Reclaiming the San Simon

RECLAIMING THE SAN SIMON Arizona Director U. S. Bureau of Land Management

Some 120 years ago the Mormon Battalion led by Colonel Phillip Cooke came upon a lush, green valley flanking a clear-flowing stream in what now is Graham County.

As the tired troop looked out across the broad valley, they saw herds of antelope grazing in marshy meadows, while beaver could be seen cutting willows and building dams in the stream. After their long and dusty trek across desert wastes, the beautiful valley with grass so high it brushed the horses' stirrups was a welcome sight. Thus they became among the first Americans known to have entered the San Simon Valley. But the scene the soldiers saw back in 1847 was a far cry from the San Simon that exists today.

In early days the valley was a paradise for grazing cattle and wild game. In addition to antelope (which roamed in groups of 200 or more animals), pioneers had no difficulty bagging deer and quail, including the masked bobwhite, now extinct in Arizona. Settlers have caught fish in the perennialflowing stream. An early-day explorer labeled the San Simon Valley back in 1856 as "the finest cattle range in the world."

The famous Butterfield Overland Stage Line passed just south of the present Graham County line during the late 1850's, with a stage stop located on the river bank. There were problems from marauding Apaches, and mean-tempered wild bulls left by the Spaniards occasionally chased off ranchhands. But, all in all, the San Simon was a Utopian valley.

However, the fertile valley soon was to suffer from abuse put upon it by overanxious settlers, who felt no compassion for conservation. Some 50,000 head of Mexican cattle moved through the San Simon during the 1890's, chewing the rich grasslands to stubble. An extension of the Southern Pacific Railroad across the San Simon helped accelerate cattle grazing.

With grasses shorn, lands lay defenseless. A serious drought during the period of 1902-05 sounded the death knell upon the land. Later, when heavy rains came during the winter of 1905-06, the erosion began. It started as trickling rivulets, but soon swelled into roaring torrents that cut deep into the now barren soil. Much of the more serious erosion followed tracks left by stagecoaches and ore wagons.

Another drought followed later, in the early 1900's, followed by more heavy rains in 1916. By now deterioration was complete. Some of the deepest "gutting" was in the forty-foot deep main channel. Eroded side gullies created a spiderweb effect of tributaries, some two feet wide and twelve feet deep. Water tunneled beneath the ground and collapsed the surface soil. The result was land totally barren of grasses, where today not a single person lives between Solomonville in Graham County to San Simon in Cochise County a distance of thirty-eight miles.

The San Simon Valley has become one of the most serious and impressive examples of erosion damage in the United States. It is a remarkable portrayal of how in just seventy short years a fertile valley can be so completely ravaged that nothing of value remains for wildlife and grazing.

Alarmed conservationists began calling for help. In 1917, Congress called for a study to be made of erosion damage, but no work resulted. It wasn't until 1934, when Congress approved construction of a few erosion control structures, that action was taken beginning the first step toward restoration.

Every conceivable trick was tried. Crews even resorted to plugging washes with cactus plants, wrapped up in baling wire, and plowing contour furrows in the soil. Still, silt-laden waters continued to eat deeper into the San Simon. But, in 1947, A geological survey report deemed the experiments almost total failure because of the inadequacy of the work.

When the United States Bureau of Land Management was created, in 1946, attention again was focused on the San Simon. A silt-stopping dam was built in the upper San Simon channel near the New Mexico line. Another project was built in Graham County during 1954 in the only area where traces of the original valley floor remained. The B.L.M. decided this should be the spot to build the basic structure for restoration of the San Simon.

Two more structures followed in 1956. These were in Gold Gulch, where traces of gold washed down from mines in the Dos Cabezas Mountains can be found even today.

The program moved rapidly ahead until 1956, when all work halted due to complaints from San Carlos Water Users. They claimed dikes and other structures in the restoration project were cutting off irrigation water. This was in contrast with Safford Valley Water Users, who favored restoration of the San Simon.

In reality, the San Simon was loading San Carlos reservoir, behind Coolidge Dam, with silt. Studies at the time showed the San Simon contributed twenty-six percent of the reservoir's silt, but only three percent of its water.

While the controversy continued, B.L.M. officials continued to gather material and information to support a dream to renew fertility in the San Simon.

In 1966 work started again, thanks to efforts by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall and Senator Carl Hayden to end the ten-year work suspension. Now the way was clear for the B.L.M. to begin one of the most ambitious programs of land restoration in history. The intent is to bring back the stirrup-high grasses of yesteryear. Perhaps, even more important, it will show what can be done in restoring "fragile" lands and likely set the course for like projects throughout the West.

A long-range program costing $6 million was drawn up. Included in the plan are two major flood control structures and numerous small detention dams to go along with those previously built. Unique silt-collecting devices are to be placed on eroded tributary headwaters. In total, some twenty new structures are scheduled, with most of the work to be done in Graham County.

The task won't be easy and results won't come fast. Yet, in future years a nation bursting with problems in reaching total productivity may be able to send another group of settlers to stand on the same high ridge where the Mormon Battalion first gazed across the San Simon Valley and look upon a new kind of frontier. A new frontier recreated from the old, with grassy meadows where cattle can graze a place where antelope, quail and beaver can again call home.