with its projects. Revenues received by the United States for use of land in 1944 totaled $195,805. The majority of the leased lands are withdrawn in connection with operation of completed projects. In addition, more than 700,000 acres of reclamation withdrawn land is now administered by the Grazing Service, with transfer of revenues to the Reclamation Fund. Under an agreement entered into February 28, 1945, between the Bureau and the General Land Office, vacant public lands under reclamation withdrawal may be temporarily transferred to the administration of the General Land Office until needed for reclamation purposes. At the end of the fiscal year, approximately 44,000 acres of such lands had been so transferred.

WORLD'S LARGEST POWER PRODUCER

Through a spectacular expansion in its generating facilities to meet the war emergency the Bureau of Reclamation has become the largest power producer in the world. From plants operating on its projects came nearly 14 billion kilowatt-hours of electric energy during the past fiscal year, much of it to war industries for the manufacture of planes and ships, aluminum, magnesium, and other materials and equipment for the fighting forces. Production of electric energy at Bureau projects has quadrupled since Pearl Harbor.

When the war is over this tremendous capacity for power production will be one of the most important factors in the continued industrial and agricultural expansion of the West. It will provide jobs, stimulate the establishment of new industry, aid in developing mineral resources and, in general, serve as the foundation for the establishment of a more balanced economy throughout the West.

POWER FOR WAR

From its beginning in the power field in 1909 with the 6,000-kilowatt Minidoka project plant in Idaho, the Bureau's installed capacity has grown to 2,439,300 kilowatts. This growth was required to keep pace with the needs for electrical power in areas served by reclamation projects and played a vital role in the tremendous expansion of war industries in the West. To meet demands, the installed capacity of Bureau hydroelectric plants was increased since 1941 by nearly a million and a half kilowatts, a gain of nearly 65 percent.

In the fiscal year 1945 the combined output of the plants operating on Bureau projects was approximately 14,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours. Revenues from the sale of energy were in excess of $20,000,000. Construction of new plant facilities has been virtually halted since 1942 because of the need for diverting critical materials to other war During the past year an additional 82,500-kilowatt unit was installed in the plant at Boulder Dam, which has supplied a steady

stream of energy to aircraft and shipbuilding facilities, magnesium plants, and other basic industries. The plant at Boulder is the world's largest, and has a capacity of 1,034,800 kilowatts. The Shasta Dam power plant in northern California completed its first full year of operation with an output of 739,000,000 kilowatt-hours. Power from Grand Coulee Dam continued to be the mainstay of booming war industries in the Pacific Northwest. More than one-third of the aluminum used in airplane construction in the United States was produced from power generated by the Grand Coulee-Bonneville system. From Grand Coulee also came the large blocks of power for other important war purposes.

During the year the Bureau also completed construction of the 97mile transmission line to Oroville which made possible the delivery of Shasta power to the connecting lines of the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and thence into northern California war plants. The company serves as the marketing agency for this power under a wartime contract. The availability of Shasta power resulted in saving thousands of barrels of fuel oil that would otherwise have been required had the same energy been generated by steam plants.

POWER FOR PEACE

The postwar program of the Bureau calls for increasing the capacity of present plants to 4,000,000 kilowatts, principally by adding generating units for which space has been provided in constructed plants. Additional installations at projects included in the postwar inventory call for generating plants which will give the Bureau of Reclamation a total power capacity of about 9,000,000 kilowatts. Of this, about a million and a half kilowatts will be in plants strategically located in states of the Missouri Basin to aid in the further development of that great area.

The demands of wartime have served to emphasize what officials of the Bureau of Reclamation have long recognized-the importance of developing the power resources of our western rivers along with the utilization of their waters for irrigation and other purposes. The availability of such low-cost power is essential on many projects for irrigation pumping, but it is even more important as a stimulant to the development of industry and business to go hand in hand with agricultural expansion in establishing a balanced economy.

Revenues from the sale of such power helps repay to the Federal Treasury a major portion of the cost of constructing many reclamation projects. Without that source of repayment revenue, projects which are now contributing so much to the Nation's agricultural production and providing homes and jobs for thousands of people could not have been constructed without a much greater net cost.

Under reclamation law, most of the investment which the Govern

ment makes in these irrigation projects is repaid over a period of from 40 to 60 years by water users, and the revenue from sale of electric energy to municipalities and individuals.

The mighty contribution which the West has made to war production since 1941 would not have been possible without the powerproducing facilities of Bureau projects, and after the war they will play an even more important role in developing the great latent resources of the vast area between the Mississippi and the Pacific.

POSTWAR PLANS TO DEVELOP THE WEST

While pushing its programs to aid in winning the war the Bureau of Reclamation also laid a solid foundation for a program to meet the problems of peace. This program was presented to the Congress in April in the form of an inventory of 415 irrigation and multiple-purpose projects which the Bureau is prepared to undertake in further developing the resources of 17 Western States and to provide jobs and farms for thousands of returning servicemen and demobilized war workers.

This inventory of projects included more than 100 which have. already been authorized by the Congress, 29 of them as part of the Bureau's coordinated program for development of the Missouri Basin.

Construction of these authorized and proposed projects would provide jobs at peak employment for more than 400,000 workers at construction sites and a great many more workers in factories, mines, and transportation systems throughout the country.

The cost of constructing these projects-those authorized and those under study-is estimated at close to 5 billion dollars, based on 1940 costs. The estimated construction cost to complete projects already authorized by the Congress is $1,337,701,000.

Nearly 200,000 irrigated farms would be made available for settlement by veterans and others upon the completion of these projects. They would bring water to nearly 11 million acres which have never before been irrigated, and supplemental water to an additional 11 million acres which now have inadequate water supplies. Thus, a total of 21 million acres would be served in stabilizing the agricultural economy of these 17 Western States and contributing to the welfare of the Nation as a whole.

Another very important contribution which these projects would make in developing the resources of the West to the benefit of the whole country is the tremendous increase in the output of electrical energy which would be made possible by harnessing these western rivers through multiple-purpose projects. Power plants on Bureau projects now have an installed capacity of 2,439,300 kilowatts, with

a total output in 1944 of nearly 14 billion kilowatt-hours. The postwar program calls for increasing the capacity of present plants to 4,863,000 kilowatts principally by adding generating units for which space was provided in original construction. Additional installations in the postwar inventory call for the addition of generating units which would give Bureau of Reclamation plants a total capacity of 9,324,000 kilowatts.

A summary of the Bureau's postwar inventory of projects is given below:

1 Total includes individual units of some major projects. Miscellaneous projects not included.

The speed with which construction of these projects can be undertaken will depend largely upon the action of the Congress in making the necessary appropriations and upon the availability of manpower and materials. Work is in progress under war food and war power programs on many of the authorized projects and work on others has been halted or deferred because of the war.

The development program proposed by the Bureau is important both from the standpoint of what it can do toward helping the Nation in meeting some of the immediate reconversion problems, and also because of its promise for long-range development of the agricultural and industrial resources of the West. It is a program that permits a quick get-away. Provided with funds and manpower to complete field investigations and preconstruction work, as well as appropriations for actual construction, the Bureau could put from 150,000 to 200,000 men to work at project sites the first year. Peak on-site employment could be reached in the second or third year. Although construction would be centered in the Western States, more than half of the resulting employment would be in mines, mills, and factories of the

Midwest, East, and South. It would mean jobs for thousands of workers in manufacturing materials and machinery-iron and steel products, cement, electrical equipment and supplies, foundry and machine-shop products, and lumber, from their beginning as raw materials, their transportation to the factory for fabrication, their processing, and again their transportation to the place where they are used. Thus every State is affected by western construction.

The benefits that would be derived from these projects would not end with the construction of the engineering works but go on for generation after generation to increase agricultural production, stimulate industry, increase purchasing power, create new opportunities for business, trade and professional people in towns serving project areas. So not only the West but the entire Nation would be benefited permanently.

For 43 years the Bureau of Reclamation has been working on programs for developing the land and water resources of the West. The value of those developments has been effectively demonstrated during the war. The need for continuing and expanding such developments has also been demonstrated. At present there are about 21⁄2 million more people living in the 11 far Western States than there were before the war. This is a population increase of 17.8 percent, compared with a national increase in the same time of only seven-tenths of 1 percent. Many of these new residents of the West will remain in the region. In addition more than 1,000,000 western boys will be demobilized from the armed forces. They will want jobs, they will want opportunities to start farming, to practice their trades and professions, to open business establishments. An increase in the basic irrigated agriculture of this area will therefore be necessary to support and sustain the growth and the continuing industrial expansion of these States. It is to meet this challenge and to open up a new frontier of opportunity in the West that the Bureau of Reclamation presents its postwar program.

RIVER BASIN STUDIES PROGRESS

The Branch of Project Planning gave major attention during the year to projects proposed for construction after the war.

Field staffs concentrated on the completion of the comprehensive engineering and economic investigations and reports on 15 major river basins in the West, in addition to sub-basin and project studies. The objective of these studies is to present a comprehensive and overall plan of development on a basin-wide scale to bind the various projects and units into an orderly and logical program for the most effective utilization of land and water resources.