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WSP09378
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Last modified
1/26/2010 2:53:15 PM
Creation date
10/12/2006 3:35:47 AM
Metadata
Fields
Template:
Water Supply Protection
File Number
8200.200
Description
Colorado River - Basin Hydrology
State
CO
Basin
Colorado Mainstem
Water Division
5
Date
4/9/1993
Author
CRWUA
Title
Colorado River Profiles
Water Supply Pro - Doc Type
Publication
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<br /> <br />000762 <br /> <br />Daniel Webster once <br />observed, "When tillage <br />begins, other arts follow. <br />The farmers, therefore, are <br />the founders of human <br />civilization." And so, many <br />believe, it was with the west- <br />. ern United States. For when <br />Brigham Young led his <br />followers across the <br />Wasatch Mountains in 1846 <br />and determined to settle <br />and farm the valley of the <br />Great Salt Lake, the ostra- <br />cized believers in search of <br />a home soon raised the cur- <br />tain on irrigation of desert <br />lands by building a dam <br />across City Creek at a site <br />not far from where the <br />Mormon Temple'stands <br />today in downtown Salt Lake <br />City. Similar actions were to <br />spread throughout the <br />Colorado River Basin states. <br />The basin itself is country <br />that boasts the highest <br />peaks, the largest mountain <br />ranges; the widest plateaus, <br />the deepest canyons and the <br />lowest deserts in America. <br />It also is the most sparsely' <br />settled area of its size. Yet <br />the waters that drain its <br />246,000 square miles serve <br />nearly'25 million people and <br />irrigate more than 1.8 mil- <br />lion acres of land-produc- <br />ing some 15 percent of the <br />nation's crops and about <br />13 percent of its livestock to <br />the tune of more than $1.5 <br />billion a year in agricultural <br />henefits. <br />Once the Mormons had <br />settled and attacked the <br />desert with unswerving <br />determination, it was not <br />many years before millions <br /> <br />I <br /> <br /> <br />of acres were under irriga- <br />tion, both in Utah and sur- <br />rounding states. <br />In December of 1867, a <br />former Confederate soldier <br />named Jack Swilling set his <br />sites on the Salt River Valley <br />in Arizona Territory. With <br />some 18 to 20 miners, they <br />built a weir dam out into <br />the Salt River (which down- <br />stream joins the Gila and <br />flows on into the Colorado), <br />redug what had been a pre- <br />historic Indian canal and <br />planted several hundred <br />acres in corn, barleyand <br />wheat. They formed the <br />Swilling Irrigation and <br />Canal Company, a cooper- <br />ative association. The <br />homesteads of these irriga- <br />tion pioneers grew into the <br />settlement of Phoenix and <br />over the ensuing' years, <br />additional canals and diver- <br />sian dams on the Salt gave <br />rise to the communities of <br />Tempe, Mesa, Glendale, <br />Peoria. and Scottsdale. <br />It was the 1860s when <br />the cattle boom hitthe <br />upper basin of the Colorado <br />River. Though one can find <br />cattle grazing from the <br />headwaters of the.river to <br />the Gulf of California, it is <br />most closely associated <br />with the high country. In <br />1857, the Army was sent to <br />Utah to impress upon the <br />recently settled Mormons <br />that the federal government <br />was still in charge. Close <br />behind was William Carter <br />whose job was to supply <br />the troops. He settled at <br />Fort Bridger in the Green <br />River Basin and in 1868 <br />imported the first shipment <br />of Texas longhorns. Within <br />a few years a New Mexico <br />cattleman drove 900 steers <br />in to Brown's Park from <br />southern Colorado. In the <br /> <br />1870s, two governors are <br />said to have invested in .the' <br />cattle business and took the <br />lead in promoting its devel- <br />opment. The boom crested . <br />in the mid-1880s when <br />there were 1.5 million head <br />of cattle in Wyoming. A . <br />harsh winter in 1886-87 cut <br />the numbers dramatically. <br />In the southwest, the <br />story was much the same. <br />The first large herds had <br />come into the valleys south <br />of today's Tucson in the <br />17oos, courtesy of the Jesuit. <br />and Franciscan missionaries <br />who had settled there. At <br />one point some 1 million <br />cattle and.s million sheep <br />roamed the southern <br />Arizona countryside. As <br />the 1880s began winding <br />down, many felt the ranges <br />were becoming overcrowd- <br />ed. Nearly 1.5 million head <br />of cattle roamed the territo- <br />ry. Two back-to-back dry <br />years proved to bedisas' <br />trous. By the spring of 1893, <br />from one-half to three- <br />quarters of the herds were <br />lost in Arizona. <br />In both areas the cattle <br />were to return in more <br />moderate numbers. <br />In the 1860sthrough the <br />1880s hundreds of private <br />irrigation companies were <br />set up to water the desert <br />lands. Most of them operat- <br />ed in very dry regions <br />where agriculture without <br />irrigation is akin to trying <br />to catch the wind in a net, <br />yet otherwise the climate is <br />well suited for growing <br />crops. With the exception <br />of the projects initiated by <br />Mormon communities, <br /> <br />almost none of these private <br />attempts survived beyond <br />10 years though the federal <br />government, after the Civil <br />War, undertook programs <br />encouraging the settlement <br />of arid, uninhabited lands. <br />But not.all private com- <br />panies were unsuccessful. <br />T\1e Imperial Valley in <br />southeastern California was <br />the target of the first large- <br />scale, private irrigation pro- <br />ject to make use of the <br />Colorado itself. Attempts <br />to carry water from the <br />Colorado had begun in the <br />mid-18OOs with a physician <br />named Dr. Oliver Meredith <br />. Wozencraft, a forty-niner, <br />a man of great imagination. <br />He developed a plan to. <br />bring water from the river to <br />irrigate the Colorado desert <br />basin to the west. A dele- <br />gate to the Constitutional <br />.Convention, he induced the <br />Legislature to paSs a bill . <br />giving him all state rights to <br />. some 1,600 square miles of <br />. "valueless and horrible. <br />. desert" hi cohSideratiOJ'lof <br />. promises of reclamation. . <br />. Three years later when his <br />bill was presented to <br />. Congress proposing "the <br />introduction ofa whole- <br />some supply of fresh water <br />to the Colorado desert," <br />the House Committee on <br />Public Lands initially <br />showed enthusiastic sup- <br />port. If it hadn't been for a <br />California humorist named <br />J. Ross Brown, Wozencraft <br />would have had water f1ow- <br />ingwest before 1875. Brown, <br />unfortunately observed, "I <br />can see no great obstacle to <br />success except the porous <br />nature of the sand. By <br />removing the sand from the <br />desert, success would be <br /> <br />:~ <br /> <br />'3 <br /> <br /> <br />.~ <br />;H' <br />1.............'..1... <br /> <br />, :'~ <br />'" <br />'. <br /> <br />Ii <br /> <br />'i <br />
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