The Reclamation Act (also known as the Lowlands Reclamation Act or National Reclamation Act) of 1902 () is a

United States federal law The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as va ...

that funded irrigation projects for the arid lands of 20 states in the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

. The act at first covered only 13 of the western states as Texas had no federal lands. Texas was added later by a special act passed in 1906. The act set aside money from sales of semi-arid

public land In all modern states, a portion of land is held by central or local governments. This is called public land, state land, or Crown land ( Australia, and Canada). The system of tenure of public land, and the terminology used, varies between countr ...

s for the construction and maintenance of

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been develo ...

projects. The newly irrigated land would be sold and money would be put into a revolving fund that supported more such projects. This led to the eventual damming of nearly every major western river. Under the act, the Secretary of the Interior created the ''United States Reclamation Service'' within the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States government. The scientists of the USGS study th ...

to administer the program. In 1907, the Service became a separate organization within the

Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...

and was renamed the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

. The Act was co-authored by Democratic Congressional Representative

Francis G. Newlands Francis Griffith Newlands (August 28, 1846December 24, 1917) was a United States representative and Senator from Nevada and a member of the Democratic Party. A supporter of westward expansion, he helped pass the Newlands Reclamation Act of 190 ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

and George H. Maxwell, head of the National Reclamation Association. Many of the loans made to farmers, funded by the sales of federal land, were never repaid.Reisner, M. (1993)
Cadillac Desert
p. 111–119 Amendments made by the Reclamation Project Act of 1939 gave the Department of the Interior, among other things, the authority to amend repayment contracts and to extend repayment for not more than 40 years. Amendments made by the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 (P.L. 97-293) eliminated the residency requirement provisions of reclamation law, raised the acreage limitation on lands irrigated with water supplied by the Bureau of Reclamation, and established and required full-cost rates for land receiving water above the acreage limit.

Background

John Wesley Powell John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 – September 23, 1902) was an American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He ...

, often considered the father of reclamation, began a series of expeditions to explore the American West in 1867. He saw that after snowmelt and spring rains, the rivers of the West flooded, releasing huge amounts of water and that for the rest of the year, not enough rain fell to support any kind of real agriculture. He concluded that the Western United States was so arid that it could not yet support extensive development. The U.S. government saw too much economic potential in the West to heed Powell's warning. By damming western rivers to support massive irrigation projects, population growth and farming were made possible. Several private and local farming organizations proved the benefits of irrigation projects. When it became apparent that a greater effort would be required, Representative

of Nevada introduced legislation into the United States Congress to provide federal help for irrigation projects. The resulting act passed on June 17, 1902. Newlands carried the bulk of the legislative burden and had a strong technical backup from

Frederick Haynes Newell Frederick Haynes Newell (March 5, 1862 – July 5, 1932), served as the first Director of the United States Reclamation Service, was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania. He graduated in 1885 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and aft ...

of the Department of the Interior. President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

assembled the legislative alliances that made passage of the act possible. It was later amended by the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 (, Title II) to limit the corporate use of water and speculation on land that would benefit from irrigation. Reclamation includes draining, too.

Summary of the Act

The full name of the act is ''"An Act Appropriating the receipts from the sale and disposal of public lands in certain States and Territories to the construction of irrigation works for the reclamation of arid lands"''. The act identifies 16 states and territories included in the project: Arizona, California,

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyomi ...

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the w ...

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Colum ...

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex , Offi ...

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, South ...

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New M ...

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. ...

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux Native American tribes, who comprise a large portion ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, Washington, and Wyoming. It requires surplus fees from sales of land be set aside for a ''"reclamation fund"'' for the development of water resources. It also requires the Treasury Department to fund education from unappropriated monies under certain conditions

Impact of the act

Below are listed the larger of the irrigation projects of the United States, with the area reclaimed or to be reclaimed as of 1925. (1) * ''Arizona:'' Salt River, 182,000 * ''Arizona-California:'' Yuma, 158,000 * ''California:'' Orland, 20,000 * ''Colorado:'' Grand Valley, 53,000; Uncompahgre Valley, 140,000 * ''Idaho:''

Boise Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown area' ...

, 207,000; Minidoka, 120,500 * ''Kansas:'' Garden City, 10,677 * ''Montana:'' Blackfeet, 122,500; Flathead, 152,000; Fort Peck, 152,000; Huntley, 32,405; Milk River, 219,557; Sun River, 174,046 * ''Montana-North Dakota:'' Lower Yellowstone, 60,116 * ''Nebraska-Wyoming:'' North Platte, 129,270 * ''Nevada:'' Truckee-Carson, 206,000 * ''New Mexico:'' Carlsbad, 20,261; Hondo, 10,000; Rio Grande, 155,000 * ''North Dakota:'' North Dakota Pumping, 26, 314 * ''Oregon:'' Umatilla, 36,300 * ''Oregon-California:'' Klamath, 70,000 * ''South Dakota:''

Belle Fourche Belle Fourche (; ) is a city in and the county seat of Butte County, South Dakota, United States. Its population was 5,617 at the 2020 census. It is near the geographic center of the United States, which moved some 550 miles northwest from the g ...

, 100,000 * ''Utah:'' Strawberry Valley, 50,000 * ''Washington:'' Okanogan, 10,999; Sunnyside, 102,824; Tieton (Teton), 34,071 * ''Wyoming:''

Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Tribe (Native American), Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho * Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah * Goshu ...

, 164,122 Much of the West could not have been settled without the water provided by the Act. The West became one of the premier agricultural areas in the world. Bureau of Reclamation statistics shows that the more than 600 of their dams on waterways throughout the West provide irrigation for 10 million acres (40,000 km²) of farmland, providing 60% of the nation's vegetables and 25% of its fruits and nuts. Currently, the Bureau operates about 180 projects in the West. Not envisioned by the act, Bureau of Reclamation dams support 58 power plants producing 40 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually. Most of the large population centers in the Far West owe their growth to these power sources.

Affected river systems

* Colorado River system * Columbia River system * Missouri River system * Rio Grande system

References

External links

Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902

United States Bureau of Reclamation

''Millions of New Acres for American Farmers''

Hamilton Wright Hamilton Kemp Wright (2 August 1867 9 January 1917) was an American physician and pathologist who served as the United States Opium Commissioner. Biography Early life Hamilton Wright was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on August 2, 1867. He graduated w ...

, National Magazine, November 1905 (with photos) * {{Theodore Roosevelt, state=collapsed 1902 in American law Progressive Era in the United States United States Bureau of Reclamation Water in California Water in Colorado United States federal public land legislation