cial condition of the applicant irrigation districts as a result of short growing season, grasshopper infestation, hailstorms, low production influenced by labor shortages, and other factors. At the close of the fiscal year five applications as to 1944 charges, as well as one request for deferment of 1943 charges, were awaiting final action.

An inventory was prepared early in the year of repayment contracts in force, to be used in the various regions in negotiating amendatory provisions of such contracts. To date, 10 amendatory contracts have been executed under provisions of the Reclamation Project Act of 1939.

WATER CONSERVATION AND UTILIZATION PROGRAM

Work was continued on six projects authorized for construction under this program before the war, and on two new projects on which construction was initiated during the year. Preconstruction activities were under way on four additional projects approved under the war food program.

Projects under construction were: Mirage Flats (Nebraska), Buffalo Rapids No. 2 (Montana), Newton (Utah), Rapid Valley (South Dakota), Mancos (Colorado), Intake (Montana), and the Post Falls unit of the Rathdrum Prairie project (Idaho). Other Water Conservation and Utilization projects cleared for construction are Missoula Valley (Montana), Dodson Pump Unit, Milk River project (Montana), Bitter Root (Montana), and Balmorhea (Texas).

Construction remained at a standstill on the Eden project (Wyoming) and the Fallon Unit of the Buffalo Rapids project (Montana) because of War Production Board stop orders.

WAR RELOCATION CENTERS

Three relocation centers continued to operate on Bureau projects during the year. These projects in 1942 became sites for hastily constructed barracks-cities to care for more than 35,000 persons of Japanese ancestry evacuated from the West coast. The centers are operated by the War Relocation Authority on the Heart Mountain Division of the Shoshone project (Wyoming), Gooding Division of the Minidoka project (Idaho), and the Tule Lake Division of the Klamath project (California-Oregon).

The population at the first two of these centers has been greatly reduced during the past year through the efforts of the War Relocation Authority in providing resettlement opportunities for evacuee families in many parts of the country. As a result, most of the

acreage in project lands used by residents of the centers to provide food for their own needs, is being turned back to the Bureau.

The Bureau in turn is leasing this land to private operators for continued production of food and forage crops. Both the Heart Mountain and Minidoka centers are scheduled to be closed within the next few months. Part of the irrigation system on each project was developed under the direction of Reclamation engineers, with construction work and farm operations carried on by the evacuees.

C. P. S. CAMPS

On four other Reclamation projects Civilian Public Service crews, under the Selective Service program, have helped to relieve labor shortages in continuing construction and development work. At the Mancos project (Colorado) an average of 149 Civilian Public Service workers were employed during June. Construction of Deerfield Dam on the Rapid Valley project (South Dakota) was continued by Civilian Public Service labor, a 150-man camp being maintained. Approximately 95 Civilian Public Service assignees were employed on the Deschutes (Oregon) project. These men were used for firefighting, operation and maintenance, and clean-up work. During the irrigation season the Department of Agriculture Camp furnished a few Civilian Public Service assignees for similar work on the Buffalo Rapids project (Montana). There were not enough workers available, however, to advance construction on the project.

PLANS FOR VETERAN SETTLEMENT

The branch was actively engaged in. developing a program for the settlement of veterans and others on public lands on projects for which irrigation facilities are constructed and in helping irrigation districts and local interests to advance settlement on privately owned lands in projects under construction. Restricted construction of irrigation facilities during the war limited the settlement opportunities that could be made available in 1945-46, but resumption of construction work was expected to increase materially the number of irrigated farms on public and privately owned lands that could be offered. Preference is provided for veterans under existing law in settlement of public lands.

Montana.

REGIONAL ACTIVITIES EXPANDED

Substantial progress was made during the year toward completing the Bureau's program of decentralization and in expanding the activities of seven regional offices set up under that program. Inaugurated in September 1943 the regionalization of the Bureau is designed to coordinate activities in each of the major watersheds of the West, and to place supervision closer to the field of operations. A summary of the most important activities in each of the regions is given below:

REGION 1

In

Fourteen operating Bureau projects in the Pacific Northwest produced crops valued at $178,265,000 during the crop year of 1944, and power plants operated by the Bureau delivered almost 6 billion kilowatt-hours of electric energy to war industries. This region includes the States of Washington and Idaho, all but a small portion of Oregon, part of western Montana, and small areas in Wyoming and Nevada. The gross value of crop returns on Bureau projects in this area in 1944 exceeded 1943 by $7,890,000 and averaged $99.44 per acre. addition to many other food crops, the irrigation farmers of the region raised 40,234,832 bushels of potatoes, an amount sufficient to provide a year's supply for 19 million persons; 838,517 tons of sugar beets, sufficient to provide 8 million persons with a year's supply of sugar; and 1,648,360 tons of alfalfa, which, on being fed to beef and dairy herds, provided the equivalent of an annual supply of milk for 21⁄4 million persons plus an annual supply of beef for 21⁄2 million persons. In the production of power, the four Bureau multiple-purpose projects in the Northwest produced 5,894,969,245 kilowatt-hours of energy during the 1945 fiscal year. This production to a large extent made possible the huge output of aluminum and other war supplies in the area.

Largest of the power producers was Grand Coulee Dam with an output of 5,716,661,000 kilowatt-hours. There was a steady growth in this project's contribution to war industries consuming huge blocks of electrical energy, and the total output since operations were started in March 1941 amounted to approximately 15,232,375,000 kilowatthours by the end of the fiscal year. Although the present installation of the power plant is less than half its ultimate capacity, it continues to hold the unchallenged world's record for producing the largest quantity of hydro power in a single month: 621 million kilowatthours in March 1944.

Construction activities continued on a curtailed basis during the year. Work on Anderson Ranch Dam on the Boise project passed the half-way mark. On the Post Falls unit of the Rathdrum Prairie project in Idaho work was going forward on construction of a pumping