Abstract |
The Bureau of Reclamation believes that the increasing needs for food and fiber and for new economic opportunities will require the greatest practical acreage of land in the West that can be reasonably and economically irrigated. The Bureau indicates that the development of the full physical irrigation potential of the West will never be realized because of factors such as excessive cost, competition by other uses for the limited supply of water, lack of local interest, and legal and other limitations on what we can do with water which will always preclude some potential development. With these limitations, however, the Bureau believes that about 75 percent of the potential Federal projects and 90 percent of the non-Federal projects could be developed by the year 2000. |