Los Banos Rotary Club History
Gives History of Valley Irrigation

A concise and true picture of the history and problems of irrigation in the San Joaquin valley was given to two local service organizations, Rotary and Lions Club, this week by Charles L. Palmer, veteran advertising and public relations official of the Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

Addressing the Rotary Club Tuesday noon and the Lions Club Tuesday evening Palmer first called attention to the fact that everyone, regardless or their vocation or business is definitely dependent upon the water that goes into the fertile soil of the San Joaquin Valley. The rapid development of irrigation facilities, he reminded, is the one big factor that is today making Los Banos and the entire West Side one of the most rapidly growing agricultural sections in the United States. The Sacramento-San Joaquin valleys, he said, constitute the third largest and most important irrigated farm areas in the world.
History of water service, Palmer said, goes back in California to the gold rush days, when miners began utilizing the waters from mountain streams for their mining operations. Almost immediately, trouble developed over this water use, and one of first laws to be passed by the California lawmakers was the Riparian Water Law, which remains the basis of all water law in this state.

Palmer traced the succeeding legal history of water use in this state, the many law suits brought by riparian owners robbed by upper diversions; and finally the general agreement to an allocation schedule for all users, which has been absolutely and faithfully followed in late years.

Tracing the history of the Central Valley water plan, Palmer said that as early as 1873 the U.S. Army Engineers proposed a plan for transfer of surplus waters from the northern part of the state southward, and that in 1919 the first Federal plan for such transfer system was presented.

In 1933 the people of California voted a bond issue of $175 million for construction of the Keswick, Shasta and Friant dams, Delta-Mendota, Friant-Kern, Madera and Contra Costa canals, and electric power plants at Keswick and Shasta. Later the State Water Authority asked Congress for financial help in the undertaking and the project was turned over to the Bureau of Reclamation.

Palmer emphasized the dire need for supplemental water in the southern part of the valley, stating that the underground water supply is decreasing rapidly. Wells that a few years ago were flowing within a few feet of the surface are now down as much as 350 feet and it is frequently necessary to dig new wells to a depth of 1200 feet to strike a substantial water strata. Last year, Palmer said, valley farmers outside of the gravity irrigation districts pumped and used approximately three million acre-feet of irrigation water.

Palmer said that at no time in the history of the valley has the P. G. & e. or its predecessors gone on record as opposing farm groups in their attempts to solve their water problems. As a company, he said, they have a stake in the prosperity of California and the valley, and a stake in maintaining an underground water table for electric pumps to draw on for irrigation purposes. The company has, however, protested the use of the water provisions of the Central Valley Project as a stalking horse for those whose sole aim is to develop government-owned power.

“We believe,” he concluded, “if power can be developed as a by-product of the irrigation and flood control operations and help to pay for the project it should be developed for the best interests of the farmers of the valley. We believe that if power is developed it would be uneconomical to build a competing, tax-free power transmission and distribution system when all facilities for delivering power to all sections of northern California are already available, and when electric rates, after deduction of taxes collected by the company, are as low as any offered by any government agency.”

July 9, 1946

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