The Oakley herald. [volume] (Oakley, Idaho) 1908-1961, 1921-04-01
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by a l,ooO-foot tunnel which passes under the
river
Below Yuma the river. when In food mandates
large lying below level. In 1908 the
floods enlarged the 5O-foot intake of the Imperial
valley irrigation canal I'm Mexican territory TO
$500 feet. 1t poured all its waters through ths
break and its regular channel to the Gulf Oh
California went dry. This break was not sue
cessfully closed until 1906-07. Floods again
threatened to drown out the Imperial valley ana
In 19O9-1O congressional appropriation OF Si-
100000 applied to the construction of levees
and dkes.- Most of the Imperial valley is below
sea level and was formerly part of the Huii
of California. The Colorado built itself an aque-
duct from its silt and cut off the part to the
north. Evaporation did the rest
1t is thus evident that much depends upon the
vagaries of the mighty, restless river. A year
or ago congress provided funds for study OF
project to control 1t. Arthur P. Davis director
of the reclamation SERVICE department of the In
terror has just returned from trip along the
lower river. Here are of the things he
has to say regarding the Boulder dam project:
"For years we have measured the water that
flows down the Colorado We know approximately
how much of 1t there is to stop. Our first task.
therefore, is to find a dam site back Of which
there storage valleys large enough to hold all
the flood waters that may come. The Grand canon
and Needles on the Santa Fe are about $50 miles
apart. Along the river between them is a chaos
of mountains and canons, almost uninhabited.
Two-thrds of the way down from the canon is
the selected dam site in Boulder canon.
Canon Narrow Hero.
sThe cash that is mere cut through the rock
cliffs is but 800 feet wide at the base and 750 feet
wide whore the top of the dam would come. Thus
the canon is no wider than that which was closed
by the Roosevelt dam in Arizona, but the struc-
ture must be nearly twice high This addl-
tional height makes it incomparably more
difficult task. 1t is more difficult, also, because
II must be put in the bed of a much greater
stream That stream must be diverted and it's bed
made dry for the work. During the spring months
the river is at flood and is too powerful to be
dealt with Then comes eight months of COM
paratively low water.
at will be necessary to blast out tunnels around
the dam site that will carry the normal flow of
the river Then, some spring, the waters will be
diverted into these tunnels Between the time
of that diversion and the coming of high waters
the following spring the river bed will have to
be scraped to bedrock, probably a hundred feet
below the present waterline, and that bedrock
will have to be built up with concrete, thus max
ing the proper foundation for the great structure
1t will be race against time
sThe water will back up the Colorado nearly
n hundred miles, 1t will find its level in many
canons leading off to one side and the other
The Virgin river flows into the Colorado from the
Nevada side above this dam site. This river opens
ont in a wide valley. II will furnish the principal
storage basin of the project. Two desert villages
I'm Nevada will be inundated. Between them they
represent but a dozen homes
"rhe relief to be afforded is 300 miles away
ON the lower reaches of the stream. Near the
border of Arizona, California and Mexico there
are extensive areas of desert land which with
water for irrigation, may be transformed TO what
are probably the most productive farms in the
limited States In the Colorado desert In Cal
ifornia 100000 acres of this land, below sea level
has already been privately reclaimed and is oc-
cupied. There are other lesser valleys along the
lower river on either side
"AIi these projects interfered with by the
fact thot the Colorado is given to huge floods I'm
the spring, but runs quite low at othNr seasons.
II furnishes either not enough water soo much
While the desert is parched all about srSt foods
run into the sea unused