When Congressman Roberts of Pennsylvania
had traversed the desert to enter Imperial Valley, he said: "The one
incomprehensible fact with me is that you people came here. Now that you
are here and have brought about this marvelous development, I can well
understand why you stay here. But how did it happen that you came out
into this Valley when it was such a forbidding desert as I have seen in
coming here? - that is the mystery."
Congressman Roberts did not realize that
there is in America a nomadic race of beings, always pressing toward the
frontier and carving empires to endure for the ages. Here in Imperial
Valley, last of the American frontiers, they saw the opportunity, and we
may believe that as they settled down near the river to make new
habitation they but duplicated the processes of the ancients the skill
of the moderns.
It was no ancient that brought forth
Imperial Valley from the desolation of the Colorado Desert. There is no
alchemy and no mysticism in the methods whereby the desert is reclaimed.
Everywhere in modern husbandry the scientist is analyzing the soil and
determining the element that is lacking for highest productivity, and he
has discovered that in arid lands the one missing element is moisture.
That supplied, the plant food that has been accumulating through the
ages brings forth crops to astonish those unacquainted with the desert.
Early in the 40's General Kearny's
expedition crossed Southern Arizona, noted the great success of the Pima
Indians in the Salt River valley growing cotton and other cultures,
thence came on through what was to become the famous Imperial Valley.
A decade later they were followed by
soldiers of the United States, and so early as that time the possibility
of reclaiming the desert by bringing water from the Colorado River was
reported on by army officers.
A little later Dr. Wozencraft of San
Bernardino became interested in bringing this about, and did his utmost
to get Congress to make an appropriation to this end, but when it seemed
that he might succeed, the Civil War came on, and for years nothing
could be done in regard to reclamation works. After the war he again
tried to secure government aid for the work, but was unsuccessful.
During the 70's individuals became
interested in a project to bring about the work as a private enterprise,
but nothing came of those efforts, covering a series of years.
The California Development Company finally
was formed, composed of C. R. Rockwood, A. H. Heber, Dr. W. T. Heffernan
and others. These were men of moderate means, but all they possessed was
put into work of making surveys and hunting for bigger capital to carry
on the work. A number of years went by without accomplishment until the
spring of 1900, when George Chaffey, as general manager, began the great
work of building which was to be conducted during the fourteen months in
which he headed the enterprise.
Mr. Chaffey was a Canadian civil and
mechanical engineer, and more than twenty years before he had been
connected with the development work at Riverside, and thence gone to
found the colonies of Ontario and Etiwanda, Southern California.
Following his success in Southern California he had gone to Australia to
take charge of great government irrigation works being completed, he had
just returned to this country when he became interested in the Imperial
enterprise, of which he was made the head. He began his task with
adverse financial conditions. Not only had all the stock of the company
passed to private hands, but the company had considerable floating
obligations and had sold water rights for 35,000 acres of land. Its only
assets consisted of a camp equipment and an interest in a surveying
outfit. As he built canals the holders of water rights located them
along the canals, thus making it difficult to finance additional works.
Adding to the difficulties, the United
States Agricultural Department bureau of soils sent here a young and
inexperienced man to report on the soils of the Valley, and the report
he made was so unjustly adverse that banks which had co-operated to a
degree withdrew their support.
In spite of these obstacles, in fourteen
months Mr. Chaffey dug 700 miles of canal, and colonists having come to
the Valley in large numbers, mainly from irrigated sections of
California and Arizona, the section was given an impetus that nothing
could stop.
Building in this way it was inevitable that
the works should be constructed with a view to cheapness rather than
endurance, and the colonists have paid a heavy penalty for this, though
greater stability is being wrought out by the people for themselves in
these latter days, and the irrigation works will in time take rank with
the best the world knows.
The supreme evil that came upon the Valley as
a result of the cheap construction came through conducting the
irrigation canal through Mexico.
Abutting on the international line as it
does, a chain of sand hills lies between Imperial Valley and the
Colorado River and extends a short distance below the line into Mexico.
From an engineering point of view it was the logical thing to do to
conduct the canal around the chain of hills. But insomuch as that vested
the control of the canal in a foreign country, it was a most serious
obstacle to the development of the full resources of the American lands,
it being necessary to make great concessions to Mexico.
It would be much better if the writing of
this historical sketch could be delayed a few months, for then, in all
probability, the triumph of the colonists over this obstacle could be
recounted. As these words are written there is a delegation in
Washington conferring with the representatives of the Interior
Department, and there is assurance that arrangements will be perfected
whereby a canal wholly within the United States will be constructed and
the irrigation of the half million acres now in Imperial irrigation
district, and nearly as much additional land outside the present
boundaries of the district, will be divorced from the six hundred
thousand irrigable acres in Mexico.
In late years a new line of organization
has been followed, which has placed the irrigation system in the hands
of the residents of the Valley. The financial difficulties of the
California Development Company and its closely affiliated Mexican
company (the stock of the latter owned by the former and maintained as a
method of control of the canal in Mexico) eventually led to a
receivership, and the Southern Pacific Railroad Company having advanced
the company a sum of money, the railroad company became the controlling
factor. The people of the Valley in 1911 organized an irrigation
district under the laws of California, and for three millions of dollars
purchased the irrigation system, assuming the obligation of the original
company in its contracts with the Republic of Mexico to give the Mexican
lands one half of all water brought through that country, providing
those lands require that quantity of water. The district also maintains
a Mexican corporation, the function of which is the same as that of its
predecessor.
In the original organization the
Development Company was a parent company, having contracts with a series
of mutual water companies for the delivery of water at 50 cents an acre
foot, the farmers holding stock in these companies on the basis of one
share (usually) to the acre. Each of these mutual companies serves the
water used in a well defined section of the Valley.
In forming the district this organization
was continued, the district serving the mutual companies and not the
individual farmers and continuing the former charge. The mutual
companies levy assessments from time to time to cover the maintenance of
their distributing canals and their office expenses, and charge the
farmers at the rate of 50 cents a second foot for actual water
deliveries. The irrigation district has as its revenue the water rentals
from the mutual companies and levies taxes to make up the deficit, these
taxes applying on all real estate in cities and country, exclusive of
improvements.
In many respects there is in this
irrigation project a suggestion of that on the lower Nile. The Colorado
River draws its great volume of water from a drainage area that reaches
almost to the Canadian line and which includes the whole western slope
of the Rocky Mountains. Scant summer rain in arid America and the
melting snows of the mountains give to the river great variability in
volume of discharge, which rises and falls with almost clock-work
regularity. The maximum discharge comes about June 20 each year, and the
annual outpour of the river is about sixteen million acre feet.
With present development there is a good
margin of safety above the minimum flow, but at the rate development is
proceeding along the river, it is evident to all that something in the
form of storage must be devised in years not far distant.
Taken as a whole, the farmers use an
average of a trifle over three acre feet per acre a year, the maximum
demand being in June, July and August, but time undoubtedly will bring
considerable change in this respect. The use of water runs so
extensively to summer maximum now because of the great acreage of cotton
grown, but the tendency already manifest toward fall and spring garden
crops leads to the belief that cotton in the years to come will occupy a
smaller percentage of the total area, and the more intensive culture of
fall, winter and spring crops, and the more extensive planting of
fruits, particularly grapes and dates, will lead to a more equitable
distribution of water service throughout the year.