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additional land. Under the act of March 3, 1927, $145,000 was authorized to be spent in completing the Gibson unit of 10,000 acres, and the pending legislation provides for placing water upon the remainder of the irrigable land, known as the Michaud division, containing 30,091 acres.

The Indians owning these allotted lands receive no benefit whatever under existing conditions, and as ample water is available and over one-third of the Indians have not been alloted lands, it is important that water be placed on these lands in order that they may be made productive and encourage the Indians to be self-supporting. The lands in white ownership, of which there are about 8,000 acres, are required to pay $7.50 per acre-foot for water and in addition pay their proportionate share of the construction cost of the project. All the money expended in connection with the completion of the project is reimbursable, but the Indians are not required to pay for the water right on 20 acres in each allotment, so long as they retain ownership. The bill provides that the income from any of the Indian lands which may be leased shall be turned into the Federal Treasury and credited to the construction charge.

This bill has the recommendation of the Secretary of the Interior, as set forth in the following letter, also the recommendation of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs as set forth in his memorandum, both of which are appended hereto and made a part of this report:

Hon. LYNN J. FRAZIER,

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
Washington, April 22, 1980.

Chairman Committee on Indian Affairs,

United States Senate.

MY DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: In response to your request of March 18 for a report on S. 3938, authorizing construction of Michaud division of the Fort Hall Indian irrigation project, there is transmitted herewith a memorandum on the subject from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. After a review of the proposed measure, I agree with the commissioner.

Very truly yours,

Memorandum for the Secretary.

RAY LYMAN WILBUR, Secretary.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS,
Washington, April 3, 1930.

This is in reference to a communication dated March 18, 1930, by Hon. Lynn J. Frazier, transmitting for report a copy of S. 3938, being a bill which if enacted into law would authorize the completion of the Fort Hall irrigation project by constructing the Michaud division thereof, and adjusting matters on the present Fort Hall and Gibson divisions of the project.

The Fort Hall Indian Reservation, in southeastern Idaho, was established pursuant to treaties made at Fort Bridger July 2 and July 30, 1863, between the United States, the Shoshone and Bannock Indians. There are now 1,776 Indians on this reservation. The original area of this reservation approximated 1,800,000 acres, most of which was hilly or mountainous. The present reservation embraces approximately 420,000 acres, of which area there are 60,000 acres under the Fort Hall project, 50,000 acres under the Fort Hall division, and 10,000 acres under the Gibson division, with an additional 30,000 acres under the proposed Michaud division, making a total of 90,000 acres in the project. This land is in the semiarid region where irrigation is necessary for the successful raising of crops. Congress as early as August 5, 1894 (28 Stat. 305), authorized the Secretary of the Interior to contract the construction of irrigation canals and the acquisition of a water supply for lands of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. Pursuant to this legislation the first irrigation work was undertaken on the reservation by the construction of about 5 miles of canal from the Blackfoot River to serve about 400 acres of Indian land in the northern part of what is now the present Fort Hall division of the project. This work was done in May, 1895, at a cost of about $17,000. The same year a contract was made with the Idaho Canal Co., a local corporation, to supply water from the Snake River for additional Indian lands. This company in 1896 built a canal now known as the Idaho, or reservation canal, from the Snake River, near Shelley, to the Blackfoot River, and in

1897 another canal was built from the Blackfoot River to Ross Fork Creek. The Idaho Canal Co. was never able to satisfactorily fulfill its contract to deliver the quantity of water to the Indian lands. Finally, in 1908, the Idaho, or reservation canal, with its decreed water rights of 600 second-feet, was purchased from the company by the Government. This supply of water with its priority of December 14, 1891, was inadequate to provide the Indian lands with proper irrigation facilities.

Congress by the act of June 21, 1906 (34 Stat. 334), appropriated funds for preparation of surveys and plans for a storage and irrigation system for the Indian lands and former Indian lands on the ceded portion of the reservation. A report in pursuance thereto was submitted, and, in pursuance thereto, Congress by the act of March 1, 1907 (34 Stat. 1024), appropriated $350,000 for work on the project and authorized the sale of water rights for lands in private ownership, the lands in private ownership being those in the ceded portion of the reservation consisting of about 12,000 acres. From time to time Congress appropriated additional funds for carrying on the work until at the close of the fiscal year 1922 approximately $847,000 had been spent in constructing an irrigation project on the reservation. The total irrigable area at that time was estimated at 50,000 acres, but only approximately 30,000 acres were susceptible of irrigation under this project as then existing and from the water supply as then developed. Reports show that attempt to increase the cultivated area was discouraged owing to the impossibility of satisfactorily serving same with the water that had been developed and the inadequacy of the existing works. These conditions led to enactment by Congress of the act of May 24, 1922 (42 Stat. 568), authorizing an appropriation of $760,000 for the rehabilitation of the then existing works in pursuance to a report of September 17, 1921, by a board of engineers that had been appointed to investigate the conditions. This estimate did not include the repair or rebuilding of the Tyhee siphon which has been unsatisfactory for a considerable period of time. Nor did it include the correction of the sinuous channel of the Blackfoot River through which the stored waters of the Blackfoot Reservoir are carried from that reservoir to the Indian heading in the Blackfoot River.

In pursuance to this act the lands in private ownership were required to execute contracts to repay their proportionate share of the work. These contracts were duly executed and work carried on under subsequent appropriations and completed to the extent that the funds available would permit, in September, 1927. The work accomplished made susceptible to irrigation the total Fort Hall division of the project, amounting to 50,330 acres, an increase from 30,000 acres.

As a part of the rehabilitation work provided for by the act of May 24, 1922, it was found necessary and advisable to abandon the greater part of the original Fort Hall main canal extending from the Blackfoot River to the south end of the project near the city of Pocatello, and to build a new canal of adequate size on a more satisfactory location and grade. Since this canal occupies the only feasible route by which water can ever be conveyed to the Michaud division of the project lying to the south and west of the present and existing limits of the irrigation development, it was considered as a matter of economy to build at a single operation the Fort Hall main canal to sufficient capacity to serve the proposed Michaud division as well as the present or existing Fort Hall division of the project, thus obviating the necessity of future enlargement of the canal and structures at a cost of more than probably twice the expense involved in providing carriage capacity to the Michaud lands if done as a part of the first construction rather than deferring such enlargement until the time the Michaud division was undertaken and constructed.

About that time the Reclamation Bureau of the Interior Department was negotiating for the acquiring of approximately 30,000 acres of lands of the Fort Hall Reservation principally in tribal ownership commonly known as the Fort Hall Bottoms for use in providing facilities for the American Falls Reservoir by reason of the construction of the American Falls Dam. This project does not benefit nor serve any lands on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. The matter was adjusted by the act of May 9, 1924 (43 Stat. 117-118). This act authorized an appropriation of $700,000 to be deposited in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of the Fort Hall Indians to draw interest at the rate of 4 per cent per annum. Section 5 of the act authorized the use of not to exceed $100,000 of this fund for use in relocating, enlarging, and reconstructing the main canal of the Fort Hall irrigation project to provide irrigation facilities for Indian lands situated in the Michaud division of the Fort Hall Reservation. The delegation of Indians

sent here during the time that legislation was pending agreed to this provision, the purpose being to enable the accomplishment of the work heretofore mentioned in the most economical way looking to the providing of irrigation facilities for the Michaud division so that those Indians within the Fort Hall Bottoms area taken for the American Falls Reservoir would have lands in lieu of those given up. Accordingly the main Fort Hall canal, being approximately 26 miles in length, was built with sufficient capacity to serve the existing Fort Hall project and also to convey water to the Michaud lands whenever it should be made a part of the irrigation project.

The rehabilitation work accomplished under the act of May 24, 1922, made it possible to supply 10,000 acres known as the Gibson division by the construction of canals and laterals connecting with the main works. The construction

of the Gibson division was authorized by the act of March 3, 1927 (44 Stat. 1398-1399), and the work has been done so that the present Fort Hall project consists of 60,000 acres, 50,000 in the Fort Hall division and 10,000 in the Gibson division.

Difficulty has been encountered in connection with the conveying of the water down the Blackfoot River from the Blackfoot Reservoir to the Indian heading in the river by reason of the sinuous nature of the channel. Complaint has been made by various water users owning lands north of the river alleging damage being done to their lands in using the channel of the Blackfoot River as a conduit for conveying water from the Blackfoot Reservoir to the Indian lands. Studies of existing conditions were pursued in accordance with the act of January 12, 1927 (44 Stat. L. 945), which, among other things, included the investigation of any damage resulting in the operation of the Blackfoot Reservoir. A report dated September 3, 1929, was prepared, based upon the studies and investigations showing the need for correction of present conditions in the channel of the Blackfoot River so as to permit proper operation of the project and avoid damage to lands along that part of the Blackfoot River used for conveying the stored waters of the Fort Hall project.

Congress authorized an appropriation for surveys and investigation of the placing of water on the Michaud division of the project by the act of March 28, 1928 (45 Stat. 377). The surveys and investigations made pursuant to this legislation were embodied in a report dated November 12, 1929, which shows an area of 30,091 acres within this division of the project as the only undeveloped division within the reservation that is economically feasible of development as a part of the irrigation system. As part of the investigations a soil survey was made by a soil technologist of the Department of Agriculture which shows that of the gross area, 35,600 acres, of this division only 1,846 acres are unproductive land. None of the unproductive land is included in the area of 30,091 acres proposed to be provided with irrigation facilities. The soils of the Michaud division are similar to those of the Tyhee district of the Fort Hall division, and are well adapted to the production of sugar beets, potatoes, alfalfa, and clover and alfalfa seed.

A study of the stream-flow and water-supply records extneding over a period from 1911 to 1928, inclusive, as well as such earlier data as were available, shows that there is normally available from sources now practically developed a water supply of 424,000 acre-feet annually. This available supply of water should be adequate to take care of the water requirements of the present developed divisions of the project and the Michaud division, making a total area of 90,000 acres of irrigable land. Provision is contained in the bill taking care of water conditions, giving the Indians priorities in and to the use of water and requiring that the owners of lands, other than Indian, within the Michaud division shall obligate themselves and pay, in addition to the proper share of the construction cost of the project assessable against their lands, at the rate of $7.50 per acre-foot for water required for irrigation of such lands. There are 21,912 acres of Indian lands within this division, the balance of the division being in other than Indian ownership. In pursuance to the report it is contemplated to allocate to the Michaud division of the project (the cost of which to date has been charged to the existing divisions of the Fort Hall project) a water supply for which the Michaud division shall reimburse the present divisions in an amount equal to the equitable proportion of the actual cost, which is estimated to amount to $362,500. With these funds, or so much thereof as may be required, necessary work on the present divisions will be done. This work will include enlargement and straightening of the Blackfoot River Channel, including payment of damages, thereby alleviating the existing situation and providing an adequate distribution system for the entire Fort Hall project. At the present time by reason of the quantity

of water developed that will be used on the Michaud division at an estimated cost of $362,500, the funds already spent in enlarging the main Fort Hall canal for that division and the funds appropriated for surveys and investigations of the division, approximately $490,000 has been spent for the benefit of the Michaud division of the project.

As an additional protection the question of the economic feasibility of the Michaud division was presented to Doctor Mead, Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, and he has advised in part as follows:

The opportunity of combining land and water at a reasonable cost is becoming more difficult to find and the Bureau of Reclamation is now constructing projects that are costing considerably more than $100 (per acre, not in quotation). The Michaud unit of the Fort Hall project, with an average charge of less than $100, brings it in a class that can be considered sound and feasible from an economic viewpoint.

"Furthermore, there has been an expenditure of nearly $500,000 for the benefit of the Michaud unit that can not be recovered unless this portion of the project is completed, and it also gives an opportunity to overcome a difficulty that confronts the completion and successful development of the Fort Hall unit. The important feature in this connection is to obligate the land absolutely to the repayment of the entire construction cost.

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The Indians of the Fort Hall Reservation have petitioned in writing for the construction of the Michaud division of the project. A delegation of the Fort Hall Indians when here in Washington in January of this year also requested that this division be constructed and that the collection of construction costs against 20 acres of each allotment be deferred so long as the land remains in Indian ownership. The bill in this respect provides for the setting aside of a homestead of 20 acres for each Indian now owning land allotted as grazing under the Michaud division who has no irrigable agricultural allotment with an adequte water supply elsewhere within the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. This provision was for the purpose of giving those Indians a 20-acre tract of irrigable land on which they would not be required to pay construction charges during the period that they retained ownership therein. The irrigable allotments under the present Fort Hall project consist of 20 acres. A change should be made in this language so as to permit those Indians who have been allotted 20-acre irrigable allotments under the Michaud division to have such irrigable allotments that are now inadequately provided with water but which will be adequately provided with water after the work contemplated by the bill has been done, set aside as a homestead. It is, therefore, suggested that in section 4, line 18, page 4 of the bill, there be inserted after the word "grazing" the words "or agricultural"; in line 22, same section and page, there be inserted after the word 'grazing" the words "or agricultural"; and in line 1, same section, page 5, after the word "grazing" there be inserted the words "or agricultural.'

It is suggested that the following amendment be also made: In section 2, line 9, page 3 of the bill, after the figures "$362,500" there should be added the following language: "or so much thereof as may be required."

The bill with the suggested amendments, it is believed, adequately protects the United States and the Indians. It is accordingly recommended that it receive favorable consideration and action. C. J. RHOADS, Commissioner.

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