The Arizona copper camp., 1919-08-02


the Elorence-Casa Grande valley By
the committee of six, who represented
them in negotiating with the govern
ment respecting the diversion project,
that the San Carlos storage dam be
taken up as project and pushed. The
suggestion has been received with
much enthusiasm and a great mass
meeting of the people of the entire val
ley will be held in Florence on Tues.
DAY, August 18th. AT this meeting, an
organization will be formed, program
of work outlined and arrangements
made to raise a large sum Of money to
further the project
The people of this valley feel that
if they strike now they can enlist the
support Of other sections of the state
in behalf of the San Carlos project.
The statewide plan of development,
which has been talked about at Phoe,
nix, meets with the approval of the
people here, if this project, is desig-
mated as the FIRST unit under the state
wide plan to work for. The San Car
los project has had all preliminary
dork done upon it and is ready 70,
construction. The 9rmy engineers in
their report covered the subject fully
They found bedrock at only twenty
feet, consisting of a hard quartzite,
which W01Ild M Ia tho fnaot cont of Al
foundation for heavy dam. The can
yon is narrow and the site they Sc
lected is a thousand feet upstream
from the old faulty site and is an ideal
location for storage dam. The peo.
pie here feel that to get results with
respect to the statewide plan pro-
posed it would have to be taken up
unit by uRit-and they want the San
Carlos project put at the head of the.
list as number one on the program.
The San Carlos project was the pro-
ject behind which the forces in con-
gress fought their way through to the
successful passage Of the Reclama-
tiOn Act and was slated to be the first
project constructed in Arizona Poll
tics and other matters interfered to
cause the Roosevelt project to be the
first project undertaken and now the
people of Pinal county feel that it is
high time the San Carlos was under
way.
The diversion project is in process
of signing up at the present time, as
representatives of the government are
here and accepting signatures of white
land owners under the contracts for
the building of the diversion dam and
distributing system. This system COW
ers, however, only the normal flow of
the river and contemplates no storage.
The division of water is on the basis
OF $4,000 acres to the Indians and 81
900 acres to the whites and divided
pro rata.
A certain area has been blocked out
by the government officials in Wash
ington as the exterior limits of the
diversion project and all lands lying
within that area will be signed up.
} There is, however, about four times as
much land as water within the area
designated, with the chance that an
extra acreage will be able to secure
flood water when there is large flow
in the river and the needs of the In
dians can be supplied from diversions
IL rxyfl1
doubtless, in supplemental or flood
right acreage in addition to the $4,000
acres but this additional acreage will
have no assurance of water sufficient
to mature crops, except in wet seasons
when there is plenty of water.
The country, however, is booming
and Casa Grande and Florence are
both growing rapidly. as the develop
ment of 1900 acres near Florence and
10000 acres near Casa Grande has
stimulated good deal of activity in
both towns.
If the San Carlos dam should be
authorized, it would mean tremendous
business for Phoenix merchants. The
benefits to be derived by. Phoenix
wholesalers would be enormous and,
while considerable of the business
would go to Tucson, the larger per-
centage of it will go to Phoenix The
lower end of the valley around Casa
Grande is perhaps more directly trib-
utary to Tucson than it is to Phoenix,
and hence Tucson might reasonably
! be expected to control a greater part
of the trade from that part of the val
ley as railroad transportation facili-
ties now stand. But when the Tucson
Tidewater & Phoenix line is construct
ed, passing as it does through the
heart of this big valley, it would make
practically the entire valley directly
tributary by rail to Phoenix as we'll as