RECLAMATION LAWS. Under this heading are treated two groups of statutes known respectively as the Carey Act and the Reclamation Law.
The Carey Act provides for the grant of 1,000,000 acres of desert land in each of the States in which desert land occurs upon condi tion that the State will secure the reclamation of these lands whereupon patent will issue to the State or its assigns. Recent legislation has increased the grant to 2,000,000 acres each for Idaho and Wyoming.
The usual plan is for the State or Terri tory to make a contract with a corporation by which the latter is to build the works and may make certain charges for the water rights, the State selling the lands at a price which is usually nominal.
A comparatively small amount of land has been reclaimed under the Carey Act. Of the 14 States that could have taken advantage of this act nine have requested segregations with a view to reclamation, amounting to about 3,700,000 acres. The total area which has been patented upon proof of reclamiiion up to 30 June 1915 is 601,573.38 acres.
It is evident, therefore, that the Carey Act did not meet some of the more difficult con ditions of reclamation in the large area of arid lands that might be reclaimed, variously esti mated at from 20 to 50 million acres.
As early as 20 March Congress had authorized a thorough study of the water supply of the Western States where irrigation is needed, and on 2 October of that year had made an appropriation for the selection of reservoir sites which when designated by the director of the geological survey were to be held reserved until further action of Congress. The
following year another appropriation was made for continuing the work After that no further appropriation was made for a number of years. The reservoir sites which had been reserved, numbering several hundred, were still to some extent available for use and some of them have been used by the government. A number have been take by private parties under a gen eral permissive act of 26 Feb. 1897.
On 17 June 1902 Congress went a step further toward completing the policy initiated, by the irrigation survey of 1888 and 1890 and appropriated the proceeds from the sales of public lands in the arid and semi-arid States for the construction of irrigation works. Under this act the Reclamation Service was organized and has constructed a large number of irrigation systems. The cost of construction is repaid by the water users and these repay ments, together with the annual receipts from the sales of public lands, constitute a revolving fund to be used indefinitely in continuing this work The Reclamation Service has now under irrigation more than acres of land. The completed systems which have heretofore been constructed and are partially in use will provide for the irrigation of about 3,000,000 acres, and under the plan of re-expending the amount returned for the cost of the work this area may be ultimately much increased.
For a detailed statement of the work under the Reclamation Act see UNITED STATES RE CLAMATION SERVICE.