Los Banos Rotary Club History
Gordon Garland Reviews Problems Of Water Supply

Gordon Garland, of Woodlake, addressed members of the Rotary club here Tuesday on California's overall water problem and its present and eventual effect on this area. Garland, now public relations director for the newly formed California Water Development Council, was for many years speaker of the State Assembly and has an intimate knowledge of both water sources and usage.

Emphasizing the continuing need for more and more water and the immediate necessity of not only protecting our own supply but insuring our needs for future years, Garland pointed out that whereas in 1939 a supply of 50 gallons per day for every person was considered adequate, to day the municipal demand has increased to an average of 1500 gallons a day. The needs of manufacturing and industrial usages has also increased accordingly, as for instance in the steel industry, which requires some 40,000 gallons of water for each pound of steel manufactured.

Of this state's water usage, Garland said less than 10 per cent is required for domestic use. Over one-half of our supply goes to industry and about one-third for irrigation. Within the next 20 years, he said, demand for water in this state will exceed the supply by more than 25 per cent.

Pointing to the importance of the political aspect of securing and maintaining our future water supply, Garland pointed to the efforts of Los Angeles and its Metropolitan Water District to insure its own future water supply through constitutional amendment at the expense of the rest of the state. In the blocking of this attempt, Garland paid high tribute to our own Senator James Cobey and Assemblyman Gordon Winton, who with other legislators in this part of the state were able to block proposed legislation which would have insured Southern California a new supply of water from this area.

Garland explained that the new Water Council has been formed with the dual purpose of protecting and preserving the state's water supply for the counties of origin and also to develop a statewide solution to the problem so that all of the state's water resources can be developed and utilized for the greatest benefit of all.

"Unless a just and equitable solution is formulated and agreed to by both northern and southern California," he said, "the future agricultural development of this state will be forever stymied."

Referring to the Feather River Project, Garland pointed out that southern California's support of the project is predicated on its demand to receive an insured supply of 1.8 million acre-feet of water annually, regardless of need in counties of origin or other parts of the state. The folly of such a guarantee he pointed out, is easily seen from past water-yield records which shows that for periods of as much as seven years, the Feather River has failed to meet the existing needs of its own watershed.

Concluding, Garland emphasized that the coming struggle for water supply and water rights is a matter of immediate local interest and concern, as the water rights of this and all other areas will be endangered and impaired unless a just and equitable plan is evolved and agreed to.
"I firmly believe," he said, "a just solution can be found. My only fear is that northern Californians generally will not awake to the importance of the problem until it is too late."

November 8, 1957

---