The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1916-08-18
A BLACK CANYON PROPOSAL

Ninety thousand acres OF good land
on the North Side.
If we put water two feet deep on
10000 acres it makes 10000 acre feet.
Two feet deep of water will raise the
crops of this region. Payette lake
easily has five square miles of water
100 feet deep. Run a tunnel two
miles long 10 by 80 feet at a cost of
one hundred dollars per foot, which
will take $1,O56,O 100000. Give the tunnel
20 feet fall to the mile and move the
water in it 10 feet a second and this
delivers $500 inches at the mouth
of the tunnel. That will water the
North Side.
Remember that we can not run
water up hill in canals, but we can
run electric power lines up hill or
down, just as We most need.
Go to some rock point on the Pay
cite river and blow the mountain off
into the river there. There take out
100000 inches of water and hold it
up along a good region for making
canals, until we gain $50 fall, and
there drop it onto turbines connected
with other machinery and make
enough power to raise 100000 inches
of water 100 feet. Put this power on
wires and carry it to the Gem Dis
trict and use the water from Snake
river that now goes on down to the
sea.
Go few miles further down on the
Payette and pick this same power
water up at some other rock point,
hold it up in canal until $50 foot fall
has been gained, and there drop it
and make power that will raise 100000
inches of water hundred feet some
where in this region. Go another 10
miles down Payette river and there
put in similar power plant and put it
on the wires and take out of Payette
river down at the correct point for
crossing Boise river valley to the
south side. cut the dam of Lake
Lowell and farm that 910O acres of
good land, using this Payette water
that has been caught up at some
economical point over above Sweet.
Put in another power plant similar
to those already mentioned, and put
the force on the wires and pick I'D
Payette river water at just the proper
engineering point to be best dis
tributed on the North Side through
canals. presume it may be safely
stated that 10000 inches of water
falling lao feet will lift 100000 inches
OF water 100 feet anywhere within a
hundred miles of the drop. Electric
energy ought not to leak more than
per cent in that distance and pump
anu Hechamcal friction should
not use up more than 80 per cent
Since Arrow Rock is now able to
amply care for all the south side, this
article may be confined more espec-
tally to the north side.
These drops can be put in at an
expense of $300000.OO each and five
OF them will revoIutionize power mat
tiers in all Idaho. Two of them will
pick up 100000 inches of water few
miles above Emmett and from that
point canals may be economically
bulided: At cost of $4OOO,OOO.OO the
entire 10000 acres on the North side
can be- irrigated, power enough to
spare to water Gem District at a cost
OF one dollar per acre per year. everv
village and town lighted in this whole
region, every electric car spent speed
ing its way the Short Line may quit
using coal, and every mill and eleva-
tor and moving shaft and wheel be
on to the main electric line,
Recall that three or four electric
wires made of copper or aluminium
of an inch in diameter
VIII carry enough water to iripate
three hundred thousand acres of iand |
Il that land is within one hundred feet
elevation of that water. "
Let us quit selling everything to
some old rich skinflint in the east who
looks upon the west as a soft snan
ana upon its people as soft heads # !
we could corral all the power in Paw
ute river at Payette lakes and use i !
~nere We need it, the people of This ;
state would soon be relieved of half
81 their useless labor and two-tbirds
81 their useless worries. Recall that