Snow survey crew at Tony Grove, Logan Canyon, Utah, 1925 (P0374 Box 5 Item 143)

Report of Water Conservation Program and Drought Situation in Utah, May 1934 [click to enlarge; click again to browse all pages] (MSS Coll 279 Box 16, Folder 6)

The 1930s drought magnified the necessity and importance of water and emphasized once again its status as the life’s blood of Utah. The flow of mountain streams which Utah and other western states depended on for its water supply shrank to their lowest recorded levels during the 1930s. In the spring of 1934, many flowed only 15 to 40 percent of normal. By 1935, storage in Utah Lake declined to its lowest recorded level, from a normal of 850,000 acre-feet to only 20,000 acre-feet. Canals that usually carried 4 million acre-feet of water to the thirsty crops of Utah farmers carried only 1 million acre-feet during the summer of 1934, prompting state officials to predict a foreboding 75 percent crop failure.  

Owing to USU’s sterling reputation in water resources, three of the four members appointed to serve on the governor’s emergency water committee in 1938 were either USU faculty or alumni. These included George D. Clyde, T. H. Humphreys, and Extension Director William Peterson. By proclamation, Governor Henry Blood named Clyde as Utah’s water conservator.