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'No. 4-1229
~, orthwestern
U r , !versltY
T HE
W O R K :S~.
"p
11 O 1931
R O GR AM
***
--Works Progress .Ad;:1inistr2,tion--
For Rel ease in Morning Newspapers
Wadn ec; day, July 15,1936.
Note to Editor:
The followi nf:; sta:~ement on drought conditions in Montana was airmailed
from Helena to Washington for distribution
By C. W. Fowler
( Deputy Vforks Progress Administrator for Montana):
Montana, battle scarred from struggles with c1routh disasters in recent years,
has b ee n v10rking out a p rogram which will, in the f .1ture, rninimi,;e the effects of
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returning dry seasons, and t1ontana 1 s Wo:.:ks Progress Administration is carryint; on
now at the front of the march toward better things for this enormous semi-arid. dry
area, third larges t state in the Union, and embracing 147,000 square miles.
Not only d.routh has come to ravage Montana, but, as is always the case in drouth
years, pests are bearing down in violence which old timers say has never been previously equalled.
Swarms of gTasshoppers are e;a ting up the forage on the range lands
and moving in on the green alfalfa, grain and sugar beets in the irrigated valleys.
Mormon crickets, ten times the siz e of the ordinary cricket and. with the curious
habit of traveling in great groups, are inf es ting certain regions,
vorous eaters.
They are omni-
Army · worms and web worms are marching on the r apidly dwindling forage
in other sections of the State.
To help fi ght these enemies the Works Progr es s A<lministration has set up statewide grasshopper, cricket and worm poisoning projects, and WPA workers are enlisted
to earry on the battle.
Fif~y carloads of bran have been purchased through the "{forks
Progress Administration and. shi])ped to various counties to oe mixed with poison for
grasshopper, cricket and wo1·m destruction.
Man;y add.i tional cars will have to be dis-
tributed. before the fi ght is won, and. even though in ma.."ly casr:, s crops can not be
saved, destruction of the pests this year insures fewer tormentors another season.
In this effort the Works Progress Administration is deploying its workers over
an area half the size of Ethiopia in a manner best calculated to advance an extensive
program of water conservation.
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NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
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No. 4-1229
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In recent years the Stat e itself ha~ been awake to the grave need for water conservation.
During the Legislative session of 19 33 there was created a Water Conser-
...."'"ation Board to investi gc,te a.nd nrooose practical irrigation projects.
The legis-
lative session of 1935 made $500,000 available to this board not only to further
carry on its study a.'1d p lans for pro,j e cts, but to assist in the construction of
smaller pro,jects through loans to irri gation (listricts.
:Sut with so vast a State
and so great a ne ed, the se combined agencies have made but a small start at the solution of the problem.
For generations Montana's rno st reliable agricultural industry
was livestock growing, and it is in assistance to this industry that great e st improvement D.nd -practical oencfi ts cD.n b e obtained.
Water for stock on the su..ri parched plains is a problem in the drouth years.
this year, for instance, early spring was propitious.
In
Considerable rain fE,11, and,
moistened oy winter snows, the ranges started a good crop of grass.
With the coming
of early dry weather what would have been otherwise a luscious crop of fora.ge for
cattle and sheep cured early throughout the plains and foothill regions, and water
holes dried up under the blazing sun.
Streams vanished which in normal s e asons
would ha.ve p rovided stock wc.ter in the arid districts, leaving thousands of acres of
·~ ange land covered with d..ry but nourishing forage, unusable because it was too far
from water for cattle or sheep to travel.
Seldom, however, is a spring so dry that between the run-off of the snow and . the
early rains, reservoirs con s tructed. along them would not be filled to overflowing.
These could provide bodies of water of reasonable depth and magnitude to last through
the su1mner.
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So too, many times when the springs and the wells dry up in the great
dry laI1d. areas 11 as distinguished from irrigated valleys, water will stand throughout
the season \'/h ere reservoirs have been built, and reservoir water under these conditions is widely use d fo1· domestic purposes.
In some districts whe re ne ither springs
nor wells may be obtained, largo cisterns are built and filled from artificial ponds
or lakes whe n the water in the lakes is pure and cold in the early spring.
water supplies, carefully husbanded, last throughout the summer.
These
Then too, many
times where a reservoir of moderate size can be built along a stream or gully, water
may be made available in sufficient quantities to irrigate a small crop, including
garden vegetables, fruit trees, shade trees, and wind breaks, or perhaps provide a
sing_le irrigation to
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carry the crop through" over a considerable area.
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-3Thus an orip ortuni ty is :rreser1teci to the ~forks Progess Ari.ministration to h elp
carry forward the const:n1cti ve ta sk of insuring in t he future re E1. sonable p rosperity
for many a sheep &nd. cat tle r £!I!c:h .
One of the probl ems in a sparse ly settled State
like Montana where distances are t;reat, is to establish p rojects of a worth-while
natur e in the isolated districts where b11t a f ew peop le live.
localities me..ke ide al p roj ec t s .
Reservoirs in the s e
They not only pr ovide the mn.n with work out they
give him likE::wise a cha.nee for the emT' loyment cf his t e am, which must be fed at considerabl e expense through the winter of droc.:.th y eurs wher e normally the natural
prairie grass on the ne a:..~by ra...11.ge would ca re for the m excellently.
And so with t h is class of citiz en the Works Progress Admini s tration offers &ll
opp ortunity not on ly for the citiz on to pull h::.mself U'9 by his boot straps, but also
an effective means of keep i ng h im from falling b~ck so far with the r e curr e nce of
the drouth calamity.
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dust bo-:vl"
~
liioritann 1 s problem is not like the problem of the so-called
Montana is really a beac.:.tiful State and in normal years presents a
tempting invitation to the se ttler on the
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dry l and 11
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A writer once said,
11 Montana!s
green rolling hills bE:: n ec1,th th e summer sun o.re like the waves of a huge but smoothly
running sea, the snowy peaks in the distan~e, the whitecaps where they tu;nb l e and
• s p lash against the cloud s 11
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From 1907 to 1915 a f):·e a t influx of
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dry land farmers" came.
Much of the best
range land was plowed up , but from a farmini; sta:nclpoint this was marginal land and
the average year woul cl not sustain the homest 0ad.
The solution of Montana's p roblem
is the return of the r}_ry l and. ar eas to sheep and cattle growing, which means a reduction of the p opul a tion of tJ1es e aruas, and the moving of this surp lus p opulation
to irrigation p roj e ct s along the rivers and. stn31Tls.
With the deve lopment of a gen-
erous water c onservation p rogram, w1:J.ich means further developme nt of irrigation along
the str eams and the dotting of the range land with small l akes and. r e s 0rvoirs, there
need never at;:ain bu s 0rious ne e d for relief for any extc:nd.ed nbriod so far as the
agric1.1 ltural population of the State is concerne d.
:But these are great undertekings
and a State with only a half million people and the limited finan~es it can command
could never a ccomplish the objective unaided.
So, with the object lessons of the
drouth of 1934 and the swe eping destruction of 1936 clearly in evidence, Montana's
Works Progr 6 ss Ad:ninistr a tion is attacking that -ohase of the p rogram to which it is
ad;,;p ted with a will and bending every effort to minimize the effect of recurring
drouth s e asons.
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No. 4-1229
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A St a te Planni ng Survey Proj (~ ct employing fort y-s ev e n person s was set up in
January, 19 36, to ca:n7 i'orv:ard work r r E; viously begJ.n u nd er the Montana State Planning Board but whi ch was u n a.b le to continue because of lack of funds.
.lh.
1.,
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Workers on
s project ::ire comJl :i.li ng and m:=i.king available in p ra::ti cal form :nuch of the excel-
lent ma t erial gathe re6. oy the Montana State Water Cons erva tion Board, the St n.te
College at Bozeman, the School of Mines at Butte, the Unive rsity at Missoula, the
Soil Conservation Service, Engine t:T Gorps, War Dopartme nt, United States Geological
Survey, United St a tes Heath er Bureau, Bureau of Re clamation, the Irn:'-ian Service, a nd
State, Co u nty and City gove rnme ntal a g enci e s.
Thus th e picture of the thi ngs b e st
to do is "b e i n g drawn c:.,nd wove n into a gr e at and comp r ehensive plan for the rescue and
rehabilitation of th e St a te o.nd its peop l e .
of the pro t;:cam.
Wa ter conservation is not the only phase
Mine r al and t i m·o e r r e sourcE.s plcW their part.
Unequalled recrea-
tional faciliti e s maim Montana a great p os s ibl e fu t ure vacation land, the ex:ploi tat ion of which will bring millions of dollars to the State, "but the most important and
first essential is wat e:t conse rvation.
With an army of clrouth suffe r ers b eco:ninc a vailaole f or work on WPA projects
throw:;hout the State and with p rojects requested and app roved for hundreds of small
and moderately large res e rvoirs in all sections of the State, the way ahead is clearly
marke d.
Projects are either ap proved or have be en submitted for nearly 1,000 such
work :projects.
Some have been completed., some are under way.
Engineering cr ews 2re
surveying and working out the p lans for hundr e ds of oth€:rs and a well designe d and
systematic p roject p rogram is being worJ:ed out so that the greatest possible use of
the a vailable worker s mey be made , and when the work has b e en co mple ted a great and
tangible b c, ndi t will ac cru e; to Montana.
An e x3.1Tly l e of a littl e more G.Iilbi tious proj e ct is the Valentine :Blood Creek Dam
begun under the old FER.A p rogram and r e cently comr, leted by the Works Progress Ad.ministration.
Although co s ting only some $36,000 of WFA funds, this project located in
central Montana was ac cor1pli shed by the construction of a 1500 foot earth filled dam
which submergecl hundreds of acres of land. and stores up water in the s-pring to be
liberated gradually through the season controlling the flow of Blood Creek which runs
through the center of an enormous range country, thus providing water for thousands
of acres of range land which would otherwise be useless in dry s e asons.
The mo s t am"bi tious water conservation project und0rtaken "by the Works Progress
Administration is known as the Dead Man's Basin Project in the corner - of Wheatland,
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Golden Valley and Musselshel l Counties i n tl:e centraJ. southern part of Montana.
A
great natural depr e s s ion is being floodod by means of a canal some twelve miles long,
}-eading the spr ing floo d r1ater s of the Musselshell River i nto the Dead Man's Basin
where a l ake four mile s in diameter and imnoundi ng seventy-nine thousand acre f ee t of
water will be created.
:By Eiean s of a dam and t unne l at the lower end, this wa ter
will be r el eased t hr ough the dry par t s of the season aud will, for months, control
the flow of thE: Musselshell Ii.i v t::r, provi ding stock wat er and making e:ff ec ti vc old
irrigation :9r oj 0cts foi~ one hundr ed mil es down the Rivor-- proj octs now only partly
succe ssful be cause the stream flow i n t he dry season s is inadequa te.
As a result of t he work of the Planning Survey Project, one hundred sixty-seven
proj ects which would rnn{;e i n size between that of the Valer.tine 3 lood Creek Dam and
the Dead M9.U' s Basin Proj ect have been checked and mappe d and ar e available as projects to the Works Pro gress Administration.
Only a f ew of t hese larger r ro,j e cts prob-
ably can be compl eted within the coming year, but with principal cmnhasi s on the
small and medium size reservoir, for the co nstruction of which pro j ects have been
approved on R.ppr oxirnatel y t wo hundr ed sites and appli cat ions in for approval on some
e i ght hundred mor e , ther e is ample to do, and a lthough only t he f a te s themse l ves can
"foret ell the coming of future drouth years, there is assur anc e tha t much will ce done
to tide the rancher over the rough years, help him to preserve his foundation stock
and carry on so t hat wi t h t he normally productive years h e can be a ssur ed of an opportunity to prosper, and Montana's Works Progress Administr a tio n is taking full advantage of the op·oort11ni ty pr esente d. to discount and rninimi ze the effect of the
drouth years of the future.
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