RECLAIMING THE DESERTSkyline Canals
TWO
Locating and excavating several of the main canals proved almost as difficult and trying as the building of the big dams. This was especially true in the Yakima and Okanogan valleys in Washington, the St. Mary and Flathead in Montana, Uncompahgre and Grand River in Colorado, and the Utah valley, Utah. These canals cling to the edges of deep and precipitous canyons, or hug the steep mountain slopes. Here and there huge aqueducts of reinforced concrete span the chasms. For miles the water is siphoned across broad ravines in iron-banded stave pipe, or flows in tunnels through the cliffs.
The Tieton main canal of the Yakima project, Washington, for a distance of twelve miles is through a very rough country. It is cement lined throughout, and for two miles is in tunnels. For the greater part of its length it hugs the side of the canyon, in places 500 feet above the river. The lining for the canal was molded on the river bank, where water, sand, and gravel were available for concrete making, and the forms were carried to the top of the canyon by tram and cableways. The capacity of the canal is 300 cubic feet per second, and it is now irrigating 40,000 acres. The High line Canal of the Strawberry Valley project swings around the steep slopes of the Spanish Peaks of the Wasatch Range in Utah for several miles. At one point a portion of the water is dropped in pipes to the turbines, where power is developed and distributed to several towns in the valley. At various points along its course the canal is covered with a reinforced concrete roof to prevent injury and filling up from avalanches in the spring.
WRITTEN ESPECIALLY FOR THE MENTOR BY C. J. BLANCHARDILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 6, No. 17, SERIAL No. 165COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
GUNNISON TUNNEL. COLORADO
GUNNISON TUNNEL. COLORADO