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173. The estimated total ultimate cost of the San Carlos project to the United States for the Pimas will then be

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69.63

Cost for each of 30,000 acres on south side of river with full supply of water...

Cost for each of 10,000 acres on north side of river with half supply of water.....

34.82

174. As in the case of the projects under the reclamation law, the title to and the management and operation of the reservoir and the works necessary for its protection and operation should remain in the United States, and so long as the Indians remain wards of the Government, the United States should also retain control of the diversion dam above Florence and the main canal and the Pima branch.

175. Operation and maintenance of the system on the reservation and the Indians' share of the expenses of administration and of operation and maintenance of the elements common to the use of both the Indians and the district may be taken at $1.50 per acre per year, or $60,000 a year. The board assumes that this will be collected from the Indian irrigators.

176. Additional and total cost for private lands.-The cost of the Picacho branch of the main canal and of the distribution system for the 55,000 acres of private lands to be taken into the project, including the lining of the main distributors and larger laterals will be assumed at $17 per acre. The estimated total cost to private lands will then be

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177. If the $70.45 be extinguished in twenty equal annual installments, without interest, each installment would be....

3.52

With interest at 3 per cent compounded annually, each installment would be......

4.74

178. The board has assumed that the distribution system will be constructed by the district, not by the United States, and that the United States will therefore not advance the money for it. It should be observed, however, that there is no objection to the United States constructing it and under certain Reclamation Service projects it has been found advisable for the United States to do so. The figures remain practically the same under either supposition, since in one case interest on the cost is less and in the other it is reasonable to assume that much of the actual labor will be done by the farmers themselves. The total probable cost per acre per year for 20 years, including interest at 3 per cent compounded annually, would accordingly be $4.74.

179. The cost of operation and maintenance will be taken at $1.50 per acre per year, of which about two-thirds would be paid to the district organization and one-third to the United States.

180. The board has estimated that at present prices, the cost of desilting would be about $3.33 per acre per year. It will probably be less by the time desilting becomes advisable. As a matter of maintenance of reservoir capacity, such work will not be necessary until long after the construction charges have been fully paid.

181. To sum up, the yearly total of payments on private land would be $6.24 per acre for 20 years; then $1.50 per acre until desilting charges begin; and afterwards not more than $3.33 per acre additional, or $4.83 per acre.

RIGHTS TO GILA RIVER WATERS AND CLAIMS THERETO.

ALTERNATIVE PROJECTS.

182. Along the Gila above its confluence with the Salt, the principal irrigated areas are near Sacaton, Florence, Safford, and Guthrie. About 15,000 acres are under cultivation by the Pima Indians near Sacaton; about 3,000 acres by whites near Florence; 25,000 near Safford, and 7,000 near Guthrie.

183. Unquestionably the Pima Indians were the earliest appropriators of water from the Gila, and since before the advent of the white man they have continuously applied water to a beneficial_use in the irrigation of land on or near the present reservation. Just how extensive are their rights to water can be known only as the result of an adjudication. The board was advised by an attorney of the Indian Bureau, that, in his opinion, the Indians not only have a prior right to the quantity of water required for the average acreage they have had under irrigation (about 15,000 acres as stated by Mr. Thackery), but that the United States acting for the Indians probably has the right to take as much of the flow of the stream as may ever be required for the proper use of the Indians, and that private rights can not vest except to the flow of the stream in excess of that required for the Indians. The acreage suggested by Mr. Olberg of the Indian Service as that which will ultimately be required for the Pimas is 50,000, being 10 acres per capita for an assumed prospective population of 5,000. For such an area it is probable that the flow of the river would be needed up to a discharge so great as to practically require all waters, excepting in times of floods of some magnitude, to pass all lands now irrigated above the reservation.

184. It is useless to speculate on the extent and priority of the rights claimed at Guthrie, Safford, and Florence. But it is apparent that the extent of existing rights, if there are any such rights, especially rights near Florence, will have a very important bearing upon the advisability of this project. If in the district to which the board recommends that the project be confined there are lands having water rights, and the owners refuse to relinquish these rights, the project must deliver free to these lands the water to which they are entitled. Similarly, if there is land possessing water rights outside the district, these rights must be satisfied in the same way. To

have to furnish any considerable quantity of water free will reduce the area of lands in the project and correspondingly increase the cost per acre.

185. From the beginning the board realized that the question of advisability or inadvisability would very likely rest largely on the quantity of water, if any, that would have to be delivered in satisfaction of prior rights, and at its first meeting the board submitted the following letter:

PHOENIX, ARIZ., November 19, 1912.

From: The board of engineer officers, appointed under section 2, Indian appropriation act approved August 24, 1912, to report on advisability of storage reservoir at San Carlos, Ariz.

To: The Secretary of the Interior.

Subject: Adjudication of water rights on Gila River and filing on unappropriated water at San Carlos.

SIR: The board is arranging for the collection of physical data necessary for the determination of the questions submitted to the board. One point, however, on which the advisability of such storage of water, and the utilization thereof, is very largely dependent can not be determined definitely by the board without legal assistance. This point is, How much of the flow of the Gila River is legally available for storage in the proposed reservoir? It is obvious that unless this information can be had it will be impracticable to determine the area of land which can be irrigated from such stored water. To obtain this information it is necessary to know what prior rights of irrigators below and above the dam must be satisfied before any water can be stored in the reservoir. There are numerous canals which take water from the Gila in both localities. An adjudication of all these rights is therefore essential. 2. It has been asserted that the Pima Indians have a water right prior to any others in the valley. If this is true and the amount of such prior right is determined, this right will, of course, be absorbed in any storage project undertaken chiefly for the benefit of these Indians. Under agreement with the owners, other water rights pertaining to lands lying below the reservoir may also be absorbed in the storage project. But the rights below the reservoir, the owners of which decline to enter into an agreement with the United States, must be satisfied by passing sufficient water through the dam for that purpose.

3. The board has not been able to find that the surplus and unappropriated waters of the Gila and its tributary streams above the sites of the impounding dam and a diversion dam across the Gila at a point about 12 miles above Florence have been filed upon so as to prevent further encroachments upon the flow of the river by private parties.

4. In view of the fact that the discharge of the river at the San Carlos Dam site is small at best, and every particle of water that can be brought to the reservoir will be needed for the purposes described in the act, it appears to the board essential that such filing as is referred to in the preceding paragraph should be accomplished at the earliest possible moment.

5. In view of the facts above given, it is recommended by the board that the Department of Justice be requested to assign a United States district attorney or assistant attorney, well versed in laws and practice of water use, to carry out the following recommendations:

First. To file upon all surplus and unappropriated waters of the Gila River and its tributaries above the San Carlos Dam site, on behalf of the project.

Second. To proceed as rapidly as possible to obtain an adjudication of all water rights in the Gila River.

6. As it is recognized by the board that the adjudication desired may take several years before its definite conclusion, the board further recommends that the attorney assigned to carry it out be requested to make a preliminary examination of existing and dormant rights on the Gila, both above and below the dam site, and to furnish to the board as soon as possible an opinion on which the board can base a safe conclusion as to what part of the flow of the Gila River a court will decide is available for the project. The information collected in forming this opinion can, of course, be utilized in the prosecution of the adjudication.

Very respectfully,

W. C. LANGFITT, Lieutenant Colonel, Corps of Engineers, Senior Member of the Board.

186. The board has received no definite advice as to "what part of the flow of the Gila River a court will decide to be available for the project," but learns that preliminary steps have been taken toward securing the adjudication recommended. In the opinion of the board it is also important that further diversion above the Pima Reservation be prevented pending the adjudication and that all surplus flow of the river remaining from the adjudication be reserved in a proper legal manner for the use of the project; or, if the project be not undertaken, for use of the Pima Indians, a sufficient amount to irrigate 35,000 acres of Indian land with a duty of water of 2 acrefeet per acre per year.

187. With respect to lands claiming water rights and lying within the district to which the San Carlos project should be confined, the board believes that a condition precedent to the entry of such lands in the project should be the relinquishment of such claims, and that the lands should be entered on the same basis as lands for which no water rights are claimed.

188. The following additional conditions should also be subscribed to by all private land owners in entering into a formal contract with the United States for the carrying out of a joint project:

Private land to enter the project on the same basis as Indian land. The equivalent of 35,000 acres of Indian land to be entered (30,000 with full water rights, 10,000 with half rights), and 55,000 acres of private land. The division of cost to be as set forth in this report, and actual cost to be paid whether more or less than the estimated cost, including interest at 3 per cent, compounded annually.

The unit of entry to be 80 acres. Between time of entry and two years after completion of project every entryman owning more than 80 acres shall sell the excess, or in the event of failure to do so the United States to have the right to sell the excess, turning over net proceeds of sale to the owner.

Entrymen to so arrange with their creditors, if any, that amounts due the United States for cost of construction, operation, and maintenance, including interest thereon, shall be a first lien upon the lands to be entered.

The control and management of the reservoir, diversion dam, main canal, and Pima branch shall remain with the United States as long as the United States thinks desirable.

The United States shall be the judge when desilting should begin, and the contract should provide for repayment of the cost of desilting and of operation and maintenance.

189. Alternative projects. In case, as the result of adjudication, such a quantity of water is decreed to private land that the project becomes prohibitively expensive as a project for the irrigation of Indian and private lands, there remain two methods of providing irrigation water for the Pima Indians, viz, a storage project for the Indians alone and a flood-water project with or without a pumping reserve. In the discussion of these projects the board is handicapped by lack of accurate knowledge as to the quantity of water required to satisfy rights other than those of the Indians. In the storage project it will be assumed that the total quantity to be furnished yearly from the reservoir supply for all purposes is 100,000 acre-feet-87,500 for the Indians and 12,500 for private lands; that 250,000 acre-feet of capacity will be required in the reservoir for water storage and 187,500 acre

feet for 50 years of silt accumulations. This will necessitate a dam 155 feet high. Making a reasonable reduction in the item of flowage damage in the estimate of the larger project, assuming the cost of a diversion dam at the reservation to be the same as that of the one figured on above Florence, and omitting the cost of the canals contemplated in the larger project, the cost will be about $90 per acre. Desilting, when desilting became necessary, would amount to about $8.50 per acre per year. The board considers these costs prohibitive. 190. In the flood-water and pumping plan a diversion dam would be constructed at the head of the Little Gila or at the Santan heading, or possibly one at each place, to irrigate lands on both sides of the river. The quantity of river water available would depend, as stated above, on the result of an adjudication. Such experience as has been had with wells is favorable to the assumption that underground water within easy reach of pumps is available on both sides of the river; but there is no present means of knowing whether the underground supply will continue to furnish indefinitely 2 acre-feet per acre yearly for 40,000 acres of land. It is necessary, however, to estimate on a well and pump system capable of this duty on account of the long periods, sometimes several months in duration in which under existing conditions, which are assumed to continue, little or no water is obtainable from the river. The effect on cost to result from using river water in conjunction with such a pumping system is, then, merely to reduce the amount of fuel used. It must not be overlooked, however, that river water is superior to well water.

191. It is assumed that the perpetual right to 1,000 horsepower from the electric power plants of the Roosevelt project, to which the Santan project is entitled, is sufficient to operate the eight wells already completed as well as the eight additional 10-second-foot capacity wells required for 10,000 acres, and also the pumping plant of the Indian school. In addition to the construction charges already assessed against the Santan project, the complete system will include the cost of eight 10-second-foot wells at about $15,000 each, or $120,000; and the cost of a diversion dam below the intake of the Santan ditch if such is required. The total cost will be obtained by adding to

1 The following is taken from report of C. R. Olberg, superintendent of irrigation, dated Sept. 27, 1913, addressed to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs:

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"The irrigation of the Sacaton (Santan) project is effected by conveying water from the Gila itself through a large flood canal, and during periods of drought in the Gila of using a supplementary supply of water obtained from pumping plants. At present there are eight pumping plants completed and two more started, but the number of these pumping plants could be extended considerably with probably a proportionate increase in the amount of water available. Also, the capacity of the flood canal is large, being about 300 second-feet, so that it is evident that an area considerably larger than the 7,000 acres allowed for the present complete system could be provided.”

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Mr. Olberg points out that there is a large area of irrigable land on the south side of the river and proceeds: "It will thus be seen that there are ample good lands to give each of 5,000 Indians 10 acres of irrigable land.

"The additional water for the balance of the land to be irrigated, assuming that only the 100,000 acrefeet could be obtained from the flow of the river for the Indians' share, could be secured by pumping, "All that portion of the valley of the Gila which is covered by the Pima Reservation is underlaid by deep strata of fine water-bearing gravel, and a large quantity of water can be obtained from this storage. The expense of pumping will not be at all prohibitive, especially when it is considered that, for a longer or shorter period each year, gravity flood water from the Gila will be available.

The preceding statement of the water resources would indicate that it is entirely within the bounds of reasonable expectation that water can be provided for 10 acres each for all the Indians on the Pima Reservation. While I have here considered the number of Indians who would expect allotments upon this reservation at 5,000, the actual number, as given in the commissioner's report for 1912, is 3,996. Assuming the total area of land which it will be necessary to supply with water as 50,000 acres provides what seems an ample allowance for increase in numbers or for unenumerated individuals entitled to allotments on this reservation."

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