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In the South Platte valley, this pairing of pumps and electric power was extremely <br />50 <br />successful. By 1943, sixty percent of pump s in the region ran on electric power. <br />“Colorado’s power distribution companies agre e that the state’s pump-irrigation farmers <br />are pretty good customers,” proclaimed Colorado Rural Electric News , citing that pumps <br />used enough kilowatt hours in one year to supply a city of 30,000 people for twenty-one <br />51 <br />months. Rural electric companies fostered groundwater use by reducing rates and <br />encouraging farmers: groundwat er irrigation, declared the Rural Electric News in 1955 , <br />“should become a habit, not just something to be resorted to only when crops are <br />52 <br />threatened by dry spells.” By 1959, most irrigation pumps in the valley had converted <br />53 <br />to electricity. <br />Other technological elements melded with natural drought in surprising ways to <br />further encourage groundwater use. The Colorado-Big Thompson project, among the <br />largest federal reclamation projects in the West, was launched in 1938 to protect existing <br />irrigators from drought in the South Platte basin. Using a network of reservoirs and <br />tunnels, the project took water from west of the continental divide, transferred it under <br />the Rocky Mountains, and spread it onto the irrigated plains of eastern Colorado. <br />Originally conceived as a wa ter-supply plan, defense promot ers advocated its use as a <br />54 <br />provider of hydroelectric power. Ultimately, the project’s generating capacity furnished <br />50 <br /> W.E. Code, Use of Ground Water for Irrigation in the South Platte Valley of Colorado, Colorado <br />Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin 483 (Fort Co llins: Colorado State College, September 1943), 5. <br />51 <br />Colorado Rural Electric News , July 1963. <br />52 <br />Colorado Rural Electric News , May 1955. <br />53 <br /> Edward J. Farmer, “A Study of the Effect of Ground Water Law on Pumping in the Bijou Bain,” (M.A. <br />thesis, Colorado State University, 1960), 10. Farmer estimated that 5200 total wells were operating in the <br />valley by 1959. The same year, Paul A. Schneider, Jr. of the District Engineer’s Office calculated a total of <br />5185 wells in the valley running on electricity. Schneider to Morton Bittinger, “Recharge Evaluations of <br />the South Platte.” Box 12, GDC. <br />54 <br /> Daniel Tyler, The Last Water Hole in the West: The Colorado-Big Thompson Project and the Northern <br />Colorado Water Conservancy District . Niwot, Colo.: University Press of Colorado, 1992. <br />19 <br />