The Progressive have dominated the National and State
political arena since the day of the Accidental Presidency of Theodore
Roosevelt on September 14th 1901.
In 1902 Theodore Roosevelt stood upon the Bully Pulpit and
proclaimed the ideology of the Progressives
by stealthy wrapping it within his proclamation that all
deserved a “Square Deal”.
Theodore told one and all, the Federal Government is
the solution and the Square Deal would be his tool of Social
Justice.
The “Square Deal” was designed to appeal to the ill informed
by proclaiming all the evils of America
were the directed actions of those who would exploit the resources of
America
for their unjust monopolistic gain.
What Theodore Failed to share, is that these
"exploiters" were in reality the local small
business entrepreneurship that drove the American Economy.
The Square Deal was the policy implemented by
Theodore Roosevelt to substantiate the federal necessity of
intervening in the private affairs of Americans' Proprietorial Rights.
The Bully Pulpit was exploited to promote the Square Deal’s
Progressive message that government is the solution.
One "Solution" was to sell off Federal Lands to
Homesteaders by constructing massive Reclamation Projects for
water irrigation in the Western States.
This enabled Senator Francis Newland of Nevada to secure the passage of the National
Reclamation Act on June 17th, 1902 (Public Law 57-161, 32 Statutes at Large 388).
The legislation specifically applied to Arizona , California , Colorado , Idaho , Kansas , Montana , Nebraska , Nevada , New Mexico , North Dakota ,
Oklahoma , Oregon ,
South Dakota , Utah ,
Washington , and Wyoming .
The Congressional Legislation statutorily empowered
the Secretary to set aside parcels of Federal Land
The idea in spirit was to sell of the barren Federal Land
The first such project was the Salt River Project in Arizona , which began
construction in 1903. Over the following Four years, the Department of
Interior United States Reclamation Service initiated another 29
projects in 17 States.
IN 1906 the Lone Star Republic
jumped on the Project Gravy train with special Federal legislation, for Texas did not have any
Federal owned land within its boundaries.
Engineering problems grew along with the expanding Projects
which led to larger costs then anticipated. The project was early on
proved to be fiscal black hole. IN response to
pending economic calamity the Federal Government showed its
administrative hand, by creating a new authority the Bureau of Reclamation in
1907, in lieu of shutting the project down. So the
Reclamation Act's fiscal albatross of ballooning costs escalated year
after year, after year.
The problem as in all government managed projects was the
cost was greater than the return provided by the Homesteaders. The 1903
Reclamation Acts cost was over $85.00 per acre of a Quarter Section. In
1903 dollars that was $13,600.00 per quarter section. In today’s inflated
dollars with gold at $1600 per ounce equates to $1,088,000.00 per quarter
section.
The original legislation limited the users of the irrigation
project’s water resources to owning no more than one quarter section which is
160 acres. The Land Owners who managed their 160 acres farm with
water from the Salt River Project along with the other
29 projects encompassing 17 other states by 1906, were to pay
back the cost of the project out of their production. The cost of
building the first Thirty Irrigation projects exceeded the Act's self funding
premises for the quarter section farmer had no fiscal ability to pay
for the cost of the “inexpensive" Federal water resource.
When the Reclamation Act’s self funding collapsed, in lieu
of closing the operation, the Federal Congress increased Funding in 1910 by
moving 20 million dollars in then current moneys from the General Fund to the
account of the Department of Interior’s now three year old Bureau of
Reclamation. The Bureau’s administrative largess grew, as the
quarter section Farmer's inability to pay was never overcome.
Over the next 85 years the Bureau of Reclamation became an
agency with one focus build dams. The Bureau of Reclamation had built 180
projects by 1992.
One of the engineering problems was the underlying geology
of the river beds. The instability of
the river beds appears to be a problem the Bureau of Reclamation routinely side
stepped. This type of bureaucratic decision appears to be predicated on
ignoring a potential problem which led to the collapse of the Grand Tetons Dam
project on June 5th, 1976.
Then the other bureaucratic legacy arises in
parallel, the Endangered Species Act comes to play which led to the Federally created dust
bowl in the Klamath
River Basin
In 1992 the troubles began for the Land Owners in
the Klamath River
Basin in Oregon
when the Fish and Wildlife Services turned down the water flow after the
growing season to protect Shortnose and Lost River Sucker Fish.
The water spigot continued to be adjusted by the
Federal Bureaucrats in 2001 to protect the River Salmon.
So in just under 100 years, the Reclamation Act built 180
Irrigation Projects, wherein the now dependent Farmers lose their
Federal assured Water Rights on the whim of Environmental Groups, their
Fisherman Allies and Federal Bureaucrats to protect "endangered" Klamath
River Basin Salmon.
Not to be outdone the Delta Smelt became the political pawn
in San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta, where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
showed more concern for this four inch fish that lives a year, than landowners
who invested their lifetime in running the farms with the water from the
irrigation project.
Take note there is no press news outside the basins about the
political maelstroms that have bankrupted landowners and kept litigators busy
for nearly twenty years.
No comments:
Post a Comment