BOARD01026

• Board Meeting Date: 5/16/2006
• Description: History of Reservoirs in the San Luis Valley - Presentation by Melvin Getz
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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granary of the civilized world, and the most opulent country of its time,' , ,
while the earliest chronicle of irrigation along the Euphrates is that of
King Hammurabi, one of the greatest monarchs of Babylonian hl..,story, and ;\
perhaps a contemporary of Abraham. His graven inscriptions record the ' ,
beneficiimt effects of irrigation in ancient Chaldea more than 4,000 years
ago, in the following lines:

"l have made the canal of Hammurabi a blessing for the people of
Shumir and Accad. I have distributed the wat~s by branch canals over
the desert plains. I have made water flow in the dry channels and have
given an unfailing supply to the people. I have changed desert plains
into well-watered lands. I have ~ivcn then fertility and plenty ana
IT.ade them the aboda of happir.ess."

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The pomp and glory of those people and nations of antiquity whose
civilization reached beyond the dawn of history are no more, doubtless
due to the decadence of their irrigation institutions.

Hardly less remarkable have been the centuries old civilizations
developed in the ancient countries of Persia, India and even South
America, and the more modern civilizations of Rome, Athens, and Carthage
"hich depended upon the results of irrigation practices in Italy, Greece,
and Northern Africa.

Later civilizations of Egypt and Ind1& were saved only by the
restoration and extension of former irrigation institutions, while the
more modern civilizations of, Italy, ,France and Spain could not survive
were it not for intensive agricultural practices made possible by irriga-
tion.

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/ Within the past 300 years, this great civilizing agency has played
no small part iJi reclaiming a large portion of our own oontinent. As a
result of the early settlements of the Spaniards in Mexico which later
extended northward into what is now the United States, may yet be seen
the beneficent effect of irrigation in that oountry. Today, our own
irrigation praotices and institutions developed within the memory of
living man, have been the most potent faotor in the carving of a mighty
empire from a dreary wilderness accounted by one of 'our former Presidents,
"a habitation fit only for roaming Indians and wild !:eaats."

The changes wrought by irrigation in the western portion of the
United States' in the last half century have been scarcely less thim
marvelous. In areas once regardad ss forbidding deserts are found the
highest priced fsrm lands on the continent, and great cities have been
reared in these former solitudes. The present age has brought a larger
and truer conception of the value of the arid west, and of the tre-
mendous part this region is to have in the industrial life and security
of our country.

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~lany of these present are familiar with tha history of irrigation
,institutions and practices in Colorado, and w.l.th the marvelous trans-
formations they have brought about. How, from the earliest attempts at
reclaiming the narrow strips of bottom lands in this valley and in the