Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1921-04-22

Amusing are the stories told in the Los Angeles newspapers regarding the refusal of the Arizona Water Commission to permit the filing of power sites on the Colorado river by California interests, and still more amusing is the bunk given out regard ing the cause assigned for this re- fusal.
 The real fact of the matter is that until the meeting of the League of the Southwest last year the people of Los Angeles never heard of Boulder Can yon, or for that matter any of the other dam sites that have come under view, nor did they realize what the building of one of these great dams would mean to the irrigation dis tricts of the southland. Yet today the newspapers are talking big of the attempt of the "somebodies" to take from Los Angeles its rights on the Colorado river and turn them over to the big power companies, which are named in these articles. There is not the least likelihood of any big power company, unless it be your Uncle Samuel, building any of the dams in the Grand or other canyons of the Colorado, and it is the federal government that is trying to con serve the waters and power of this great stream to the people. It is the United States Reclamation Service that is now gathering information through it's engineering corps of the cost, possibilities and other data with which to go before congress and make requisition for the money wherewith to bring into being this wonderful project.
 On the other hand, the people back of the opposition to the building of this dam by the federal government is said to be the Mexican Land and Development company, composed of Los Angeles people, because of the fact that the U. s. R. s. proposes to build an all-American canal, cutting out the ITO miles of canal that reach es far down into Mexico and bends back into the United States, and waters the fertile acres of the In1- perial Valley. This canal also distrib- utes water over the holdings of the Mexican land company, without ex- pense to that organization, but at the expense of the American farmers of the Imperial Valley, It can be read fly seen that the big interests con- tolling the Mexican lands in the I'm perial valley, below the line are un- willing to give up present conditions without struggle. One of the men who have helped to reclaim the val { ley from it's desert environment, told the writer that the farmers of the Imperial country had been mulcted out of more than $100,000,000 by the water users of Lower California; that the American farmers were taxed with the building and upkeep of the canal; were put to all kinds of trouble to care for the waterway from the Yuma heading to the diversions upon IHe lduuS tLIouSuouI ltS eHIlTe CouISe, and without a dollar of expense to the Mexican farmers below the line. Who would not dislike to give up such good thing and who would not fight to the last ditch to retain a sinecure of this nature. It is not the people, it is little coterie of Los Angeles men who wish to get strangle hold on the Boulder Canyon damsite and absolutely control the waters of the Colorado river. There is no general interest in Los Angeles concerned in the prosperity of the Imperial valley. Their interest is only so far as it brings prosperity to Los Angeles. At the meeting of the League of the