BOARD01106

• Board Meeting Date: 2/3/1962
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

(Applause)

Let's face it, we have a unique use
of water and if anyone wants to challenge
me on it -- I can't run and get all the
data now -- we have a unique use of
water. This Reclamation Service report
of the past will show you that our present
use of water is the most economical use
of water of any irrigated area in the
world. It is less than two acre-feet per
acre per year. I think the last report of
the Reclamation Service was 1.98. You know
where the next one was? Salt River Valley
4.58 per acre-foot per acre per year.
The reason is -- and this is again a unique
area in the method used for water, as Mr.
Coleman just told you, the minute they
start to lower this water table, you have
no soil. You can pour chemicals after
chemicals on top as long as you want and
you won't get it. Try to raise potatoes.
And it has been proved at the experimental
station some years ago. Mr. Ted Still
and I got talking about it, they took a
big tank, I guess it was, up there and cut
the bottom off -- a stock tank, fill it
wi th just pebbles and plant potatoes,
and you got the same potatoes as you did
outside.

This area is unique in its use through-
out the world where you must drain because
of the continual concentration of salts,
potassium salts. Now, look at the alkaline
that you see here. It is part of tha same
permanency, the same as the potash deposits
of New Mexico which you buy now to put
on soil or they do somewhere else.

Any time any group of engineers
I have respect for the engineers of the
Reclamation Service, one of those men was
my college roommate and he is pretty high
up -- I'll keep his mme out of this -- and
any time that anyone tells you, as I say,
that you are going to lower this water
table for the sake of saving losses by
evaporation, there is no data -- they once

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