Page:Report of the Oregon Conservation Commission to the Governor (1908 - 1914).djvu/274

36 could be operated to Fender available seventy or eighty per cent of the total runoff. The Beulah reservoir on North Fork will regulate that stream, and the water from both these reservoirs can be used on both sides of the Malheur and along Snake River near the mouth of the former stream.

There are three reservoirs on Bully Creek, any two of which can be developed to a capacity considerably more than is required to regulate its flow. The waters can be used along lower Bully Creak on land higher than the tract under the Malheur project. Willow Creek has an extremely variable runoff, which requires great reservoir capacity to regulate. At least two good sites are available, one of which has been utilized in an existing project. The total runoff of Malheur River and its tributaries ft estimated at 550,000 acre-feet, and it is believed that fully 80 per cent of this can be ultimately used, twenty per cent being lost by evaporation and flood runoff which cannot be stored.

Burnt River, the next stream north of the Malheur, drains an area above its mouth of about one-fifth that of Malheur River.

As a large proportion of its area lies in the high mountains it is safe to assume its runoff as one-fourth that of the Malheur or 140,000 acre-feet. There is a limited area of irrigable valley along the stream, and the flow of some of its headwaters can be diverted into the Malheur River basin. There are a few good storage reservoirs, and it would seem that perhaps one-third of the total runoff or 50,000 acre-feet might eventually be used.

The Powder River system presents extensive irrigation developments and possibilities. Along its course lie six valleys of notable size; two of these can be used to advantage As storage reservoirs in which water will be conserved for use in irrigating the other four. The tributaries of Powder River from Elkhorn ridge on the west and the Wallowa Mountains on the north are short swift streams from which water can be diverted relatively cheaply and easily, for both power and irrigation without conflict. Limited volumes of storage are available in the headwaters of these streams. Altogether probably 350,000 acre-feet out of the 440,000 acre-feet total runoff of Powder River can eventually be utilized on the land.