Imperial Valley press., 1919-09-19

were just as anxious as they to avoi'
the use of it, because it is an uneco
nomic watse to put up a 100000 vie
one month and a few months later t
blow it up with dynamite. And these
engineers recommended in their re
port that if we voted S2,5OO,OOO ant
expended it in accordance with thell
! recommendation, we would be able tt
get all the water we wanted without
any artificial diversion; and we be
ieved them But we found that engin-
eers could be mistaken.
The Chairman. What year was that
Mr.. Swing. They were employed first
in 1916, in September. The district only
got possession of the system on June
20, 1916. The old board was recalled
in September and the new board went
in in September, and the same month
they made their report. And then the
district started out to get the petition
| to authorize the bonds, and it took five
months to get the petition signed-you
have to get the consent of 81 per cent
of the landowners-and in August they
sold the bonds, and following that
work was started in December, 1917,
and they pushed it in every way they
could, trying to get the thing iii shape
thinking that they would be out of
Yuma's way when this thing was fin
ished, and they spent money lavishly
to accomplish that end.
Mr.. yelling. We have been told time
and again that the only engineers who
made mistakes were the government
engineers; that private engineers new
er made a mistake.
Mr.. Swing. Your question needs no
answer But | simply want to show
you that we tried in good faith, and
we put up our hard-earned money try
ing to meet this condition. We We're
laymen, and we had to take the ad-
vice of engineers, and we got the best
engineers we could on the Pacific
coastand we did just what they told
US to do and we found too late that
they were mistaken; the new works
have proven inadequate.
Mr.. Hayden. The structure at the in
take was of reinforced concrete?
Mr.. Swing. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hayden. And the bed of the riv-
er having lowered below the floor of
the intake, there is no way to get the
water into it?
/ Mr.. Swing. Yes, sir. They figured
that the river would soon cease to
scour its bed because of the sitting up
of Volcano Lake and consequent les
senlng of the grade of Bee river. In
stead of that it went right on digging
that channel. When they started to
build this immense structure the top
section part was II feet below the
surface Of the water, but by the time
they got through they were not able
to get any water into it.
! AS | stated, it is still necessary to
put IN these weirs each summer in or
der to get out sufficient water to save
the crops in the Imperial valley. These
welrs are built under a permit from
the War Department, and subject tc
the supervision of an engineer of that
department. t he Imperial irrigation
district put up one bond of S25. .OO(
to the War Department as a guaranty
to remove the weir when ordered t.
do so and another bond of $500 900 t.
the Interior Department and to tn,
Yuma County Water Users associa
ton jointly as guaranty that we will
pay any injury to any property of tn
United States or to any settlers on tn
project resulting from the construc
tion of the weir or it's maintenance.
Mr.. Little. Who required you t
give that bond?
Mr.. Swing. The War Department d
rectly, upon representations bein
made to them by interested partie
~hi' was asking Lne Otnt
day if they had done anything else
you.
Mr.. Swing. Pictures of these wei
are shown here Indicating phot
graphs), and | wish you would look
- them. They explain why Yuma
afraid of them. And why they cost
lot of money.
These weirs are built by first co
structing a trestle or bridge aero
the river. On this bridge is laid ra
road track over which trainloads
rock are run out over the river a
dumped until the water is raised hi
enough to flow into our canal Befo
the high water season, the trestle
removed; and on notice from the I'm
ed States War DeRgupntil, ,oetaoin
ed States Weather Bureau of risi
water, the dam is blown out and {