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<br />SignOnSanDiego.com > News> Special Reports -- Imperial's decision <br /> <br />Page 4 of7 <br /> <br />The San Diego water authority would pay the district at least $258 per <br />acre-foot, much of it going to conservation and to offset economic <br />losses. <br /> <br />The price would exceed $50 million annually after the program is in <br />full swing. Imperial gets the water for free and bills farmers only a <br />delivery fee of $15.50 per acre-foot. <br /> <br />Blooming desert <br /> <br />Once part of San Diego County, the Imperial Valley was so desolate that <br />early surveyors worked hastily. Unusual S-shaped roads mark their <br />errors. <br /> <br />"They thought, 'Who the hell would come to this place?' " said Jesse <br />Silva, general manager of the irrigation district. <br /> <br />But they did come, among them Mormons seeking to build religious <br />settlements and Swiss dairymen who traded lush green mountains for <br />barren flatlands. <br /> <br />"We can see today more clearly the possibility of building a new Egypt," <br />Edgar Howell, an early settler, boasted around 1910. <br /> <br />In 1871, after surviving his first trip down the Colorado, the adventurer <br />Powell returned to produce detailed maps and scientific data that later :- <br />helped guide engineers developing irrigation and power projects <br />throughout the basin. <br /> <br />Early farmers tapped into the Colorado, irrigating 100,000 acres by <br />1901 and promising to transform even more of the desert into an <br />agricultural cornucopia. <br /> <br />But in 1905, a swollen Colorado burst through makeshift channels, <br />fanning out for miles and refilling ancient Lake Cahuilla, an isolated <br />natural depression 278 feet below sea level. It took two years to stop <br />the flooding and reconstruct the channels. <br /> <br />When the water finally receded, it left behind a lake, which was dubbed <br />the Salton Sea for its high salinity. <br /> <br />Nearly a century later, the sea has become a wildlife haven and <br />lightning rod, drawing cries for its restoration. <br /> <br />Others demand that this "accident" be left alone to succumb to nature's <br />whims if the salt buildup continues. <br /> <br />Six years after the flood, valley farmers united to form a citizens utility <br />they called the Imperial Irrigation District. <br /> <br />Today, Imperial is the nation's largest irrigation district, using 1,668 <br />miles of canals to distribute more than 3 million acre-feet of water to <br />more than 700 square miles of farmland. <br /> <br />Imperial diverts its draw of the river to the All-American Canal, which <br />opened along the Mexican border in 1942. <br /> <br />http://www.signonsandiego.comlnews/reports/water/20021208-9999- water.html <br /> <br />12/10/02 <br />