Newlands Reclamation Act

John Wesley Powell, arguably the "father of reclamation", began a series of expeditions to explore the American West in 1867. He concluded that the Western United States was so arid that it could not yet support extensive development, and government involvement in large-scale irrigation would be necessary. Among his observations, he saw that, after snowmelt and spring rains, the rivers of the West flooded and released huge amounts of water and that for the rest of the year not enough rain fell to sufficiently support agriculture, and so reservoir dams were necessary. The U.S. government saw too much economic potential in the West to heed Powell's advice, at the time. By the late 1800s, small-scale private and local farming organizations would prove the benefits of irrigation projects in the arid western states. The 1902 act was later amended by the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 (, Title II) to limit the corporate use of water and speculation on land that would benefit from reclamation projects. ==Summary of the Act==

The full name of the act is "An Act Appropriating the receipts from the sale and disposal of public lands in certain States and Territories to the construction of irrigation works for the reclamation of arid lands". The act identifies 16 states and territories included in the project: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. It requires surplus fees from sales of land be set aside for a "reclamation fund" for the development of water resources. It also requires the Treasury Department to fund education from unappropriated monies under certain conditions. == Impact of the act==

Below are listed the larger of the irrigation projects of the United States, with the area reclaimed or to be reclaimed as of 1925. (1) • Arizona: Salt River, 182,000 • Arizona-California: Yuma, 158,000 • California: Orland, 20,000 • Colorado: Grand Valley, 53,000; Uncompahgre Valley, 140,000 • Idaho: Boise, 207,000; Minidoka, 120,500 • Kansas: Garden City, 10,677 • Montana: Blackfeet, 122,500; Flathead, 152,000; Fort Peck, 152,000; Huntley, 32,405; Milk River, 219,557; Sun River, 174,046 • Montana-North Dakota: Lower Yellowstone, 60,116 • Nebraska-Wyoming: North Platte, 129,270 • Nevada: Truckee-Carson, 206,000 • New Mexico: Carlsbad, 20,261; Hondo, 10,000; Rio Grande, 155,000 • North Dakota: North Dakota Pumping, 26, 314 • Oregon: Umatilla, 36,300 • Oregon-California: Klamath, 70,000 • South Dakota: Belle Fourche, 100,000 • Utah: Strawberry Valley, 50,000 • Washington: Okanogan, 10,999; Sunnyside, 102,824; Tieton (Teton), 34,071 • Wyoming: Shoshone, 164,122 Much of the West could not have been settled without the water provided by the Act. The West became one of the premier agricultural areas in the world. Bureau of Reclamation statistics shows that the more than 600 of their dams on waterways throughout the West provide irrigation for of farmland, providing 60% of the nation's vegetables and 25% of its fruits and nuts. Currently, the Bureau operates about 180 projects in the West. Not envisioned by the act, Bureau of Reclamation dams support 58 power plants producing 40 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually. Most of the large population centers in the Far West owe their growth to these power sources. == Affected river systems==

• Colorado River system • Columbia River system • Missouri River system • Rio Grande system ==See also==