Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/105

Rh and is estimated to cost something over $4,000,000. As the Secretary of War conditioned the beginning of work upon it upon the United States securing the right-of-way free of cost, the State of Oregon purchased the right-of-way at a cost of $70,000 and conveyed it to the United States. In order to obtain some relief for the producers in the region above this point from the exorbitant freight charges of the railways, the State of Oregon had also, in 1906, at a cost of $165,000, built a portage railroad around the obstructions.

The improvements in the main river and its tributaries above Celilo Falls consist mainly in blasting obstructing rock and boulders, raking gravel bars and building concentrating dikes. These had, up to June, 1904, cost some $300,000. There are more recent recommendations for additional improvements to the amount of $400,000 more. The wisdom of having as much as possible of the upper river and its tributaries in good navigable condition at the time of the completion of The Dalles-Celilo project is evident.

The effect to be anticipated from an "open river" on freight charges may be illustrated in several ways. The present rate on wheat from Lewiston-Clarkson, Idaho (a little below the head of navigation on the Snake), to Portland is $5.20 per ton. A most reliable river captain holds that this rate would be reduced to a figure between $1.60 and $2.10 per ton. As the rates on heavier commodities along the Mississippi, per ton mile, are about one-tenth of the present rail rates along the Snake and Columbia waterways, such an estimate seems reasonable. For a distance of eighty-eight miles, from Portland to The Dalles, the rate on salt is $1.50 per ton on car-load lots, and $3.00 on less than car-load lots. The corresponding figures for a distance 100 miles farther, to Umatilla, where no river competition exists, are, respectively, $7.50 and $12.00 per ton, or four times the water rates.

The area drained by the Columbia and its tributaries comprises some 250,000 square miles. While there is more waste area in this than in an equal area of the Mississippi basin, it