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 Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...

that funded irrigation projects for the arid lands of 17 states in the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is census regions United States Census Bureau As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the mea ...

. The act at first covered only 16 of the western states, as delineated by the 100th meridian, 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 (Commonwealth realms). The system of tenure of public land, and the terminology used, varies between countries. ...

s for the construction and maintenance of

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) 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 bee ...

projects. The newly irrigated land would be sold and money would be put into a revolving fund that supported more such projects. These irrigation projects 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), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on Mar ...

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 an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal lands and natural resources. It also administers programs relatin ...

and was renamed the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, 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 operatio ...

. The Act was co-authored by Democratic Congressional Representative Francis G. Newlands of

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

, Frederick H. Newell of the United States Geological Survey, 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 ...

, arguably the "father of reclamation", began a series of expeditions to explore the American West in 1867. He concluded that the Western United States was so arid that it could not yet support extensive development, and government involvement in large-scale irrigation would be necessary. Among his observations, he saw that, after snowmelt and spring rains, the rivers of the West flooded and released huge amounts of water and that for the rest of the year not enough rain fell to sufficiently support agriculture, and so reservoir dams were necessary. The U.S. government saw too much economic potential in the West to heed Powell's advice, at the time. By the late 1800s, small-scale private and local farming organizations would prove the benefits of irrigation projects in the arid western states. When it became apparent that an organized effort would be required to make agriculture viable in the West, Representative Francis G. Newlands of Nevada introduced legislation into the United States Congress to provide federal help and coordination for irrigation projects. 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 and was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania. He graduated in 1885 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and ...

of the Department of the Interior and George H. Maxwell, head of the National Reclamation Association. Conflict emerged over whether reclamation efforts ought to occur at the state level or at the federal level. President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as Teddy or T.R., was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. Roosevelt previously was involved in New York (state), New York politics, incl ...

supported the national effort and assembled the legislative alliances that made passage of the act possible. After several years of effort, the resulting act passed on June 17, 1902. The 1902 act 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 reclamation projects.

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 Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

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

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state, state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota people, Dakota Sioux ...

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

, Washington, and

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

. 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. As of the 2020 census, there were 235,685 people residing in the city. Located on the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and nor ...

, 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, 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 ), also known by the endonym Newe, are an Native Americans in the United States, Indigenous people of the United States with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshon ...

, 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 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

United States Bureau of Reclamation

''Millions of New Acres for American Farmers''
Hamilton Wright, 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