Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-06-16

In Minnesota reservoirs have been
constructed by the government with
Mississippi These reservoirs have a
capacity of almost one hundred bill
lion feet. They have increased the
power of the flour mills at the fails
power plants along the Mississippi to
the amount of many hundreds Of thou
sands of dollars per annum. Reser-
voirs have been built for the same
purpose at the head waters of the
Wisconsin river; and an enormous in
crease of water power could be made
by carrying out the reservoir plans
advocated by the late Senator New
lands.
4
The greatest water powers Of the
United states are those of our west
ern highland and of the Pacific coast
states. They are several times as
great in their aggregate available
horsepower as those of all the rest
of the country. According to l. n.
Teal, chairman of the Oregon con-
servation committee, the Deschutes
river is capable of developing mil
lion horsepower, or about twice as
much as Canada and the United
States are now getting from Niagara
The chief water power sites OF this
stream are within 100 miles of Port
land, and power could be taken there
as easily as 1t is from keokuk TO
st. Louis The Deschutes has
drainage area about as large as the
Island combined.
p. Washington has a number OF great
water powers, including those which
supply Seattle. The power of Seattle
comes from *hydroelectric plants IN
tfe1.Cascade mountains, and that OF
Spokane comes from the River
Spokane Spokane falls are right in
the city and the power goes by snort
transmission lines to the cars and
electric light plants. The Spokane
river, in addition to the 10000 horse
power which it can generate In the
heart of the city, has several million
available horsepower above ana De-
low Spokane. 1t flows for distance
of ninety miles through gorge.
WHARF, it has a fall of 1000 feet, or
more than twice the height of the
Washington Monument. The volume
of the fall is such the potential power
is said to equal that Of Niagara, ana
the gorge is of such nature that
turbines could be put in at short
intervals along the whole ninety
miles of its course. and each set OF
turbines would have a fall of about
forty feet. ,.
On four rivers in northern Cali
fornia there is available 100000 horse
power, ana san r TduSioSo 49, RS"~-
from electric plants in the sierra
Nevada mountains. Los Angeles mas
great power plants worked by water
which is brought from high up IN
the mountains through steel ana con-
crete pipes and conduits a dastahee
of $50 miles, and the fall is such that
the most of it occurs within nIty
miles of the city. 1t has potentially
100 900 horsepower of electric energy.
There are enormous water power
possibilities in Alaska. For l,ogo
miles north Of Seattle the coast is
lined with steep mountains which
have a heavy rainfall and many of the
islands have high waterfalls.
The Alaska Gastineaux Gold Mining
Company, which has some OF the lars-
est quartz crushing mills of the world,
has established power plant at Sal
mon creek, about eight miles away"
The plant can develop $4,000 horse
power, and it is run SO cheaply that
the cost of mining and milling the
ore as far as the machinery Is con-
cerned is less than cents ton. the
port of Ketchikan, the first one az
which the Seattle steamers call In
Alaska, is lighted by falls just back
: of the city, and there is enough pow
er undeyeloped in southeastern Alas
ka to grind its forests OF pulp wood
into material for print paper. There
are many good water power sites upon
Prince William sound, and the same
is true of the Kenai peninsula and OF
other parts of the territory.
Indeed, we have all over our coun-
try an enormous amount of white
coal, as hydroelectric water power is
sometimes called, and if it could be
used it would save hundreds of mil
lions of dollars and the labor of hun
dreds of thousands of men now en-
ployed in the coal mines of the coun-
try. According to Mr.. Hugh Cooper.
the engineer who built the Keokuk
dam, the loss is enormous. Estimat-
ing it at 100000 horsepower. 1t
represents loss of about 300.000.0O0
tons of coal per annum. This at 81
per ton, the lowest government price,
equals s600,00o,000. or $50,000.000
month, year in and year out.
Moreover, Mr.. Cooper estimates that
it takes 100000 more men to convert
that coal into energy than would be
necessary for the production of the
err That means that if we were using
our waste water instead of our coal
we would have not only $500. 100000
more in money to spend for liberty
bonds. but we could release 100000
miners and put that many more
men in the trenches. The loss of
5000, O0O, 900 is equal to the loss of
100000 one hundred-acre farms. an
amount which venturef Is far more than
the land that has been destroyed in Bel
GUM and north France during this
great war with the Germans.
FRANK G. CARPENTER.