Mr. DAVIS. Yes; I believe so, unless Mr. Sinnott has something tɔ ask. He indicated early in the evening that he had something. Mr. SINNOTT. No; you have answered that.

Mr. WELLING. We asked Mr. Swing-some member of the committee did-to discuss the Secretary of the Treasury's report.

STATEMENT OF MR. PHIL D. SWING, OF EL CENTRO, CALIF.Resumed.

Mr. SWING. I had two or three things that I wanted to bring up before beginning the discussion of the report of the Secretary of the Treasury.

Relating back to the building of one leg of the canal, when Mr. Davis was in the Imperial Valley in 1916, there were about 60,000 acres in cultivation in Mexico. Last year there were 100,000, and our force undertaking to forecast the demands to be made upon the system estimated that between 30,000 and 40,000 additional acres would be put into crops in Mexico in the current year. So when Mr. Davis says that if we can once get the water out of the river into the canal it is bound to run into the Imperial Valley, he means with the qualification provided it is not diverted in Mexico-whether they use it or waste it. As Mr. Davis very pointedly said, a great amount of water is lost in there through the fact that the waterway is very inefficient. I know from our records that 5,500 second-feet have been running into the canal at Hanlon's heading, and crossing the boundary line of the United States at the other end of the canal were only 2,600 second-feet, and that condition kept up for a number of days-15 or 20 days-until the old sloughs and lagoons in through there finally got filled up before we could begin to feel the increase in the amount of diversion.

Mr. SINNOTT. How much was it, then, when they got filled up? Mr. SWING. Well, I don't know exactly. I kept track of it during those 15 or 20 days, because we were on our toes waiting for the increase to get down to us after we had gotten our weir completed, and it took the increase that long to get down there, although water will run that distance in less than 3 days. And that is another reason for these shortages which we have had there. If we could have gotten the water during the months that it was in the river, in July and early August, then when the river did fall we would have been in shape to have tided it over; but having gotten behind at a time when there was plenty of water, the orders pile up and it takes a couple of months, or maybe all summer, before we ever do get caught up.

Mr. SINNOTT. How much water do you usually get when the canal is well saturated and the lagoons are filled up?

Mr. TAYLOR. What percentage of loss is there?

Mr. SWING. Oh, it varies greatly from-I will just read a few here from the district's daily reports; here is 37, 35, 34, 26.

Mr. TAYLOR. Per cent?

Mr. SWING. Yes; 24, 29, 27, 25, 26, 17, 20 per cent—that is, through the present canal in Mexico.

Mr. SINNOTT. How much water does it take for ample irrigation of the district?

Mr. SWING. Well, that varies every month, Mr. Sinnott. I will introduce just a little bit later a chart showing our water usage for every year since 1908-this is January [indicating chart]-running from January to December and developing to the peak load in the middle of the year. Highest along about the 1st of July.

Mr. SINNOTT. How much do you need for your peak load?

Mr. SWING. This is in acre-feet, and I have always used secondfeet. I don't know how they translate that-245,000 acre-feet-I don't know what that would be in second-feet.

Mr. DAVIS. That is the amount used in July?
Mr. SWING. Yes; that is the peak load.

Mr. DAVIS. No; that is the total. That is 247,000-about 248,000 acre-feet of water used in the month of July in that year-what year is that?

Mr. SWING. 1918.

Mr. DAVIS. That is the maximum amount ever used in a month, so far as constructed, 248,000 acre-feet in a month.

Mr. SUMMERS. Two hundred and fifty thousand acres would be about 20 or 22 inches for that month?

Mr. SWING. No; it would be less than a foot. You see, there is nearly 400,000 acres irrigated.

Mr. SUMMERS. I thought it was 250,000 in the Imperial Valley. Mr. SWING. No.

The CHAIRMAN. How much was used for the year? That is, on the general average, how much is necessary for the irrigation for the valley?

Mr. SWING. I can read from these daily reports just a few-this happens to be the record of 1917.

Mr. SINNOTT. All I wanted to do was to compare your peak load with your intake there, your 5,500 second-feet.

Mr. SWING. The actual sales-here is July 6, 4,500 second-feet; July 7, 4,400 second-feet; July 8, 4,400 second-feet; July 9, 4,300 second-feet.

Mr. HAYDEN. Mr. Sinnott wants to know how much water there was at the intake on those days.

Mr. SWING. All right. July 10, 4,400 second-feet, 138,000 feet in the river.

Mr. HAYDEN. How much water came into the intake?

Mr. SWING. 5,500 feet.

Mr. HAYDEN. You lost, then, practically 1,000 second-feet passing through Mexico?

Mr. SWING. Yes, sir; that was 13 per cent loss.

Mr. WELLING. Was that loss occasioned, and will it be occasioned, as you go on and refer to other figures, by wastage, or will it also include the water that is diverted for irrigation purposes?

Mr. SWING. It is wastage.

Mr. SINNOTT. Some of it is for irrigation, probably, in Mexico? Mr. SWING. No; the figures I am reading are for the total water used on both sides of the line. I am giving figures of both actual sales and the difference is wastage.

Mr. SINNOTT. Both in Mexico and in the United States?

Mr. SWING. Yes, sir. Here is July 11, diverted 5,254 second-feet, and delivered to the United States, 4,407; wastage, 847, or 16 per cent. Mr. SINNOTT. That is sufficient for my information.

Mr. SWING. I am going to file these records in case anybody wants to refer to them. It is the daily figures covering 16 months-every day as compiled by the Imperial irrigation district.

I want to square myself with the committee on this $1,600,000 we are to pay the Government. As I said before, it was not a matter of any. importance to the district. The Secretary of the Interior said that is your share, and we never disputed it. The only thing that I said to you was that I had seen statements that the dam had cost less than $1,700,000.

Mr. SINNOTT. Well, it was due to the curiosity of the members of the committee that we brought that out.

Mr. SWING. I picked up a report of the Reclamation Service for the year 1912-13, and on page 66, taking the dam showing excavations, rock in dam, concrete bore, paving, etc., giving all the items of the dam, the total cost is $1,672,830.40. I didn't add the sluice works and canal because the canal there from the dam down as now constructed is of a capacity of 1,700 or 1,800 second-feet, and the sluice works were built of a capacity sufficient only for the Yuma project, and our contract calls for us enlarging all those structures, building our own capacity, which we are to use, so as to not in any way interfere with Yuma, and I didn't think we were getting anything in the way of a canal, etc., so I considered the dam only, which is, as I said, given here in the reclamation report as less than $1,700,000.

Mr. SMITH of Idaho. You are reading from the report of 1912? Mr. SWING. Yes, sir; the dam was then completed. Mr. Davis says I am mistaken, so I will have to admit it. However, I got my information from official reports, as I found on page 140 of the La Rue Report on the Colorado River, published in 1916, the statement that the Laguna Dam was constructed at a cost of about $1,673,000. So if I was in error I back up to the proposition that I was misled by figures which are published in Government documents. Mr. TAYLOR. The Imperial Valley is not complaining about the amount?

Mr. SWING. No, sir. I now want to put into the record a little bit supplementing what Gen. Davis said regarding the adequacy of the water supply, and the first thing I would like to read is from the letter of Mr. Lane to the effect that:

The water supply would be ample during the entire year, except in short periods, in occasional years, when for about a month there may be insufficient water. As irrigation in this country is practiced practically throughout the year and crops are raised during the entire period, the lands would nevertheless have ample supply to produce certain crops sufficient for a profitable investment and enable the landowner to meet the obligations which will accrue under this bill.

Mr. SINNOTT. What lands is he referring to?
Mr. SWING. All within the proposed project.
Mr. SINNOTT. Within the entire project?

Mr. SWING. That is the way I read it.

Mr. SINNOTT. Outside of the district?

Mr. SWING. Yes, sir; inside and outside, both. I now submit these two diagrams, this one officially prepared by the district indicating the amount of water used in every month since 1908 and showing that the peak load comes in May, June, and July, and the early part of August and then falls rapidly away during the month of September and very rapidly during the month of October, which are the two short months for the supply in the river. It is visual and it saves a whole lot of figuring.

Mr. HAYDEN. That chart represents not your demand for water, but the amount of water that you have been able to obtain?

Mr. SWING. It represents actual sales, for which we have gotten the money-actual deliveries.

Mr. HAYDEN. I understand; but you could not sell water that you did not have. If the river ran so low that the water could not be diverted into the canal, you could not sell it, and, of course, it would not show on the chart. If there was storage on the stream and water could have been furnished in that particular month of October, the additional sales would show on the chart?

Mr. SWING. No, sir; I think that you will find there all the way through from the early years, before the peak load became so great, that it is more a matter of crops, and that the decline of the water line is not a result of shortage, but is a result of the change of crops. That is my observation.

Mr. HAYDEN. That might be readily checked by comparing the sales per acre of water on the Yuma project and in the Imperial Valley, where the conditions are practically the same. The peak of water sales would be at about the same time if the conditions were alike, and the low sales would likewise be at about the same time.

Mr. SWING. I say unequivocally, without any hesitation at all, from my actual knowledge that the decline in September and October is not the result of water shortage. You can see where there was a water shortage. Here in June [indicating] there was one, but from July 1 on it was not the result of water shortage at all; it is natural decline, resulting from a change of crops. And the same rise and fall shows in those years when there was not shortage at all. The high peak, Mr. Hayden, is particularly due to the cotton crop. Then after the bolls have formed they use less water. Now, for general comparison purposes only I submit this diagram from the La Rue Report, a chart showing the flow of the river at Yuma [indicating chart]. You see that the peak will rise and fall in that part of the year, coinciding almost exactly with the peak demand of our people for water. When there is the greatest demand for water, that is the time that there is the greatest amount in the river.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Swing, you say that the difference is due to the change of crops. Do you mean that one kind of crop requires more water, or what?

Mr. SWING. Yes; at different times during the year different crops come on. Barley is planted in winter.

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). Well, one kind of crop will consume more water than another.

Mr. SWING. Yes, sir; and different areas will be in crop at different times.

The CHAIRMAN. That is, alfalfa, for instance, will consume more water than milo maize.

Mr. SWING. Yes, sir. Cotton calls for a great deal of water, and when the bolls have been formed the amount of water begins to fall away very rapidly. Also there are more acres in crop at one time of the year than at another.

Mr. SINNOTT. Mr. Swing, do you expect to use more water under this new project in the district than you are now appropriating at your intake more than 5,500 feet?

Mr. SWING. No, sir; I think that amount of water will supply every acre that is irrigable in the district if we can deliver it into the valley. I want to quote from the report of C. R. Rockwood, formerly chief engineer of the Imperial irrigation district, the engineer who conceived this entire project, who was instrumental in putting it onto the ground, and who has been connected with the Colorado River and the Imperial Valley for about 26 years. He says:

In my first report on this project, made in 1893, I stated that the Colorado River would furnish sufficient water for the irrigation of every available acre on this watershed. Since that first report the development in the valley of the Colorado and the work done by the Government furnishes a mass of data that permits of a more intelligent study of the great question. The measurements of the discharge of the river at Yuma made by the United States Reclamation Service gives us accurate information as to the quantity of water available for irrigation. The reports of Imperial Water Co. No. 1 give the actual use of water in our valley over an area sufficiently large to permit us to safely assume that the duty of water per acre is determined for the entire irrigable area.

Imperial Water Co. No. 1 is one of 14 mutual water companies organized to distribute water to the farmers and getting their water from the Imperial irrigation district. It is the largest of the 14.

Mr. TAYLOR. Let me interrupt you there, Mr. Swing. How many acres do you irrigate by a cubic foot of water per second of time? Mr. SWING. Per second of time?

Mr. ROSE. I think it shows up to about 110 acres in the district. That is at our peak time. Now, of course, as the water runs downAugust, September, and October-that decreases, but I think the peak load is about 110.

Mr. SMITH of Idaho. How many acre-feet are required in the irrigation season?

Mr. SWING. I am going to come to that in just a minute. It is about 3 acre-feet per year per acre [reading]:

The investigations and surveys made by various interests allow us to determine that area with some degree of accuracy. Investigations and surveys made by the Government show the feasibility of storage when required. The following tables, 1 and 2, show the duty of water, the available supply, and the area that is irrigated by it. Imperial Valley Water Supply Co., Table No. 1, showing area under cultivation and water used in Imperial Valley Co. No. 1 during the years 1910 to 1914, inclusive, from the 1914 report of Mr. Ray S. Carbury, superintendent. Also in column 6 the duty of water per acre as deducted from use in No. 1. Now, I won't read all of these, but I will file it with the reporter.