How Irrigation Changed Yuma, Arizona

Yuma, Arizona a state that was officially established in 1912 came to be one of the most and main important areas in irrigation and agricultural history as it grew and progressed and was founded by many. All Southern Arizona contributed to the significance of this history along with Yuma as well. With the Colorado River as the main supply and running through these areas supplying water creating other dams and canals such as the Yuma Siphon, Yuma Main Canal, Laguna Dam, All American Canal etc.

Question Number one, Describe in detail how irrigation changed Yuma/ South Arizona.

Irrigation changed Yuma impacting on the town itself and the people and businesses in it. Before Yuma started to Irrigate an Act was signed to allow the whole process

Back in the day it was said that the course of the river was to be unpredictable in the area where it met the Gila river. They recorded that the Gila River couldn’t be a safe source of water that they could depend on, so then they decided to build what is known as the Yuma Siphon, which is a massive tunnel made part of the Yuma project. It first started with the first dam the Laguna Dam being built on the Colorado River. Not to be mentioned an important part that follows was during the construction of the Laguna Dam as the land was flat where they had to dig large holes. At the time it wasn't an easy task to excavate since they didn’t have big machines then like the improved technology we have nowadays that they needed to make unevenness of the land, so the workers used four

They had many positive outcomes, but most and many were accompanied by some negative ones too. In 1975 there was competition for land for irrigation that had been divided between mesa and acres in the valley. “ … 68,000 acres had been leveled for irrigation, while 65,329 acres were actually irrigated at the end of 1975.” This is good because they were split between the mesa and valley and a lot were used between the two, but this is also negative in a way because this means 2,671 acres leftover and were not used for irrigation as people were competing for land. These areas were also known as the Wellton - Mohawk area where for more than 20 years the waters from the Colorado River was being used to irrigate the land used. “ In the 20 years since water from the Colorado River was first applied to lands in the Wellton - Mohawk area, reclamation of irrigable lands has resulted in high crop yields and correspondingly high annual agricultural income.” The income from the crops was found to be $37 million which was more than one half, 66 million dollars which was invested by the U.S “, Wellton- Mohawk and Drainage district to the project, which comes off negatively because their profit was not good. The data recorded here was based off of the year 1974 and its crops and money made. “ The impact on population in Yuma County would be quite noticeable upon complete