USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 54
USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 54
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After the formation of the association approximately 3,000 acres of gravel and boulder land was secured on the debris cone at the mouth of the Santa Ana River upon which to spread the storm water. This debris cone is approximately five miles easterly and 500 feet higher in elevation than the great San Bernardino artesian basin, the natural drainage of which flows through Warm Creek.
Three diversions were made from the river having an aggregate capacity of approximately 15,000 miners' inches of water. Contour ditches were built from these points of diversion over the debris cone and water
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was carried through these ditches and turned out at advantageous points and the water was thus sunk into the debris cone in place of running off to the sea.
It has been found that it is possible to sink as much as 160 miners' inches, continuous flow, per acre on this debris cone. When it is remem- bered that 10 to 15 inches per acre for twenty-four hours will properly irrigate the intensively cultivated land in these counties, it is seen that ten times as much water can be sunk in the debris cone as is ordinarily used for irrigation.
Contingent upon the rainfall which regulates the amount available, the association sinks on an average about 300,000 miners' inches per annum. This would mean 12,000 acre feet per annum. It is not claimed that all of the water sunk in the debris cone is available for irrigation pur- poses. In fact, it is very difficult to determine just how much of it is finally used for irrigation purposes, but assuming that one-third is made available for irrigation purposes, it would mean that 4,016 acre feet are conserved and used for irrigation purposes. As the use of water for irrigation ranges from one to four acre feet per annum, depending on soil conditions and crops raised, it will be seen that the value of water conserved, when used for irrigation purposes, is very great as compared to the cost of sinking, which is approximately fourteen cents per acre foot.
Up until the year 1919 the association had spent in all about $24,250 in this work, but all of the interested parties had become so convinced of the practicability and value of the work being done that they were willing to subscribe much larger amounts for the work for the season of 1919-20. The co-operation of the Board of Supervisors of the County of San Bernardino has also been secured for this work, so that there is available for this season approximately $15,000.
One difficulty of the work in the first years was the maintaining of diverting dams in the Santa Ana River. These were built of loose boulders and were washed away with each recurring rain storm. How- ever, during the season of 1919 a dam, known as the Pratt Porous Dat, was built at right angles across the Santa Ana River over 100 feet in length and approximately seven feet high from the bed of the strean1. During the first rainfall after construction of the dam it filled to the top on a level upstream from the top of the dam with boulders, sand and gravel and the water ran approximately four feet over the top of the dam without doing it any damage. Having proven the efficacy of this type of structure, the association has built another dam lower down on the Santa Ana River for the diversion of water, having a capacity of 12,000 miners' inches, so that the total diverting capacity of the works of the association at the present time is approximately 20,000 miners' inches.
It is the intention of the association to carry on this work on the scale of the 1919-20 appropriation for some years to come. When con- tour ditches have been built over the whole surface of the debris cone the present intention is to keep going upstream building check dams until the whole watershed of the Santa Ana River is under control.
Eminent engineers have reported that there are still 40,000 acres of irrigable land that could be irrigated from the waters of the Santa Ana River. It is the hope of the members of the association to so stabilize the flow of water to lands now being irrigated that there will be no shortage of water during dry seasons and eventually to provide irrigating water for all land that can be irrigated from this watershed.
The following from the Daily Press of November 22, 1921, is in continuation of Mr. Cuttle's article on Water Conservation :
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Touching the very life of this section and relating very intimately and in an important way to the whole scheme of irrigation is what is known as the Water Conservation Association.
This association affects in so broad a way the water that finds its way into the Santa Ana River that its scope of beneficial results is of interest to the three Counties of San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange. Therefore these counties are co-operating in this work of conservation and are appropriating money through their boards of supervisors to carry it forward.
This association is a new one and the results it is achieving are so plain and obviously so valuable that its efforts are attracting wide attention.
What it is doing is to preserve the flood waters of the Santa Ana River, instead of permitting this surplus to flow off and ultimately discharge into the sea without benefiting any of the thirsty soil along the way that stands so much in need of it. It benefits nearly all the irrigating interests of the three rich and prosperous counties that com- pose the association.
Something of a new principle is being utilized in this project. To comprehend the plan of the association it is first necessary to understand that it is constructing diversion dams in the river's course not far below the point where it is released from the high walls of the canyon down which it pours into its more or less uncertain and shifting course through the valley below. Being thus diverted at times of flood the water is spread out, so that instead of running off it will sink into the sand and gravel and thus fill up a great, natural subterranean basin. From this stupendous reservoir artesian wells bring it to the surface again as needed.
Where the river debouches from the canyon is what is called a debris cone; that is to say, a broad expanse of boulders and coarse gravel. There are 10,000 acres of this in all, of which the conservation associa- tion controls 3,000 acres. Here have been and are being constructed stone contour dams at right angles to the river. The water once being turned from the river onto this expanse these dams arrest its flow so that it readily and rapidly disappears into the debris cone. About five miles below this is the artesian basin, at an altitude 500 feet lower than the cone. This difference provides the pressure that insures the flow of the wells.
It has been found that it is possible to sink 160 miners' inches, con- tinuous flow, per acre, on this debris cone. Reducing this to concrete example, the importance of this tremendous fact stands out clearly. For instance, ten or twelve inches per acre for twenty-four hours will properly irrigate even lands devoted to orchards that require such an abundance of water ; therefore more than ten times as much water is sunk on one acre of this debris cone that is required for irrigating an acre of crops. In other words, one acre in this cone will conserve enough of the water that otherwise runs unhindered to the sea to supply more than ten acres of orchard and field. On this ratio of ten to one once the entire 3,000 acres of cone controlled by the association is covered with dams there will be more than 30,000 acres along the course of the Santa Ana below made a possible beneficiary of it. And, looking further into the future when the remainder of the 10,000 acres of the cone may be utilized, some idea of the far-reaching effect of this work will be understood.
Of course it cannot be consistently claimed that all this vast quantity of water arrested in its flow will be available for irrigation, but it is certain that a large portion of it may be thus practically applied. The
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value of it is very great as compared to the cost of sinking, which is proved to be about fourteen cents an acre foot from results thus far obtained.
Up to the present time there has been spent by the association in this conservation work something like $50,000. The project is proving so feasible that continued co-operation on the part of all engaged in it is assured. About $15,000 is being expended this year.
One difficulty of the work in the first years was in maintaining divert- ing dams in the Santa Ana River. These being built of loose boulders were swept away with each recurring storm. To prevent this during the year 1919 a Pratt porous dam was constructed across the Santa Ana over a hundred feet in length and about seven feet high. By the first rainfall after completion it was filled to the top of the dam, on a level upstream, with debris. The water ran over this to a depth of about four feet without doing any perceptible injury to the dam. Having thus satisfactorily tested this type of diversion dam another of the same kind has been built further down stream, this one having a capacity of 12,000 miners' inches. The total diverting capacity of the works of the asso- ciation is at the present time about 20,000 inches.
It is evident that the whole river, after debouching from its moun- tain gorge, may be treated in this same way, and it is the intention of those in charge of the association to keep going upstream building check dams until the whole watershed of the Santa Ana River is under control.
Competent engineers have reported that there are 40,000 acres of available lands along the course of the river in the three counties through which it flows that can be irrigated by its waters. By conserving and stabilizing the flow to present lands under irrigating it is believed not only these can be provided for abundantly and constantly during the driest years, but that eventually all this vast acreage of unirrigated lands may also become beneficiaries of the enterprise.
CHAPTER XVII THE SALTON SEA
The Salton Sea, which was, so to speak, a "nine days' wonder," the excitement over it lasting for over a year, is one of the things that ought to be preserved for future generations to marvel over, and a brief history hy one who has been over the dry bed of what is now the bottom of the sea which will in future continue to be a sea as long as the water of the Colorado River is used to irrigate the desert lands of the ancient bed of the Gulf of California.
The bed of the Salton Sea is a depression which the waters of the Gulf of California ages ago occupied and probably extended as far as the base of San Jacinto Mountain and the San Bernardino Mountains. The valley is about ninety miles wide from the Colorado to the mouth of Carrisa Creek. While not in Riverside County is there any of the Colo- rado River water in use for irrigation, there is a portion of Riverside County very much interested in the Salton Sea, and that the deepest portion of it. At the deepest part at Salton there was an immense deposit of almost pure salt, which was scooped up, purified by the New Liverpool Salt Company and put on the market. There was no lake or sea there previous to the overflow of the Colorado River, which began in 1905 and was not stopped until February, 1907.
The break occurred in a small way and probably would have been controlled and stopped in the ordinary way but for several unexpected rises in the Colorado which found vent in an unprotected cut in the bank of the river which by reason of extra high water at an unusual time gradually widened and deepened until the whole of the water of the river got out and into two old channels, that of Old River and the Alamo Channel and immediately began to scour out and widen these two chan- nels, forming a cut and fall of forty or fifty feet that was gradually working its way to the Colorado River, where if it had not been stopped it would not have been possible to stop it and the Salton Sea would have been the receptacle for the waters of the Colorado which would gradually fill up the depression and flow again into the Gulf of California.
Whether it would again fill up and overflow is an uncertain question, for the annual evaporation from the surface is five feet and the surface level of the old sea is forty-five feet above sea level, which would prob- ably represent the height of the barrier that separates the Imperial Valley from the Gulf of California. That question may safely be left to the scientists while practical men are working to turn the desert into a Garden of Eden.
At first the development company tried to stop the break in the banks of the river, but failed, and the Southern Pacific Railroad Company was appealed to and took hold. The only way in which it could be done was to dig a new channel and put in strong gates by which the water could be shut off. A gate 240 feet long, 10 feet through and 25 feet in depth from floor to top of framework was made at a cost of $130.000 and the water turned into this. The channel of the break was then lessened by jetties on each side to 600 feet. This cut which furnished the oppor- tunity for the break was made for a bypass at a time when the river was at a low stage and when it was feared that it was so low that it would not be possible to get water unless it could be taken out at a lower level than the gate by which the outlet in use was made. This
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bypass it was found afterwards was not needed, for the original gate was two feet lower than appeared to be on account of a two-foot plank that was in but got covered up by sediment and so overlooked.
The whole business was further complicated by the fact that the best and easiest place to take out water is over in Mexico, which involves certain obligations on the part of the California Development Company which had a concession of 100,000 acres of land in Mexico which carried an obligation of water for these lands. Time being an element in this case, trouble arose from not being always able to act up to the letter of the obligation. The story of this difficulty and of the many troubles and delays that arose on account of getting capital and capitalists to take hold need not be told here, for they properly belong to the history of the Imperial Valley itself. Ultimately the relations between the eastern end of the Imperial Valley may be much closer as the water of the Colorado River always carries a great amount of exceedingly fine mud or silt varying in quantity from three per cent to as high as twenty-five or more.
It is estimated that the Colorado River carries every year enough mud to cover 70,000 acres of land a foot deep. This muddy water is the source of supply for domestic water for many, which after being settled and filtered makes a much better domestic water than would be supposed and there does not seem to be any harm arising from its use. The Southern Pacific Railroad used to carry in many water tank cars of pure mountain water or artesian water from the San Bernardino Moun- tains and from artesian water in and around Thermal. There are now wells in places which supply domestic water to many. A project for a high line of canal which would take its water from the Colorado higher up the river and at an elevation that would supply Indio, Mecca and the Coachella region has been discussed which at present get their water from artesian wells and from surface wells at varying depths. Around and east of Holtville there are some artesian wells of varying quality, some of it good and some of it rather brackish and of differing tempera- tures which are good as far as they go. It was predicted by scientists that there would not be any artesian water obtained in this old bed of the Gulf of California. Where it comes from or how much of it there is has not been determined. In the north end of the valley at Mecca and Coachella artesian water has been found in abundance, supposed to have its source in the San Bernardino Mountains from White Water River and other mountain streams. Imperial Valley looks to this source for a future supply of pure water for a domestic supply and would like to secure these mountain streams, but all of the northern end of the Salton Sea Valley, believing that the source of its supply comes from these mountains, objects to El Centro and the Imperial Valley taking this water and cutting off this source of supply.
Whenever this high line canal comes to be built it will take in a vast area of new land and will extend as far round the valley as Indio, Mecca and Coachella, furnishing them with water full of fertilizing sediment that will help in a great measure in fertilizing their lands. The Colorado Delta lands are supposed to be as rich as the lands of the Delta of the Nile. This rich sediment is what in the ages of the long past threw a barrier across the Gulf of California and cut off this large area of rich land now known as the Imperial Valley. It is said, although not strictly true, that the Colorado River cut a channel one mile deep in the Grand Canyon and filled up the Gulf of California one mile. Much of the mud that forms the barrier across the gulf comes from the Gila River in Arizona and from the upper waters of the Colorado. The vast quantity
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of mud deposited by the Colorado when it gets to the stiller water near its mouth is always filling up channels and making new ones, thus adding new land for future use. This sediment in the irrigating water of the Colorado is constantly adding to the fertility of the land in use and causing trouble in ditch cleaning from the great deposits of mud along the banks of the canals and in the canals themselves.
The situation in the first years of the water development of Imperial Valley was beset with many difficulties owing mainly to the lack of money. A good deal of debt was incurred by selling water obligations at ten cents on the dollar which were all redeemed and met at their full face. It seemed at times as if the whole scheme would have to be abandoned, but just when affairs were becoming desperate George Chaffey came to the rescue with engineering skill and experience, assisted by his brother, W. B. Chaffey. They had gained much experience in the early days in Riverside in connection with lands bought from the Riverside Land & Irrigating Company, afterwards in founding and laying off the settle- ments of Etiwanda and Ontario and later on in Australia under the auspices of the goverment. Fortified with this experience and money, George Chaffey was given absolute authority over the California Develop- ment Company for a period of five years. The difficulties encountered were greater than anticipated and almost insuperable on account of busi- ness and other difficulties, which were finally overcome, and Mr. Chaffey brought water on the thirsty land on May 14, 1902, and retired from the company after constructing more than 400 miles of canals and laterals and with but a limited compensation for his services.
The overflow of the Colorado into the valley which took place arose from a variety of circumstances, some of them being unusual and some of them arising from neglect, assumed such formidable proportions that the only organization that could stop it was the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, and it taxed it to its utmost. President Roosevelt also had a hand in it, promising reimbursement by the government, which after several years delay by Congress was finally given, but not to the extent of the outlay-$1,500,000 was the amount finally granted.
Every appliance in the shape of men, material and rolling stock was put to use from Arizona and California and quarries were opened and steam shovels kept busy. After the break was closed, suddenly in high water, the whole structure was washed out. Finally, on February 14, 1907, the gap was closed and the Colorado was in its old channel.
The Imperial Valley settlers were beset by the contention that was made by the authorities in Washington that they had no right to take water from the Colorado because it was a navigable stream-riparian rights again. After several years' effort by Mr. Daniels of Riverside and other members of Congress it was admitted that the Colorado River was more valuable for irrigation than for navigation.
The full volume of the Colorado for over two years' flow made a large lake, which was named after the Salton works in the Riverside County end of the Valley of the Salton Sea. The area of the lake became smaller year by year, until the present level, when it is more or less stationary and will not probably vary very much in size on account of getting a large amount of waste water from the irrigators of Imperial Valley. The filling of the sea caused the track of the Southern Pacific Railway to be moved several times. The water itself is salt enough for salt water fish to live and thrive in and it is well stocked with mullet.
FISHING IN THE SALTON SEA. The great overflow of the Colorado River made a real inland sea. Soon after the fish appeared. How they
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came no one knows. Some think they swam down in the overflow ; others, who don't see how salt water fish could get into a fresh water river, assert that pelicans brought them from the Gulf of California. They multiplied and soon there were fishermen. Then there was a com- mercial fish industry ; it is of importance just at present to the tables of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Will the industry stop abruptly as it started? The river levees are mended and the sea is shrinking. Should it become a pool of brine, the fish will die. It is an interesting episode .- Writes John Edwin Hogg in Popular Mechanics (Chicago).
"Developing a profitable fishing industry, and marketing ocean-food fish from a brine-pickled pool of constantly varying salinity and water- levels far below the level of the oceans and in the midst of a blazing desert, is an accomplishment of man that is worthy of attention. This newest of American fisheries, which has recently commanded the atten- tion of both State and Federal scientists, is in the Salton Sea of South- ern California, where the industry has grown up under some of the most adverse and extraordinary conditions existing in any fishing enterprise.
"The Salton Sea is one of the most mysterious of all the world's inland brine pools. With its surface at this writing 257 feet below ocean level it has often been termed the Dead Sea of America. It is the lowest body of water on the face of the western hemisphere, and the lowest on earth with the exception of the Dead Sea of Palestine. Sweltering as it does under extreme of desert heat, and sodden with the heavy atmo- spheric pressure of negative elevation, it also lies within the shadow of lofty mountain peaks whose eternal snows tower to dizzy elevations nearly twelve thousand feet above the sea's surface.
"The desert brine pool, as the Salton Sea is familiarly known in Southern California, is in reality a portion of the Gulf of California which was cut off from the main body of water by the building up of the delta of the Colorado River. Being originally saline, its waters have beer evaporated to a relatively higher degree of salinity during the ages that the river has poured its volume into the Gulf of California. Geologists believe, in fact, that the river has periodically emptied its floods into the Salton Sea, freshening the water, raising its level, and greatly extend- ing its area, just as it did in the great flood of 1905. At present the Colorado River is prevented from doing this by the dikes along its banks, built that the great Imperial Valley may be irrigated and safe from future floods. The canals, however, carry quantities of surplus irrigation water into the Salton Sea, the below-sea-level basin forming a convenient drain- age reservoir for that purpose.
"Several years after the flooding of the Salton Sea the salt-water mullet, a desirable food fish, of the identical species found in the Gulf of California and other Pacific waters from Monterey southward, made its appearance in the sea. Two theories are advanced by scientists to account for the occurrence of the fish. The first is that they had swum from the Gulf of California into the fresh waters of the Colorado River and were carried down into the Salton Sea by the flood. This theory, however, does not seem acceptable, inasmuch as the fishermen declare there is no authentic record of the salt-water mullet swimming up into the fresh water of streams. The second theory, and the more plausible one, is that the Salton Sea was stocked with fish by the white pelicans. These great birds inhabit the sea by tens of thousands, rearing their young on the several volcanic islands, and making daily excursions to the Gulf of California for their food. Isolated mountain lakes are known to have been thus stocked with trout, and probably the fish of the Salton Sea was carried there in the same manner.
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