White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1925-07-17
Klr7ITAs PROJECT POSSIBLE

privately-owned lands in the Kittitas
reclamation project will cooperate
with the United States Reclamation
Service in it's plan to make the kitti-
tas development a model for the ma
ton, and will begin work along that
line at once, according to information
received by the state development de-
partment of the Seattle Chamber OF
Commerce.
A start probably will be made, pend
ing the settlement of the controversy
still ON between the federal govern
ment and Gov. Roland H. Hartley
over the state-aid land settlement pro-
vision of the bill passed by the last
congress appropriating $375,000 for
the imitation of construction work on
the Kittitas project, which includes
irrigation Of 10000 acres of arid land
and which will cost about 100000
when completed.
On his recent visit to this state in
company with Secretary Of the 1nte-
rior Hubert Work, DR.. Elwood Mead,
commissioner in change of the Recla-
nation Service, outlined to the Kitti-
tas land owners his plans for the
Kittitas development, told them how
they could aid the government in car
rying them out and urged them to
begin doing their part at once. The
Seattle Chamber Of Commerce is in
formed that DR.. Mead S advice has
been accepted and will be acted upon.
Governor Hartley now has under
advisement the question of permit
ting the state to enter into contract
with the federal government to CO.
operate with the Reclamation Service
in placing settlers on the Kittitas prof.
ect when it is completed When he
met the governor in Seattle last Mon
day for conference on the subject
Secretary Work presented to the gov
crnor a modified contract that limits
the states liability to 100000 and
the governor promised to consider it
after making personal inspection OF
the Kittitas lands. The Kittitas land
owners at the same time pledged them
selves to assume the states entire risk,
financial and otherwise, in case the
contract was signed.
But DR.. Mead told the Kittitas land
owners that the government had fully
determined to carry out the Kittitas
project and would do SO, whether the
governor signed or did not sign the
contract. Failure to sign would delay
the start Of wosk year, he said, but
he was confident the next Congress
would agree to plan under which
the land owners themselves instead OF
the state, would cooperate with the
government In land settlement there
by releasing the appropriation.
Because he regarded the construc-
ton of the project as assured, DR..
Mead explained his plans for the de-
velopment and told the Kittitas land
owners how they could assist.
His request was that they should
begin at once to lay plans for the sub
division of all the larger land hold
ings into tracts of forty acres or less,
suitable for intensive cultivation; make
surveys for permanent roads through
the project to give access to all these
small farms; decide upon the location
Of necessary bridges; make surveys OF
the new school districts that would
ultimately be needed, and talk over
the location Of the various community
centers that his plan contemplates.
Urban planning and development OF
better community life has become the
rule in the cities, D.. Mead said, but
rural planning and rural community
life has been neglected in the United
States, nowhere more than on the
government irrigation projects of the
past.
His plans for the Kittitas, he said,
were similar to those that have been
carried cut at Durham, Cal, where
model farm home community has been
created, carrying out the best ideas de-
veloped by similar experiments in
European countries.