia.
The Bob Creek ditch and reservoir
is on the north side of the river op-
posite Fowler.
The Swink system is not as yet
completed. For instance, reservoirs
No. and No. a have no water in
same and are only partially COM
pleted; No. 5 is completed to a ca
pacity of $500 acre feet. but that
had no water in it on June 10, as
they were charging same.
The Chicosa and Dotson reservoirs
have not as yet been completed to
their full height. When completed,
they will hold about $4,000 acre feet
of water.
Lake Mcneil waters the land in the
Penrose district.
The Chivington reservoir is not as
yet completed. Its ultimate capac-
ity, when completed, will be 10000
acre feet; yet they have only COM
pleted it far enough to hold 10000
acre feet with safety. This reservoir
is directly north OF Lamar and will
irrigate land north of the Arkansas
Valley railroad. All of the land un-
der this system will be tributary to
our Arkansas Valley branch railroad.
The Teller reservoir has a capacity
of 14,000 acre feet and can be raised
to accommodate 2l,000 acre feet, If
it is SO desired at any time. As they
only have small acreage OF land
under that reservoir, the additional
expense to increase the capacity will
not be expended at this time.
The United States reservoir is north
of Deerfield, Kansas and irrigates land
owned by the United States Sugar
company, of Garden City.
The Cucharas and Bradford Lake
reservoirs were formerly owned by
The Pueblo-Rocky Ford Irrigation
| company. The capacity OF the Gu
claras. which will soon be completed.
| is 10000 acre feet. They are doing
same work there aud have not filed
the reservoir to its capacity. The
total capacity of those two reservoirs
will be 100000 acre feet when COM
pleted. and they propose to place 49,
900 acres of land under this system.
They now have approximately $500
acres under cultivation and the bal
ance will be under cultivation as fast
as they can possibly make the sales.
At the present time the nearest rail-
road point to the old Pueblo-Rocky
Ford Irrigation district is Cucharas,
on the Colorado & Southern and
Denver & Rio Grande.
This year, the reservoirs have prac-
tically all been filled since the first
of March, since which time the water
has been allowed TO go down the Ar
kansas river and into Kansas. There
have been approximately 10000 acre
feet of water passing the state line
during the four months of this year.
1t clearly develops the fact that il
sufficient reservoirs were installed
along the river in the Arkansas val
ley, between Canon City and Dodge
City, so that all available water could
be stored, there would be sufficient
water to irrigate every acre of land
susceptible to irrigation between the
points mentioned
1t would really seem to me that il
Kansas and Colorado, instead of GO
ing TO law and spending large sums
of money in litigation over the water
rights of the Arkansas river, would
turn their attention to building rcser-
voirs to take care of the amount oi
water that is now available during the
flood season, there would be no need
of any litigation over water rights. as
there would be ample water for all.