ITEMS OF INTEREST July 12, 1913 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Within the last few weeks the United States reclamation service has started building what is to be the largest reservoir in the world. This is the Elephant Butte reservoir, which is to form the head of the long-planned Rio Grande irrigation project and make possible the settlement and cultivation of two hundred thousand acres of land on each side of the narrow gorge that winds its way through the arid hills of New Mexico and Texas. This latest reservoir of the United States government will have a capacity of over one hundred and twenty billion cubic feet, which means that it will be large enough to store all the rainfall of two years on the vast Rio Grande watershed and will hold enough water to cover the state of Connecticut to depth of ten inches. The proposed dam will form a concrete wall 265 feet high and 1450 feet long. This will back up the flow of the river so as to form an irregular lake some forty miles long and not over four miles wide at its greatest expanse. The expense of the project is estimated at seven million five hundred thousand dollars.

The machinery by which the government collects three hundred million dollars annually in tariff duties was revolutionized last week by the drastic reorganization of the customs service. The number of customs districts, grown to one hundred and sixty-two during the nation's history, has been reduced to forty-nine, and one hundred and thirteen collectors of customs lose their positions. Officials estimate that the reorganization will result in an annual saving of between four and five hundred thousand dollars in the cost of collecting the duties.

The existence of serious forest fires in the Chugach national forest in Alaska, recently, was taken by the forest service as a text to answer critics who have contended that there is no fire risk and no timber worth protecting in Alaska. The service pointed out that in the Chugach forest alone there were twenty-eight billion feet of lumber, and that its destruction was prevented only by the timely action and work of the forest service rangers.

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