Lower Marias Unit: Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program

摘要

In his April 1930 article, Irrigation Problems of Montana, H. H. Johnson, superintendent of the nearby Milk River Project, noted some of the successes and failures of Reclamation endeavors. Johnson paid tribute to the Bureau of Reclamation for its remarkable technical successes bringing water supply to formerly dry lands. Yet, he warned, the human problem still remains. He believed some of the lands now being authorized for irrigation would have a difficult time paying off their irrigation costs. Specifically for this reason, the Reclamation Service extended its repayment period from ten to forty years. With the benefit of hindsight, its not difficult to see the prophecy in Johnsons words. Ultimately, it was not the technical challenges or problems that obscured the Lower Marias Project. Rather, it was the people of the Marias River Valley with a little help from Mother Naturethat would deflate the projects main goal of irrigating the 127,000 acres in the Marias River Basin. Landowners, poverty stricken from drought and economic decline, clamored for government help with irrigation during the lean 1930s. The Bureau of Reclamation heeded this call, producing a comprehensive plan to build a reservoir that would irrigate 127,000 acres of land through a vast network of canals. However, improved rain and economic conditions caused land owners to lose interest in irrigation. By the time Reclamation realized that landowner interest in paying for the project had fizzled, construction of the 23,000,000 Tiber Dam was nearly finished. The Marias River now filled a reservoir serving only a fraction of the lands the project originally intended.