The Arizona copper camp., 1920-04-03
MAGNIFICENT POSSIBILITIES
OF SAN CARLOS PROJECT
OUTLINED BY JUDGE BAUGHN
AT LOS ANGELES MEET
Continued from Page y

stream. One week it may be in high
flood, and few weeks later, practi-
cally dry. q am speaking now of the
river in the vicinity of Florence, the
county seat of Pinal county) For the
successful growing of crops the year
round upon a large acreage in the
Florence-Casa Grande valley, storage
of the flood waters of the Gila at the
San Carlos site is necessary.
''This great valley is the first val
ley below the San Carlos damsite, as
the river for distance of about 70
miles flows through canyon
''It emerges from the mountains
about 16 miles above Florence and
enters the broad desert plain which
extends in successive stretches from
that point to the confluence of the
Gila and Colorado rivers at Yuma, a
distance of 243 miles,"
THE LOGICAL SITE
''The Florence-Casa Grande valley
is, therefore, the logical valley on the
Gila river to be developed; is the
nearest large valley to the headwaters
for which stored water is necessary,
and is the only valley on the Gila for
which large storage can be economi-
cally and feasibly provided. The con
struction of the San Carlos dam is,
therefore, an absolute necessity and,
of course, will be under construction
within a reasonably short time.
''The question of a storage dam at
San Carlos has been proposed for
some time Eut no very determined
effort has heretofore been made to
bring the true merits of this great
and the country. Two very good re-
ports have been made within the past
several years on the project, one by a
board of u. S. army engineers in 1913
and 1914, and one by c. R. Oldberg
for the u. S. Indian service in 1915.
Both of these reports are based on
early run-off records of the river at
the San Carlos site, which are quite
apparently incorrect and too low. By
authority of the U. S. army board a
new gauge was established and ar.
rangements made for a complete and
accurate record of the run-off to be
kept, and the records since 1914 show
that more tl,an million acre-feet of
Hfe-giving water has wasted to the
sea through the San Carlos damsite
every year except one.
"The storage capacity of the San
Carlos reservoir is of staggering pro-
portions in its higher contours You
may he interested in these figures,
and, at the risk of firing you, l will
mention few:
STORAGE FIGURES
180 foot dam would store approx
mately 100000 acre-feet of water; 200
foot dam would store approximately
100000 acre-feet of water; 22O-foot
dam would store approximately 1885,
600 acre-feet of water; 230-foot dam
would store approximately 1880, 900
acre-feet of water; 240-foot dam would
store approximately 1,850,000 acre
feet of water; 250-foot dam would
store enough to cover 2,25O,0OO acres
II inches deep.
"The capacity of the great Roose-
welt dam is approximately 100000
acre-feet, so that dam at San Car
los 250 feet in height would have a
storage capacity almost twice as large
as that of the Roosevelt dam on the
Salt river above Phoenix.
Both the army board report and
the Oldberg report are based on a
dam 180 feet high at San Carlos. Even
the type of dam was designed and
everything made ready for action, but
the war cut short any chance of get
ting the work authorized at that time
within the past month the United
States reclamation service has under
'ohOA ChC WOlh VI pI1uSlllS IuS I'd Id
on the project right down to date, and
engineers working under the general
supervision of Mr. Weymouth, who,
addressed you this afternoon, are to-
day compiling additional data on this
great project and making a study of
the higher contours of the reservoir
basin, on account of the great storage
capacity and the flashy type of stream.
This project, therefore, is now, or, in
a very short time, will be ready for
construction, and can be gotten un-
der way without delay.
THE DIVERSION DAM
"The diversion dam and canal sys-
tenn for distributing the water to the
lands will be under construction this
summer. By reason of contract re-