Journal ArticleDOI
We Are Now Entering a New Era: Federal Reclamation and the Fact Finding Commission of 1923-1924
TLDR
In a letter of invitation, Work explained that the government's reclamation program, consisting of projects scattered throughout the West (see map) and comprising 6.3 percent of all irrigated lands in the nation, faced serious problems as discussed by the authors.Abstract:
On September 8, 1923, Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work invited a group of prominent citizens to serve on a Fact Finding Commission that would intensively study the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation Service from 1902 to 1923) and its irrigation projects. In his letter of invitation, Work explained that the government's reclamation program, consisting of projects scattered throughout the West (see map) and comprising 6.3 percent of all irrigated lands in the nation, faced serious problems. Although Congress had granted settlers on the projects an extra ten years to pay for their irrigation systems and although they were charged no interest on the government's investment, many had abandoned the irrigation projects, and those who remained had fallen far behind in their payments to the government. Many of them would probably lose their homes, and the government would never recover its investment unless reclamation laws and policies were overhauled. Work charged the commission with investigating the problem and making recommendations for corrective legislation.1read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West
Norris Hundley,Donald Worster +1 more
TL;DR: Worrster examines the development history of the American West, identifying the elite of technology and wealth who have controlled its most essential resource: water as discussed by the authors, and identifies the elite who controlled water.
The Last Conservationist: Floyd Dominy and Federal Reclamation Policy in the American West
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors connect the literature of American state building with the insights of the New Western History and argue that the Bureau of Reclamation's true role in shaping the twentieth-century American West can only be understood in the context of a Washington bureaucracy struggling to survive through a turbulent period.
Evolution of the Bureau of Reclamation : an insider historian's perspective on the legacy and the challenge
TL;DR: Water has always been a dominating factor in the arid American West's prehistory and history as mentioned in this paper, and early Western settlers developed water projects and created complicated water law systems, which varied in detail among the various states and territories but generally allocated a sort of property right in available water based on the concept of prior appropriation (first in time, first in right).
Journal ArticleDOI
Water and economic opportunity: Homesteaders, speculators, and the U.S. reclamation service, 1904-1924
TL;DR: In 1902, Congress approved the Newlands Act as discussed by the authors and the Reclamation Service (RS) was established to carry out the provisions of the new law by developing reclamation projects in the West.
References
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Book
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water
TL;DR: The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water as mentioned in this paper, and the early settlers, lured by promises of paradise, document the rivalry between government giants and other institutions, in the competition to transform the West.
Book
Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West
TL;DR: Worrster examines the development history of the American West, identifying the elite of technology and wealth who have controlled its most essential resource: water as discussed by the authors, and identifies the elite who controlled water.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Bureau of Reclamation
TL;DR: The Bureau of Reclamation provided this comment to the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) in response to the Board's proposed final San Joaquin River flows and Southern Delta water quality amendments (collectively, ''Board Amendments'') to the Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary.