dam research

Geyler: "For over 50 years, Arch Hurley Conservancy District has used the approximately 40 miles of main canal and 350 miles of smaller ditches and laterals constructed as part of the Tucumcari Project to deliver water, on average, to almost 700 different parcels of irrigated land. We deliver annually about 1.33 acre-feet of low-cost irrigation water to over 42,000 acres of irrigable land. Project water is used mainly for cattle, cattle feed, wheat and other cereal grains. The average value of these crops is $2.7 million dollars, or approximately $80 per acre of irrigated land.

To date, this area has not realized the full economic benefit of the irrigation project's water. While the per-acre yield from these irrigated lands is markedly higher than for most of their nonirrigated neighbors, these irrigated lands are used basically to produce the same crops grown on a 'dryland' basis on adjacent acreage. Only sporadically over the project's fifty-year history have these irrigated acres been used to produce higher dollar value crops. Until this transition occurs permanently, the dream of Messrs. Briscoe, Freeland, Hurley, and Jones will not be truly complete."