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~74- . "There remain, however, vast areas 01' public land which can be made available for homestead settlement, but only by reservoirs and mainline canals impracticable for private en- terprise. These irrigation worksshould,be built by the National Government. 'The lands reclaimed by them should be reserved by the Government for actual settlers, and the cost of construction should so far as possible be repaid by the, land reclaimed. The distribution of the water, the division of the streams among irrigators, should be left to the set- tlers themselves inconformity with State laws and without interference v'lith those laws or with vested rights. The jJolicy of the National Government should be to aid irriga- tion in the several States and Territories in such manner as Vlill enable the people in the local oommunities to help ,them- selves, and as will stimulate needed reforms in the State laws and regulations governing irrigation." The early-day concept of Federal irrigation development of the public domain has been expanded over the years by numerous acts of Con- gress to include supjJlemental irrigation of priVate lands, incidental power production, ~lood control, and relief from detriments to fish and wildlife from reclamation activities in connection with multiple-use projeots. Also,it is no longer financed solely fromprooeeds of the Reclamation Fund. ~, The authority of 'the United States to engage in reclamation was sustained in the beginning by Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution giving Congress power "to dispose of and make needful rules and regula- tions respeoting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." Some reclamation project authorizations , such as the Boulder Canyon Project, were based on the commerce clause of the Federal Con- stitution. As late as June 5, 1950, the oonceptof the authority for Federal reclamation was broadened in the important Ul!ited States Supreme Court case of United States v. Gerlach Livestock Company. While holding that Congres~ has directed that, in the Federal reclamation program, state-created water rights must be recognized, ,the Court said: " . . . Thus the power of Congress to promote the general welfare through large-so ale projects for ~reclamation, irrigation, or other internal improvement, is novl as clear and ample as its povler to accomplish the same results indirectly through resort to strained interpretation of the power over navigation." (Bmphasis supplied) Although the Federal reclamation program does nO,t by any means foreclose irrigation development through private financing, it is realized at this time that, in most instances, the major projects development re- quired to utilize the water resouroes of the'dest will have to be ac- complished through Federal financing. ,. In the first thirty-five years of the Federal reclamation program, from 1902 to 1937, only two Federal water development projects were con- structed in Colorado. These were the Uncompahgre and the Grand Valley