Who Owns Wyoming?: Water Issues

I. The Context: Arid Lands

In the interest of furthering Thomas Jefferson’s “agrarian ideal,” Congress passed the original Homestead Act in 1862, but because of the acreage limitation of 160 acres, the act had little practical application in the arid West. A further impediment to homesteading was the division of land into townships and sections, in accordance with the 1785 Land Ordinance. The law gave no regard to the natural environment. In fertile relatively flat areas of the Midwest, the land division had no particular impact on development. Regardless of proximity to rivers or streams, homesteaders could farm in areas where precipitation was the primary source of water for crops. Not so in much of the West where success in any form of agriculture required proximity to watercourses.

Passage of the Timber Culture Act demonstrated the Congress’ concern for having settlers plant trees on the Great Plains. Implied in the act was the necessity for farmers keeping the trees watered.

At the urging of Westerners, Congress passed the Desert Land Act in 1878 as a means of encouraging settlement in “desert” areas—places where irrigation was essential in order to grow crops. “Desert” in the definition of the act does not mean places like the Sahara. It simply meant areas where precipitation was insufficient for crop agriculture.  The act required that homesteaders “bring water to the land” within three years in order to perfect a homestead claim on the 640-acre section allowed in the act.

II. John Wesley Powell and Water Issues

            a. Powell's "Arid Lands report" set forth proposition that due to arid nature of much of the west, additional land needed to be offered in acts and along watercourses

            b. Powell's recommendations were rejected-- Congress wished to retain grids and, initially, had little interest in government involvement in water issues

III. Private attempts to develop Wyoming's water resources

            a. first private ventures--Mexican-American farming near Fort Laramie in the 1850s

            b.  Shoshone Irrigation Company (William F. Cody)--started in the early 1890s

            c. Mormon irrigation (Bridger Valley; Sidon Canal (near Lovell); other projects in the

    Big Horn Basin)--most were started at the turn of the century

            d. railroad and municipal development of water resources—not for agriculture

            e. other agricultural projects: Casper area projects, Bosler project near Laramie

IV. Government indirect efforts to promote water resources

            a. land acts--efforts to encourage irrigation in Desert Land Act, for example

            b. promotion of "dry farming" by Dr. V. T. Cooke and others (deep plowing, dry crops)

            c. Carey Act (1894)--getting the states into underwriting water projects with federal land

V. Newlands Reclamation Act (1902): blueprint for small irrigated farms

            a. role of Wyoming congressmen in creating "Reclamation Service" (now USBR)

            b. designed to encourage small farms (160 acres), individually owned, lived on by

     families

            c. water rights claimed by individual projects, water sold to "members" who, in theory,

    were paying back the costs of the project

VI. The Bureau's earliest Wyoming projects

            a. Pathfinder Dam (1909)

            b. Shoshone Irrigation Project--relieving Cody's company of the debt

VII. Evolution of a bureaucracy: the USBR and the Army Corps of Engineers

            a. Dr. Elwood Mead, former Wyoming state engineer, served as USBR director

            b. reclamation v. flood control: competing roles of two agencies

            c. finding new places for dams:

i. Guernsey, Seminoe, Alcova, Glendo, Keyhole

ii. projects aiding mostly other states: Yellowtail, Flaming Gorge, Jackson Lake

iii. building on prior locations: Buffalo Bill Dam, Boysen Dam

iv. the Anchor Dam problem (and anecdote about Phil's efforts to photograph the dam)

VIII. assessing the US Bureau of Reclamation

a. major role in creating major cities in the West—not only the water, but electricity   generated by dams became major revenue source and important for development of Western cities

            b. costs of projects: costs amount to subsidies to those who eat vegetables and other food.

Names/Terms

grid system (township/range)  Francis E. Warren          William F. Cody                          Pathfinder Dam

Carey Act (1894)                         Joseph M. Carey          Army Corps of Engineers          Glendo Dam

Desert Land Act                        Newlands Reclamation Act                dry farming             Alcova Dam

Shoshone Irrigation Project    U. S. Bureau of Reclamation              Dr. Elwood Mead    Anchor Dam

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