Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 137, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1916 — Reclaiming an Entire [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Reclaiming an Entire

The SHRILL» whistle of the en-’ gine at the power plant at Elephant, New Mexico, echoed and re-echoed down the canyon on a recent, afternoon at four o’clock. While the same whistle had made similar music innumerable times before during the last five years, its tooting that day had peculiar significance. It gave vociferous and prolonged notice that the last bucket of cement had just been placed in its proper niche in the parapet wall and the greatest storage dam in the world had been finished. In two important essentials the Elephant Butte dam ranks all other concrete masonry storage dams of the American reclamation service, viz., cubical contents and capacity of reservoir. In the latter particular it ranks every other irrigation dam in the world. When the floods of the Rio Grande begin to drip over the spillways, the Elephant Butte reservoir will contain two-thirds more water than the combined storage of all the reservoirs for Boston and New York. There will be more water by one-third than is impounded by the $19,000,000 Assuan dam in Egypt. Spread out, the Elephant Butte storage would cover Delaware more than two feet deep. Confined in a pipe four feet in diameter, it would encircle the globe seventy times. Expressed in layman’s measure, it will hold 865 billion gallons. The material in the dam if placed on a city lot 25 by 125 would make a solid block of concrete lacking only 60 feet of being a mile high. Its weight is more than 1,100,000 tons. Transported by rail, it would require 22,906 of the largest freight cars or a train 217 miles long. In the dam are twelve openings or passages, six for future power development, four for delivery or irrigation water, and -two for sluicing purposes. Reclaiming an Empire. The Elephant Butte dam, while the largest, is only one of the numerous structures- contemplated for the reclamation of the fertile empire which lies below it in New Mexico and Texas. Ora McDermith, the irrigation manager, thus tells about it: , “The Rio Grande project lies in the valley of the Rio Grande between San

Marcial, New Mexico and Fabens, Tex. The project as proposed is for the irrigation of 160,000 acres of the rich valley lands both in New Mexico and Texas, and, by the convention between the United States and Mexico signed May 21, 1906, about 20,000 acres will be irrigated in the republic of Mexico., “The source of water supply is the Rio Grande, which is a stream of extreme fluctuations, varying from no flow to a flow of over 30,000 cubic feet per second. It is necessary, therefore, in the efficient development of tho project, to provide storage reservoirs and diversion dains for the regulation of the flow.' The plans as de--1 veloped consist of one large storage reservoir and at least four separate diversion and irrigation systems. The four systems are necessary on account of the of * the irrigable lands which lie in four distinct valleys, the Palmos, the Rincon, the Mesilla and the El Paso valleyß. Between these valleys the river flows through comparatively narrow gorges. Three of the dams have been built and are new in use. They are the Leasburg diversion dam, .the Mesilla diversion dam and the Mexican diversion dam. The Leasburg diversion dam Is located at the head of tne Mesilla valley' in New Mexico one mile north of the site of old Fort Stflden, and diverts water for use on [the upper part of the Mesilla valley.

This dam was the first work constructed by the reclamation service on the Rio Grande project. The Mesilla diversion dam is located near Mesilla Park, New Mexico, about the middle of the Mesilla valley, and furnishes water to lands on both sides of the river in the lower part of the Mesilla valley. This dam has just been completed. The Mexican dam is located at the upper end of the El Paso valley just above the city of El Paso, Tex. This dam was constructed a number of years ago by the Mexicans and serves to divert water both to the lands on the American side in the El Paso valley and to lands under the Acequia Madre on the Mexican side. From these diversion dams several canal systems are built." Aborigines Used irrigation. “Before the middle of the sixteenth century the Spanish explorers entered the valley of the Rio Grande and found in these valley Pueblo Indians cultivating the land and irrigating it by means of acequias from the river, some of which are still in use. Hqw long these Indians had been on the ground is unknown, but even time they were considered old inhabitants and raised not only grain and fruits but even flowers. The descendants of these Indians and the Spaniards have continued to cultivate portions of these valleys up to the present without much change in methods. “While the Spaniards first entered the valley from Sonora and the Gulf of California, the first attempts at colonization jsvere made from El Paso as a base, the Spanish conquest of Mexico having extended by that time to the Rio Grande. In 1600, Paso del Norte (now called Juarez) was an important town, and records are in existence nearly three hundred years old which refer to the Acequia Madre of Paso del Norte as being then in use. “The present acequias in the Mesilla valley have been in use for about sixty .years, but there are evidences of older canals that have been abandoned. Is an Extinct Volcano. “The reclamation service began investigations on the Rio Grande March 1, 1903, considering especially the dam site at Elephant Butte. Elephant Butte is an extinct volcano arising

from the east bank of the Rio Grande to a height of five hundred feet above the river and is so named on account of the remarkable resemblance to an elephant’s head. From this butte the dam takes its name. “In August, 1903, a topographic survey was begun at Selderi A and extended down the river, covering the itrigable area in the Mesilla valley to El Paso. In 1904 these surveys were extended to cover the El Paso valley to a distance of forty miles below El Paso. Borings were also made at the same time on the site of the Leasburg dam to determine the character of the material. “As a result of the surveys and investigations in 1903 and 1904 at the Elephant Butte site, it was decided upon as being superior to any other site on the river* for the storage of water for both the Mesilla and the El Paso valleys. “Under the reclamation act, the cost of the project is to be repaid to the United States by the water users benefited, but in this case it was evident that the American water users should not be required to pay for that portion of the project constructed to satisfy the obligations of the United States in supplying water to Mexico, Accordingly, in 1907 Congress appropriated $1,000,000 to be expended under the direction of the secretary of the interior toward the construction of the Elephant. Butte dam.”

OH THE. DESERT "PLATEAU

ELEPHANT BUTTE DAM