A Million Dollar Water Guarantee
Federal investment in Yakima Valley reservoirs secures long-term water rights for 160,000 acres of farmland.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Approval by Congress of an appropriation of $798,000 for the Yakima project of the reclamation service, together with $315,000 appropriated for irrigation of the Yakima Indian reservation, means the expenditure by the government of $1,113,000 in the Yakima Valley during the fiscal year of 1917. Included in the item of $798,000 is $546,000 for storage construction at the headwaters of the Yakima. The estimate of the secretary of the interior is that when the work is completed, a water supply for the irrigation of 160,000 acres in the valley will be constantly available against any failing of the natural flow of the streams. Plans contemplate the completion of work at Lake Keechelus this season, clearing of the Kachess reservoir site, and improvements at Cle Elum.
“Big Reservoir Will Provide Against Failure of Water for Projects”
This 1916 federal investment represents the era when the physical landscape of Eastern Washington was fundamentally re-engineered for industrial-scale farming. These water projects remain the lifeblood of the region, though the environmental trade-offs between agricultural capacity and river ecology are now more fiercely debated.
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