Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/747

Rh Horsepower

Minimum Maximum

Columbia River (proper) 4,060,000 6,250,000 Willamette v 602,000 1,670,000 Deschutes 953,000 1,920,000 Umpqua River 80,000 160,000 Mt. Hood Rivers 200,000 400,000 Rogue River 80,000 160,000 Minor Tributaries Columbia 718,000 1,230,000 Totals 5,975,(H) 10,560,000

With possibilities of developing 10,000,000 horsepower in Oregon, where less than one-fourth of a million horsepower is now utilized, and when it is considered that only a little more than 5,000,000 horsepower are today utilized in the entire United States, it is argued by the directors of the geological survey that there is not a remote possibility that the water power of this region can ever be monopolized by a single corporation combine or commercial trust. Such a prediction is based upon the hope that justice and common user rights of the gifts of nature may prevail. But experience has already shown, that on account of the controlling power of the money trust of the United States, and the friendly, if not directly interested relations of the managers of the money trust with that of the associated power companies of the Northwest, it is now practically impossible to secure capital to develop water power enterprises in opposition to those now already established. So that the price to the consumer of electric water power service in the State of Oregon is now ten times greater than similar service to the people of Ottawa in the Canadian Dominion. And notwithstanding the vast water power of the State of Oregon, larger than that of all the States of the Union from the Mississippi river to the Atlantic ocean, the people of Oregon are compelled to pay higher rates for light, heat, and power than the people of any other State in the Nation.

For the value and importance of the water power of Oregon, reference is again made to the most valuable public service of State Engineer Lewis. He joins in the opinion that the Des Chutes river is the most wonderful stream in the world, and states the following, facts to prove it and says :

"Between Benham Falls and Cline Falls there is 1,300 feet fall. About sixty per cent of the one million acre feet of water will be discharged through the dam for irrigation purposes, during July and August, and will be available for the development of power which can be transmitted economically from two to four hundred miles for the pumping of water to irrigate other lands say along the Columbia river. This water at a 100 foot drop immediately below the dam will furnish 56,800 horsepower, which at 50 per cent plant efficiency will lift 2,500 second feet, 100 feet above the Columbia river, for the irrigation of 200,000 acres of land. There is another fall of 100 feet a short distance below and above the first diversion for irrigation, and the amount of summer power which can be developed in the 1,300 feet fall to the last diversion at Cline Falls is almost inconceivable."

"Sixteen dam sites have been located on the Des Chutes in the narrow rock