Infrastructure Development Projects

Pioneers of '47–Pioneer Irrigators

Pioneer water and land policies

Early pioneers dug irrigation ditches to irrigate the parched soil.
Brigham Young’s water and land policies were unique for the period. This was necessary because sustaining a large settlement in the western desert was untested and precarious at best. Mead wrote in his Report, "We find that the Mormon settlers in the valley of the Great Salt Lake pioneers indeed -- settlers in a new country without established government and requiring a new system of irrigation engineering and agriculture. The absence of laws or established custom left them free to develop their institutions without the necessity of conforming to established rules, while the authority of the church which dealt with both religious and civil affairs prevented those conflicts over title to both land and water which would have otherwise have arisen." In time, water law was established outside of the ecclesiastical authorities through the civil processes.

Smythe credited Brigham Young's success in settling the Great Basin on his departure from large farm size that was typical in the East to smaller ones in the new settlements. In 1850 the average farm size in the United States was over 200 acres, whereas the pioneer farms were usually 10 acres or less. Furthermore, his policy was that land and water were allocated based on one’s ability to beneficially use them, rather than acquiring more land than could be used for speculation and profit. Smythe further speculates that given limited water and land, Brigham Young had to leave enough "to accommodate the thousands of ([sic]emigrants) whom he expected to follow him in the early future."

A major departure from early water law was the right to use water. Brigham Young established an important legal precedent for Western water law by abandoning the English “riparian rights” and adopting the doctrine of “prior appropriations for beneficial use.” The former granted landowners boarding water courses the right to the water. The latter establishes a principle of “first in time, first in right”; the first appropriator of canyon streams acquired rights to as much water as could be beneficially used.

The Bureau of Reclamation estimated that by 1865, the Mormon Pioneers had built diversion dams and dug ditches and canals that transported water to 1.5 million acres of grain and vegetables. "Fired with religious zeal and dedication, the Mormons undertook a remarkable transformation of the desert." By 1865 they had constructed 1,000 miles of canals. The population in Utah continued to increase from 65,000 Latter-Day Saints to 280,000 in 1900.

Family farms allowed Mormon Pioneers to thrive in the arid Great Basin.

It is clear that smaller farm lots, new water laws, strong leadership from the church leaders, and the religious zeal exhibited by faithful church members allowed the Mormon Pioneers to thrive in the arid Great Basin. Many believe that a combination of all of these things made the Mormon colonization of the Great Basin possible. Under no other circumstances could it have been accomplished. Emulation of the Mormon's success was difficult for others to follow. However, later the lessons learned by the Mormons would be both the impetus and primer for federal reclamation legislation.

Changing times -- changing attitudes

Utah farmlands are rapidly disappearing do to urbanization along the Wasatch Front.
Today, irrigation and the facilities necessary to accomplish it have somewhat fallen from favor in some minds. Competition for water for environmental and municipal purposes has tilted public opinion against the accomplishments of irrigation. The once mighty Bureau of Reclamation no longer builds dams. The benefit of dams is being questioned throughout the West. In fact some dams are being considered for elimination. Farmers in the West are criticized for their flood irrigation practices and growing alfalfa that are considered wasteful by some. The symbolism of Las Vegas' neon lights and the Mirage fountain conjures the image of waste and excess in the desert. Water transfers, irrigation water conversions and conservation have replaced new water development. The Central Utah Project will probably be the last of the large federal reclamation projects.

Modern agriculture provides an abundance of food for America and surpluses are exported around the world. In Utah farmlands are rapidly disappearing near the growing urban areas. Much of the farmland along the Wasatch Front is being urbanized as development replaces the once life-sustaining agricultural producing fields. Canal company stockholders sell their water to developers as their fields are subdivided. Brigham Young’s vision of agricultural self sufficiency is vanishing.

Despite contemporary thinking, we should not forsake our history. On this 24th of July, we should remember our ancestors’ struggle and labor to survive in this harsh land bordering the Great Basin desert -- and their contribution to the building of the West and a greater America. Their contribution should not be viewed in today’s terms, but in the context of the pioneer era when irrigation and agricultural successes built the West. Nearly all of the water developed first by the Mormon Pioneers and later by the Bureau of Reclamation provide us our municipal drinking water today.

http://www.slcdocs.c...news7221999.htm

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