DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF RECLAMATION, Washington, D. C., January 19, 1950. THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. Sir: On July 1, 1949, Secretary Krug approved and adopted the proposed report of the Bureau of Reclamation on the North Side Pumping Division of the Minidoka project, Idaho, authorizing me, in his behalf, to send copies of the report to the Secretary of the Army and to the appropriate officials of the States of the Columbia River Basin for their views and recommendations in accordance with the provisions of section 1 of the Flood Control Act of 1944. Accordingly, copies of the report were sent to the Secretary of the Army, to officials of the States of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, and also to the Secretary of Agriculture, the Chairman of the Federal Power Commission, and the Director of the Office of Domestic Commerce of the Department of Commerce. Copies of all of the comments received are attached. I have given careful consideration to the comments received. The comments of the States of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Utah were favorable. The comments of the State of Wyoming raised no objection to the report, provided that construction of the project be not undertaken until after the Idaho Legislature shall have ratified a Snake River Compact in accordance with the resolution of the Snake River Compact Commission, dated July 29, 1949. Ratification of such a compact and its approval by the Congress by early 1951 appears probable, as agreement has been reached by the compact commissioners on a draft of the compact. The Secretary of the Army requested assurance that the operation of the upper Snake River reservoirs be in accordance with agreements that have been worked out in consultation with the Corps of Engineers. This assurance has been given by Assistant Secretary Warne's letter of November 30, 1949. Officials of the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce raised several questions of essentially technical nature, concerning the economic analysis presented in the report. These questions are discussed fully and answered in your letter to the Secretary of Agriculture and my letter to the Director, Office of Domestic Commerce, Department of Commerce, copies of which are attached. In my opinion, the comments received and the questions raised in no way affect the basic conclusions and recommendations of your proposed report. Accordingly, I recommend that you adopt the report which was approved on July 1, 1949, as your final report, and that you transmit it, together with copies of the at tached comments and responses thereto, to the President and to the Congress for appropriate action. Bills, intended to authorize this project and certain related reclamation works (H. R. 5506 and the companion Senate bills, S. 2195 and S. 2203), are now pending in both the House and Senate and with favorable committee reports thereon. Departmental reports on these bills were made, in response to committee requests, on August 10, 1949, and copies of the reports were forwarded to the Director of the Bureau of the Budget with request for advice. Your letter to the President, through the Bureau of the Budget, it is hoped will clear the way for the requisite legislative action. Respectfully yours, (Signed) MICHAEL W. STRAUS, Commissioner. Approved and adopted, March 4, 1950. (Signed) OSCAR L. CHAPMAN, Secretary of the Interior. MIRAGE FLATS PROJECT NEBRASKA Construction of the Mirage Flats project was recommended by the Secretary on March 30, 1940, and approved by President on April 26, 1940, under the terms of the act of May 10, 1939 (53 Stat. 685, 719). Completion of construction of the project under the terms of the Water Conservation and Utilization Act of August 11, 1939, as amended, was recommended by the Secretary on June 15, 1944, and approved by the President on July 13, 1944. THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, THE PRESIDENT, The White House, (Through the Bureau of the Budget). MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: The Interior Department Appropriation Act, 1940, contains an item of $5,000,000 from which allocations may be made by you: For construction, in addition to labor and materials to be supplied by the Works Progress Administration, of water conservation and utilization projects, *** in the Great Plains and arid and semi-arid areas of the United States, *** All expenditures from the appropriation, and as much of the expenditures from the Work Projects Administration fund as the President determines, are to be considered reimbursable. Hereinafter the appropriation item will be termed the "1940 Water Conservation Appropriation." The Mirage Flats irrigation project in Dawes and Sheridan Counties, northwestern Nebraska, near the town of Hay Springs, is the type of project that is contemplated to be constructed under the provisions of this item. The project is one of those recommended for construction by the Northern Great Plains Committee in its 1938 report to you, and I concur in this recommendation. The lands to be irrigated, comprising 12,000 acres, are situated on the north bank of the Niobrara River, about eleven miles south of Hay Springs. The soil is a fertile silty to sandy loam and is capable of furnishing good yields of hay, grain, potatoes, and similar crops. State highways cross the project, and U. S. Highway No. 20 and the main line of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad pass through Hay Springs, thus providing access to markets. The area has been dry-farmed for half a century, but crop losses have been heavy in the dry years. Irrigation works were partially built by the farmers at one time but failed due to poor construction and lack of storage facilities. A majority of the land holdings is in tracts of 160 acres or less and should not be reduced in area. There are some larger tracts that should be subdivided and this arrangement should be obtained either through a contract with an irrigation district providing for the sale of excess holdings or the large holdings should be purchased and resold in smaller blocks. A plan of development now being contemplated is to furnish irrigation water for approximately onehalf of each holding. This would foster the most efficient use of the limited water supply, result in a combination of irrigated and dry farming well adapted to the locality, and would maintain the fertility of twice the area of a solidly irrigated block. The plan of irrigation is to construct a diversion dam on the Niobrara River at the upper end of the project, a main canal approximately fifteen miles long, and a system of laterals, sublaterals, and farm ditches. An earth and rock fill dam would be built on the river about nine miles above the diversion dam to provide approximately 30,000 acre feet of water storage. Construction would also include the necessary rough land leveling. The estimated cost of construction, including the building of all irrigation structures, rough land leveling, and resettlement costs, is $2,560,000. The experience of the Bureau of Reclamation on projects which are similarly situated indicates that water users will be able to repay $985,000 of this amount over a period of forty years and, in addition, to carry the annual costs for operation and maintenance. This latter sum should be obtained from the 1940 Water Conservation Appropriation. The remaining amount of $1,575,000 required to construct the project is expected to be provided by the Work Projects Administration. A tabulation is attached in which is shown a tentative breakdown of expenditures from the two funds. The estimate of expenditures from Work Projects Administration funds is based on the experience of the Bureau of Reclamation on construction with relief forces under the legislative provisions in effect prior to fiscal year 1940. The efficiency with which the work can be constructed under the new regulations is unknown. Therefore, the estimate of Work Projects Administration funds required may need revision at some later date. I recommend that the Bureau of Reclamation undertake the construction of the Mirage Flats project; that appropriate bureaus of the Department of Agriculture conduct the land development program and the arrangements for settlement, repayment, and project operations; and that the National Resources Planning Board assist in the planning and coordinated field. I recommend that an allocation of $985,000 from the 1940 Water Conservation appropriation be made to the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation and that the Work Projects Administration be requested to give earnest consideration to the project applications which will be filed by the Bureau of Reclamation to obtain the remaining $1,575,000 needed for the construction of the Mirage Flats project. The Bureau of Reclamation will reimburse the Department of Agriculture and the National Resources Planning Board for all services provided by those two agencies in connection with the construction of the project through transfers or advances from the funds made available to the Bureau of Reclamation. Letters containing the comments of the Department of Agriculture and the Work Projects Administration are enclosed. It is contemplated that actual construction will not be undertaken until the Department of Agriculture has made sufficient progress in an effort to obtain control of the large holdings, at prices which do not exceed appraised valuations, to insure the successful operation of the project. The time required for the construction of the project will depend largely on the availability of relief labor and may extend to three or four years. Sincerely yours, Approved April 26, 1940. (Signed) HAROLD L. ICKES, Secretary of the Interior. President. (Signed) FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, THE PRESIDENT, The White House. MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: There is presented herein, for your approval, a proposal to complete and to bring into operation the Mirage Flats irrigation project in Dawes and Sheridan Counties, Nebraska, under the provisions of the Act of July 16, 1943 (Public 152-78th Congress), which amended the Water Conservation and Utilization Project Acts of August 11, 1939 (53 Stat. 1418) and October 14, 1940 (54 Stat. 1119). The construction of this project, which involves the development of a new water supply for 12,000 acres of land, was approved by you on April 26, 1940, under the provisions of the Interior Department Appro |