The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1923-11-15

10000 acres; the Huntiey, In Mon
tana, $4,000 acres; the Lower Vel
lowstone, $4,000 acres; the New
lands, in Nevada, 10000 acres; and
the Williston In North Dakota, 49,
900 acres.
None of these projects proved
practical as estimated by the en-
gineers, and in some cases only q
half or less than half of the project
was ever actually put under cultiva-
ton. In case of the Newlands pro-
ject, less than 20 per cent of 1t was
reclaimed and farmed, and that is
not successfully farmed for the cost
to the settlers Is practically prohibit
tive owing to the fact that the over
head charges 70 rthe main works for
$40, 900 acres has, in the final test,
been charged against only $4,000
acres actually farmed. On most OF
these projects, there are abandoned
farms in large numbers, for every
abandoned farm 1t means that some
settler who stays has to pay higher
overhead charge than was expected,
and there is much delinquency In
payments to the government to APP
ply to moneys advanced for construc-
ton. Out OF $186.O00,000 expended
in reclamation projects, only about
fifteen million has been repaid, and
some of them according to present
estimates will take 200 years to pay
out
This, of course, is speaking of the
projects that were ill-advised and
never should have been attempted.
But only one project has the record
of having met all payments on time,
and most of them have their de-
linquent settlers, or as in some in
stances, delinquent spectators who
could pay, but are playing for more
time to see how 1t is going to turn
out. These seven projects have been
In operation for periods varying
from fourteen to eighteen years and
settlers are still complaining and
asking for extensions of time or de-
clining to pay the higher cost due to
the failures of the other settlers,
who have left or the mistaken esti-
mates of the engineers. The esti-
mated cost of the Uncompagree was
$25 per acre and the actual cost was
$70.12. The estimated cost of the
Newlands project was SIS per acre
and the actual cost was $96.86.
None of the Idaho projects built
by the reclamation service are listed
among the failures or near failures,
tho some of the Carey projects are.
The Carey projects were handled by
the state and do not concern the
reclamation service. We have a
sample of the disappointments of
mistaken estimates, in the lands ly
ing adjacent to Pocatello and Tyhee
IN Bannock county, where the gov
undertook to build the ir-
-igation works for the settler at an
estimated cost Of Sc an acre, and |
after fifteen or twenty years of OPP
grafton, the government, and the set
lers, decided that the system as con-
,tructed was not sufficient, and that
t will take an additional investment
If SIS an acre to water the lands
light, and contracts have been en-
cred into to have the government go
head and build the works, and the
settlers agree to pay The settler
till has some grounds for saying
hat the government had not lived
I'D to the contract to supply the
water, and on the other nand, the
government has grounds for saying
built the works twenty years ago
nd the settler allowed the canals to
lie there and fill up with silt and sod,
nd if he wants the canals to carry
he water he must foot the bill
again, the government says that
ans and headgates do not last for
yer and if such control works are
o be kept efficient and safe, they
aust be rebuilt, and the cost of
hese things is in the new contract.
These are complicated matters,
nd if the government had been re-
uired in the first place to stand for
II mistakes of estimates and of
Judgment and to replace decay and
0 clean out silt and sod and willows
S they choked the canals, the works
yould never have been undertaken
v the government All the canals