Water Archives · Jack Woolf interview

Title

eng Jack Woolf interview

Description

eng Founder of Woolf Farms in the Westlands Water District. He got his start by buying land from Russell Giffen when Giffen was compelled to sell land under the 160-acre limitation. Woolf was involved with the election of Bernie Sisk, who in turn passed the San Luis Act creating the San Luis Resevoir and bringing CVP water to the west-side of the San Joaquin Valley.

Creator

eng Woolf, Jack

eng Holyoke, Thomas

Relation

eng Water Archive Oral Histories

Coverage

eng California State University, Fresno

Date

eng 9/1/2010

Format

eng Microsoft Word 2003 document, 18 pages

Identifier

eng SCMS_waoh_00014

extracted text

>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. Mr. Jack Woolf.
>> Jack Woolf: Good Morning.
>> Tom Holyoke: Let's just start off with the basics of the basics. If you could
just give us a sense of where you are from and how long you've been working in
farming in the valley, where you went to school, where you met your wife, just
quickly.
>> Jack Woolf: Okay. I was born in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1917, and if you
looked at the calendar, I'll be 93 on Labor Day, next week. From Scottsdale, my
father was a farmer and we moved to between two towns near Phoenix; between
Glendale and Peoria. Our side of the road went to school in Peoria, so I
attended grade school through high school in Peoria. And, when I graduated in
1935, the Depression was still very much on the scene, and I went to a business
college in Los Angeles, called Woodbury. And, it was a three year course, but
you could do it in a little over two years if you went straight through, which I
did. I might mention I have a twin brother, and he also joined me. Upon
graduation and in those days they found a job for you, and it was not a very
good job. After two or three months, I went to Anderson Clayton. I was aware my
father grew cotton, and I was aware of Anderson Clayton Company, cotton people.
And, they had their headquarters in Los Angeles and I must have called on them
20 times. But, one day they told me to come back and go to work. And so, I was
employed them; that would have been about mid, late third quarter, 1938. And, I
was there until Uncle Sam beckoned in very early 1941, and after about five
years in the military, I returned and went back to work with Anderson Clayton.
You ask how I found my wife. I need to jump forward a little bit. By that time,
I was living in Huron and she was visiting some cousins in Coalinga, which is 20
miles from Huron. And, she took a part time job with a well drilling company,
and they sent her out to look up Jack Woolf and get a check for a well they had
drilled. Six months later we were married, and I've been paying her ever since.
[ Laughter ] To get back to after the war, Anderson Clayton wanted to take the
returning warriors back to work, but while we were gone, they'd learned two
important facts of life; one, that women were smarter than they thought, and
that they could work for a little less money. So, those of us that had returned
from the service were being rotated here and there, doing kind of mundane
things, and obviously, waiting for attrition to maybe open up a slot. I was at
their Mexicali plant, living in Calexico for 30 days or so, when I received a
call and instructed to go to Mendota and west of Mendota go to a given address
and meet a man by the name of Russell Giffen. And, Anderson Clayton had
purchased his farm and for whatever reason, they needed a lot of information on
the assets they had acquired; serial numbers of wells and that sort of thing.
And so, Jack Woolf was sent there to do that. And, after about 30 days, I went
in to say goodbye to Mr. Giffen and he said, “Why don't you stay here?” And, of
course, inquired just what he wanted me to do, and he said they thought they
needed a business manager, but for the moment, take over the office and then
we'd gravitate when I found someone to be in charge of the office; that was the
assignment. It was an opportunity to tag down. He asked what I was being paid,
and a might draw back, Anderson Clayton had asked me that when I first came back
from the service, and as a single major, I was being paid $250 a month. And they
said, we'll pay you that. So, now Mr. Giffen said, what are you being paid? I
told him. He said, write a letter to the Los Angeles office and tell them you're
going to stay here, over my signature, and you'll be paid $500. That shows that
I have a price. So anyway, that's what started. A few months later; Mr. Giffen
had agreed to continue on for 18 months as a manager for the property he'd just

sold. In September of that year, three months after I arrived, he said he had
notified Anderson Clayton he would not renew that contract and meanwhile, he
would be starting two more, two different branches; one west of Mendota, called
the Enterprise Ranch, and one at Huron, called Giffen Incorporated. At the
Enterprise Ranch, he wanted to put a great part of the stock in the name of his
management employees, saying they had made it possible for him to be a wealthy
man. And then, he said the good words that I was pleased to hear; Jack Woolf's
only been here three months, but I think maybe he brings something to the table,
and we'll let him have five percent. So, that was good news for me. So, that's
how I ended up with Russell Giffen.
>> Tom Holyoke: Just to backtrack a little bit, had you been doing office work
for Anderson Clayton, or?
>> Jack Woolf: What?
>> Tom Holyoke: Had you been working in the Anderson Clayton office?
>> Jack Woolf: I had been working in their Los Angeles office, from late 1938
until early 1941.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. Also, just to go off topic for a moment; just briefly,
what was your war service? Where did you serve?
>> Jack Woolf: I served in; when I was inducted, I was asked which branch I
would like, and that's before Pearl Harbor. And, I said artillery, and they sent
me to San Diego area, where they had a coast artillery thing. That became antiaircraft. And so, I went to officer's school, ended up in Cape Cod for about 15
months, and then on to England. And then, I might comment, I met my wife;
married her on June 5th. But, on June 5th, 1944, I was on Omaha Beach. And
fortunately, if you follow it, it's one day after D-Day, which was an important
difference. And, I was a battery commander and we traipsed along after first
army, mostly at airports, protecting them for whatever was needed. We got caught
in the Battle of the Bulge, near Bastogne, we were 38 miles from Bastogne. But
anyway, we traipsed around and ended up the war at Kassel, Germany.
>> Tom Holyoke: Do you remember about the year you came to work for Russell
Giffen?
>> Jack Woolf: That would be June; I met him on June 5th, 1946.
>> Tom Holyoke: Russell Giffen himself; major figure in the early history of the
San Joaquin Valley in terms of agriculture development. Do you know how he made
his fortune, made his large farming business?
>> Jack Woolf: Actually, I think he had a family legacy. His father was Wylie
Giffen. Wiley started Sun Maid raisins. He was a man that ended up and had over
40,000 acres of vineyard, in his own name. That's before they had bankruptcy
laws that allow some protection, and during the middle of the 1920's, when the
farm depression first started, he lost them. And, he then went to; so, Russell
Giffen grew up in that atmosphere; a family legacy, you might say. If he had one
second, he'd want to add another section and so forth.
>> Tom: Okay. What kind of -- During the early years when you were working for
Russell Giffen, what kind of crops was he growing?

>> Jack Woolf: Those years, they were dependent on water wells, and those wells
had a slight amount of boron in them. And, that restricted the crops that could
be grown. Cotton did well with it. Cantaloupe, melons did well. Barley did well.
Flax did well. Through the years we tested that out as to alfalfa seed and, but
generally those were the basic crops. Cotton was the backbone.
>> Tom Holyoke: What do you remember about Russell Giffen, the man?
>> Jack Woolf: Well, I'm biased. I think he was one of the all time great people
that I've known. Russell Giffen was about five foot, eight; weighed about 170
pounds mostly, most of the time. Once in awhile he'd bulge up a little bit, but
come back to about 170 pounds. A friendly type of disposition. Always looked
kind of pleasant, when you were looking at him. But, when you were across the
desk or sitting with him, and he was talking to you, he would focus straight at
you; those gray-blue eyes just penetrated you. And, he had an ability to,
somewhat soft spoken, an ability to meet people easily. He had a presence; there
was just something about the way he carried himself that reflected confidence
and so forth. He would be visiting with you, and if you were there to ask about,
whatever it was, there would be a trial balloon kind of, and he would kind of
ferret from that where you probably came down on a subject, and if he disagreed
with you, he would just start talking, and that caused a lot of people to say,
he read my mind. What he ascertained where he thought your position was, and
then he would tell you, and if he differed, he would tell you in about two
minutes four or five reasons that you were wrong, but did it so nicely that you
were just, you just felt okay about it.
>> Tom Holyoke: Was most of his farming operations out on the west side of the
valley?
>> Jack Woolf: That's where it started. The ranch that he sold were actually
three ranches; one west of Mendota, one far west from Five Points, and then one
south of Huron. His new farm that he started in the fall of 1946 ended up having
the same areas, but just further west. We actually adjoined the old properties
that he had sold. The Enterprise was west of Mendota. Originally, the one at
Huron, but in a couple of years we moved into the Cantua area, which is the
middle area.
>> Tom Holyoke: And, during the '40's and into the '50's, for the most part the
water for the fields was all well water?
>> Jack Woolf: It was all well water. A 100 percent.
[ Laughter ]
>> Tom Holyoke: Did most of the wells suffer from problems with boron?
>> Jack Woolf: Well, that generally was on all of the wells out there.
Obviously, as you might expect, one well might test a little higher than the
next well. But, that was just the way it was. And the irrigation system was
generally you had one well per section, and that one well could handle 200 acres
of cotton, more or less. And, that was known as summer crops; you irrigated them
during the summer. It could also handle 300 acres, shall we say, of grain, and
we call that a winter crop. You irrigated in the winter months. And so, that was
kind of the basic thing. If you planted cotton, and lost some of the acreage
from rains or winds or any other reason, or you just didn't get a good stand,
that usually then, because it was a little bit later in the season, you went to
cantaloupes for that. So, we usually had several thousand acres of cantaloupes.

>> Tom Holyoke: So, I guess in the 1950's into the early '60's is when we start
having some of the big land owners, all the land owners out there, looking at
alternative means of bringing in water, and I understand we had the formation of
what was called, at the time, the Westside Landowner's Association. Do you
remember anything about that?
>> Jack Woolf: That, well, first of all, let me answer; I didn't come along
until 1946, so some of the things that happened before and my role increased as
the years went along. Westside Landowner's Association, I read yesterday, was
started in 1942, kind of formalized. There had been visiting going on among some
of the growers in the late '30's, and they had originally contacted the Bureau
of Reclamation, and they had made a study. Don't hold me just to this, but it
seemed to me I've heard that the growers put up X dollars and the Bureau put up
a like amount, and that paid for the study, to see if it was feasible. And, as
time moved along, Westlands Water District became a formal district, along about
1952, in that time frame. Obviously, a lot of negotiation was taking place. Now,
the prime movers became, in the early days, and that was the late '40's into the
early '50's, were Jack O'Neill, an attorney by the name of Gilbert Jertberg, and
Russell Giffen. They kind of gave the leadership; primarily, Jack was first,
O'Neill. And, there began to be more meetings come along. They had a manager by
the name of Jeff Rodner [assumed spelling]. And, he was okay, but they felt they
needed someone, more of a negotiator and they found Ralph Brody [assumed
spelling]. And so, the four of them really became the lead thing there, for the
early days. Gilbert Jertberg, and I don't have the exact date, sometime in the
'50's went in; I want to say middle '50's, went to the federal bench. So, he
then stopped. I must note; prior to that, he and Jack O'Neill went to the
headquarters, western headquarters of the Bureau of Reclamation, which was at
Denver. And, this one topic they wanted to know about was acreage limitations;
would they have them? This water that they were negotiating for was to be a
supplemental supply. They were still going to keep the wells and that was the
wrinkle; whether it being a supplemental would require, and they were told, the
two of them, that acreage limitations would not apply. And, that was a great,
good feeling on that. We know that later down the road they learned that it did
apply.
>> Tom Holyoke: This is a point in time that the Bureau of Reclamation already
operates the Central Valley Project for water on the east side, and it's the
west side then marginally working purely with well water. What was the great
need that Russell Giffen, Jack O'Neill and others had to want to connect into
the Central Valley Project, to work with the Bureau of Reclamation? I mean, what
was the problem they were trying to solve here?
>> Jack Woolf: Well, they were aware that there was more development taking
place following the Great Depression of the early '30's, and it extended almost
until World War II started. There was more development and more wells being
drilled, and they could see that the tables were dropping. And, they realized
that there was a finite amount of water that could be pumped, and they needed
another source. And that was what was driving them to contact the Bureau of
Reclamation. Why the Bureau, as opposed to the State of California, I really do
not know. I do know that with state programs, they have to sell bonds and they
have to pay interest on the bonds. And, that has to be paid every year, whether
you get water or not, and maybe that was the difference. The other side of it
was that on the Bureau, you had to repay for the project, without interest. And,
that was a key point. Now, the flip side is that with the Bureau you have a socalled utility type of a program. You repay all of the cost that's been

invested, but you continue to pay that amount forever in the future. So, that's
a difference, and they use those funds to do other developments.
>> Tom Holyoke: Maybe you don't know this, but was the original plan, when Jack
O'Neill and Russell Giffen and others went to the Bureau of Reclamation; did
they originally plan to have something like the San Luis Reservoir built, that
scale of a project?
>> Jack Woolf: I'm hesitating because of the chicken-egg thing, I don't. I know
that the very basics of the Bureau of Reclamation, of course, was to help
development. That was, that was their mission. And, the law passed in 1902 and
the first project was the Roosevelt Project in Arizona. So, from the study that
they made, whether they were going to do it anyway, I don't know that answer. I
do know that once they built it and the agriculture and Los Angeles had agreed
to buy the water, which Congress required; someone had to buy all of that stuff;
they would have to have the dam and the reservoirs, and the canals to move the
water. That's about all I can tell you on that.
>> Tom Holyoke: Were you at all involved with the recruitment of Bernie Sisk to
run for Congress, partially as an effort to move legislation in Congress to
authorize the San Luis Reservoir?
>> Jack Woolf: Bernie Sisk?
>> Tom Holyoke: Yeah. I want to know if you were involved at all or knew about.
>> Jack Woolf: Well, certainly by that time I had moved along and I was much
more active in the affairs of Giffen, Inc. and the Enterprise Ranch. And, we had
a cookhouse at Huron; Huron headquarters. And, Russell Giffen; if you wanted to
visit with Russell Giffen, you went to that cookhouse. And, either just before
lunch or after lunch, because he was more outside doing this, looking at the
crops and so forth. So, there was a man named Manse Massell Gallagher [assumed
spelling]; Mats we called him. Lived near Hanford. And, he would be what we'd
call kind of a Democrat activist. He at least, that was; he'd attend the
parties, get togethers and so forth. And, he came along one day, at lunchtime,
and had a man named Bernie Sisk with him. And, he said he told Mr. Giffen;
Russell, this man's going to run against Oakley Hunter, and someone I just want
you to meet. And, that was the first time any of us had laid eyes on Bernie
Sisk. Bernie was; he was easy to visit with. He had his polyester suit on. You
could tell that he was at ease in visiting and he said the right things, as I
recall, to Mr. Giffen. He said, I understand that you are involved and
knowledgeable about the water situation, and I don't need to do it today, but I
would very much like to have an hour or so of your time and visit with you, so
you can tell me what I need to know. Do you think that was being a politician? [
Laughter ] But, it worked. And, so from that, generally the west side supported
him
>> Tom Holyoke: Do you happen to know why Oakley Hunter was against the
reclamation project?
>> Jack Woolf: You know, I've never quite; I read that someplace that someone
said he was against it. I just think maybe he just didn't get out and support
it. I don't think he was against it, per se. I thought about that a little bit
when that thought or comment was made. Oakley had a –- he was very close to
Lloyd Harnish. Lloyd Harnish had about 5,000 acres, west of Five Points. It made
me wonder whether he didn't want any acreage limitation, and so he just wasn't
for the program at all, and that caused Oakley to say the same thing. I, for one

and I saw him with some frequency, never heard him say, I'm 'agin it. He was a
tall, quite tall, balding, a little on the serious side, and there was a marked
difference there between he and Bernie Sisk. Bernie came across as a fellow you
could sit there and have a beer with and he'd visit with you, and you didn't
have that feeling with Oakley.
>> Tom Holyoke: Once Bernie Sisk defeated Oakley Hunter and became the
congressman from the area, did he come out to the west side quite a bit? I mean,
part of his district is in Fresno, but did you see a lot of him out on the west
side?
>> Jack Woolf: We saw him with some frequency whenever he came west and
certainly during the off time, when he's not in the Congress. He had always made
a trip to the west side, and usually riding with Russell Giffen. And, he'd truly
want to get into some of the details. He became a vital cog in that thing, on
the legislation. Now, he was working a lot more with Ralph Brody, who was the
number one negotiator.
>> Tom Holyoke: Ralph Brody was the original general manager of the Westlands
Water District?
>> Jack Woolf: That's right, and, legal counsel.
>> Tom Holyoke: Oh, and the land council, too. Actually, what kind of a man was
Ralph Brody?
>> Jack Woolf: Ralph Brody was probably, I don't know, about five-ten, dark
hair, the best storyteller you've ever known. It would just roll out of him, one
after the other. But, he was smart and a wonderful negotiator. And then, if he
got no, but he wanted you to say yes, he just went to work again and again to
bring you around. Oh, and he was a good friend.
>> Tom Holyoke: So, Bernie Sisk is able to get legislation passed, authorizes
the creation of the San Luis Reservoir and the canal system into the west side.
The west side farmers are going to be receiving water from the Bureau of
Reclamation. As I understand, there was a great, fair amount of trouble getting
water contracts with the Bureau.
>> Jack Woolf: You know, I'm kind of puzzled on that aspect of it. Now, are we
talking of the contract, what we called the ’63 contract? Well, it was to
negotiate the terms, and it took quite a few trips; a lot of trips, I guess, and
a lot of time to get that done. They wanted to have; the Bureau, which was not a
common thing, to build a distribution system. And so, you had that as an add on.
And, at any rate, it was a tedious negotiation. It went on for more than just a
year; went on for two or three years. A lot of meetings. They'd come back, Mr.
Brody would come back, report to; Jack O'Neill had died by this time. And,
report to Mr. Giffen. And, two of them would sit and visit about the pros and
cons and how to inform the other growers; had a lot of that. We had many
meetings at the O'Neill; Producers Cotton Oil owned a ranch they called Calfax
[assumed spelling] Ranch. And, they had there a big meeting called the O'Neill
Meeting Home. And so, we had a lot of meetings there. That's when all of the
growers would be invited to attend. Smaller meetings; 10 people, 20 people, was
always at the Giffen cookhouse.
>> Tom Holyoke: During this period when water contracts are being negotiated;
you know, the work with Congress to get the legislation through, dealing with

the Bureau. Was Russell Giffen deeply involved in this? Did he leave a lot of it
to Ralph Brody, or?
>> Jack Woolf: He was very, very involved with it. Now, Ralph was the one that
was doing the hard negotiating, but Ralph frequently would say; Russell, I need
you to go back with me to meet with the commissioner. And, that old Russell
would always go. Sometime they had a congressional committee that was involved
with these kinds of things, and he would go there. There were lots of trips.
>> Tom Holyoke: Around 1962 or '63, I think, Westlands Water District, still a
relatively young water district, merges with the West Plains Water Storage
District, which I understand created some issues with the water contracts.
First, do you know why these districts merged?
>> Jack Woolf: Well, yes. The area west of the original Westlands way out by
[inaudible], generally where the canal exists today; everything east of that is
the original Westlands. Everything west was the area originally known as West
Plains, and that became area two. Area two was comprised of about 200,000; 215 I
think, thousand acres. And, they needed a water supply. They first went to the
state, and received a; it kind of sounded like they would like to supply, sell
water to the area. In the joint authority with the state and the federal
government, in so far as the reservoir and the dam and the canal, there was a
provision that neither would encroach on the other's water service area. And, we
said; well, Westland's is over here, there's no problem. And we were well along
with negotiation and had the growers all informed, and there'd be no acreage
limitation. When we were informed that a employee in the Bureau of Reclamation
in Washington, in looking at the service are of the original Westland's, thought
it had too few acres to repay a drainage system, and arbitrarily just drew a
line that actually, of the 215,000 acres, it included about 160,000 acres as a
part of the original Westlands. That was a great interest, concern and so forth.
And, that raised an issue. If we're in the service area, then why shouldn't we
get some of this water? And, you can see with that; that was a touchy issue. So,
we were confronted. We couldn't; the state said they couldn't service our area,
because the little fringe was too costly. And so, that meant then the Westlands
people; it was Russell Giffen, and again, Ralph Brody, went back to Washington
to negotiate and get some water from them. There was some water that wasn't
committed, and they ended up with a -- but, technically, Congress has to approve
it. I do not quite know yet why at that time they didn't go through the
congressional mode, but the Secretary issued a memorandum, Holum [assumed
spelling], which became known as the Holum Memorandum, for 250,000 acre feet of
water. Said that's all he had. That's about half of what we thought we needed,
but that's what we had. And, so then they also insisted that West Plains joined
Westlands. They just wanted one, one water district out here. And so, that took
place. Obviously, had to get a merger statute through the legislature, which was
done, and we had to acknowledge that area one had their, the 63 Contract,
primarily was theirs; there was no if and ands on that. It was clear. But, there
was a lot of things that you; best drop on one of them. [ Laughter ] The Bureau
said, we don't think you need 900,000 acre feet of water. And, there was a
committee appointed, and Frank Deiner was the chair, and there were four of us
with him, and I was one and Don Patterson of Boswell was one, and Ed Anderson of
Producers was one, and Ralph Carr, of Anderson Clayton, or VDL Ranch, the one
they bought from Russell Giffen, was there. And so, we met several times, trying
to come up; how much water do the farmers need? And, Frank Deiner said, we need
four across; four acre foot per acre, right across the board. Some of us felt
that that was a reach. The key was, very simply, the way we rotated our land, we
fallowed every third year, and so we lost our moisture base. If you had the
water and irrigated ever year, you accumulate a moisture base, so it takes less

water. And, so they finally, the Bureau, agreed. Said, we think you only need
783,000 acre feet of water, whereas Westlands said, we have to have 900 at a
minimum. But, the first couple of years, as we clean up and wash the salt, we
need an extra 100,000. And so, we had a million-five, million-five acre feet; 10-0-5; a million, five thousand acre feet of water. So, the rules; I'm just
citing an example of some of the issues that arose. The rules, in writing,
stated they had to show that they used, could use 900,000, and if they couldn't
use it, it would go back to 783,000. So, one day Mr. Brody called Jack Woolf and
said; you're area two, and I'll come back to that in a minute. They have not
used, in the first five years, area one has not used its water. They have not
gotten anywhere near, has not gone 783. And so, we want to use some of the water
that you've been using in area two and I want to work those numbers and so they
show that it's 900,000. And I said, that's okay. It doesn't mean no skin off of
us, and that's what did take place. So now, we come along and we have a drought
year, and area one folks said; if there's less than 900,000, we get it all. Area
two doesn't get any. That's just the way; that's the merger statute. And, Jack
Woolf was on the allocation committee and said, let's talk about this. You guys
didn't make 783. We contributed and I think a better ration, or split is that
we'll give you 783 and we have the 117 more, and we'll use that as a ratio. And,
Ralph Brody said; you know, that sounds probably right, because he was aware of
it. But you can see, other folks on area one almost had a stroke. So anyway,
those were the kind of things that we fussed about.
>> Tom Holyoke: As I understand, there were ultimately even lawsuits about that
between some of the area one farmers.
>> Jack Woolf: That became part of the Barcellos.
>> Tom Holyoke: Yes.
>> Jack Woolf: That just went on and on; it was one of those suits that just
couldn't get done. One more year, one more year; finally, I think it was in the
'80's before it finally was resolved. That was due to two or three things; one,
to reestablish area one's right to 900,000 acre feet of water, to take care of
this area, service area question. To accept, have the Bureau truly accept where
the service line was that had been moved up. We had an additional 40,000 acres
in area two that needed to be a part of the thing, but likewise, area one also
had some gaps, shall we say. And so, that was one. The drainage issues was also
a major item.
>> Tom Holyoke: Yes, actually that was my next question, if you could sort of
explain the drainage issue. This was important then; it's important now.
>> Jack Woolf: It's very important.
>> Tom Holyoke: What actually is the drainage issue?
>> Jack Woolf: Say that again?
>> Tom Holyoke: What is the drainage issue? If you could just explain that a
little bit.
>> Jack Woolf: Well, a drainage issue is, you know, whenever you put water on
land, and ancient history has shown that. You finally get the profile filled up
and then you have surface water, and as surface, the water ponding up, below the
surface, it pushes salts in, and that is critical and you do need a drainage;
that has to be a part of any irrigation program, and it was a vital part of the

contract that they had in the '63 Contract, as well as reference to it in the
'65 repayment contract. And so, anyway, you know I'm sure that they started to
build the drain; built about half of it.
>> Tom Holyoke: They being Bureau of Reclamation?
>> Jack Woolf: Bureau of Reclamation put up the money to build a drainage canal.
And, also provided money to growers to tile it, so that it could get to the
canal, so the land would be drained. The environmental people did not want the
water dumped into the San Joaquin River at flood plain. The game plan was that
we were going to take the water to an area known as Kesterson, which is kind of
a bad word today, but anyway, to Kesterson, and let it pond up. And then, during
the winter when the San Joaquin River had flood flows, they would release it and
it would be through, under the Golden Gate in just a matter of a few hours. They
protested and said they didn't think that quality of water should be mixed in
there, and their concern was downstream, whether it would be fish or whatever it
was. And, some folks were pulling water out of the delta for drinking purposes
and so on. So, they were successful and they closed Kesterson. The Bureau made a
major, major mistake. They just let the water keep flowing into the Kesterson
area and it ponded up and it got very brackish, and then you had an
environmental holocaust, you might say. It was bad. And really, I truly think
the Bureau made an error. They should have told the growers, you've got to face
your own problem on the drainage. The present system that they're using is just
unconscionable. We're retiring prime land. Whenever you get a list of the half a
dozen great farming areas of the world, San Joaquin Valley is on that list. To
the west is some of the best land you can find anywhere in the world. Their way
to handle the drainage is just to retire land and let it go back. That is not a
right way to do it. In my opinion, one hope, one day, when we get the right
leadership, is to build a desalinization plant. What is the quantity? I don't;
there's formulas as to how much drain water you should have, you put a thousand
acre feet on. Roughly, it's around ten percent of total. And, the other thing
is, in taking ocean water, which is about 35 million parts per million, versus
drain water, which is 10,000 parts per million; it should not cost as much as it
is in Santa Barbara, where they're taking salt water. And, that cost is $600 to
$700 an acre foot. We could bring it back and; anyway, that needs to be, in my
opinion, one action.
>> Tom Holyoke: That's interesting. I've never heard that.
>> Jack Woolf: I haven’t either.
>> Tom Holyoke: As I understand, the Bureau of Reclamation is still talking
about completing the drain, after all of these decades.
>> Jack Woolf: Well, I know, but Kesterson; they need a reservoir and Kesterson
really is the spot. And I think with all of the history of Kesterson, I think
that's an uphill battle. That's my, you know.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. The late 1960's and into the early '70's; are you still
with Russell Giffen at this point?
>> Jack Woolf: Yes. The answer is yes, and that brings up a point. But, there
were any number of grower meetings, but one that I think you would be interested
in was one that took place; I want to say it was kind of like '63, '64. I could
be off a year or two. And, that's when Ralph Brody and Russell Giffen met at
O'Neill Hall and told the growers; there will be acreage limitations. And, that
was a big, big blow. It was a real major thing. And, I thought Russell did about

the only; a very excellent job of explaining it. They'd been there. They'd both
been back, talked to the commissioner. They had talked to our Bernie Sisk who
was helpful; talked to the senators and so forth. But, they had lost that
battle. And, Russell pointed out to them the impact of the 160-acre law. In
those days, your wife could own 160; you could have 160. If you had ten kids,
each one of them lined up with 160. One man even asked whether his pregnant wife
couldn't get two [ Laughter ] dips in the pot. But anyway, at that meeting,
Russell explained that and said, we all know that about half our farm, at least
half of it, is leased land. And so, they will, those landowners can continue;
they can get water and they will qualify. And so, folks that were farming 2 to
3,000 acres, by and large could find a way to kind of qualify and go on. The
very, very large operations, he said; we've just got to bite the bullet. That's
what's going to happen. And, he said, in my case, as you all know, I have
substantial acreage. And, don’t hold me; that's when the year, he was born in
1902. It seemed to me he told me that he told us at that time, I'm 55 years old.
And, it's going to be another ten years before they're going to really have
water in the distribution system, and then we're given a ten year recordable
contract. And so, I'll be in my 70's and I'll be forced to sell. And the
difference is, I'll have something to sell, versus if we just reject it and do
not take this water. We'll pump her dry and we'll be selling grazing land, and
that's the difference. And, he said, I just urge all of you to go and keep that
in mind. I don't think we have any other choice and I will support the contract.
And, Ralph Carr spoke up and said he would join Russell in that, and Harry Baker
spoke up and said he would do it. Bill Deal [assumed spelling] said he would do
it. And so, in a short order, all of them except Boswell said we'll have to go
back and study it. Louie Robinson [assumed spelling] was their man; very able
person.
>> Tom Holyoke: Did the Boswells ever ultimately come around on this?
>> Jack Woolf: They finally did. They even got further down; they got more than
just ten years. And, on the premise and with some correctness, they weren't
getting a full supply. And so, they thought that there had to be some years
adjusted somehow, their point being the government hadn't quite lived up to
their side of the contract.
>> Tom Holyoke: A side note; did Giffen get along with Boswell?
>> Jack Woolf: Oh, yes.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Woolf: You know, you're touching on a point, with all of the debates and
that we have lawsuits and with all of that, and we had some rather spirited
discussions at times; we were all friends. We were all; now, I would take
exception for one or two folks that just never gave up, but overall we all
remained friends.
>> Tom Holyoke: Do you know why the Bureau of Reclamation changed its position
on the 160 acre limit?
>> Jack Woolf: Yes, there was an activist group.
>> Tom Holyoke: Was this National Land for People?
>> Jack Woolf: National Land for People; George Ballis [assumed spelling]. He
was a small farmer and why he took that crusade, I don't know. But, he did. And,

first thing you know, had quite a little support built up. He insisted that
farms should not be more than 160 acres. We countered and said that was the
horse and buggy days, when one man had a team of mules and that's all he could
have. And meanwhile, farm equipment is much more sophisticated, much more
expensive. You just needed more land. And so, there was a real discussion going
forth, and suits being filed by the activists, insisting that we weren't doing
what we were supposed to do. And, we formed another organization. Westlands
cannot lobby Congress, by law.
>> Tom Holyoke: Right.
>> Jack Woolf: And so, another organization was formed, called California West
Side Farmers. And, Jack Stone and Jack Woolf met at the airport coffee shop one
day, and there was a third person and I can't quite recall who, and we said we
needed to do something; if Westlands can't lobby for us, then we've got to get
someone to do it. And, that was the forerunner of what became California West
Side Farmers. We found Bill McFarland [assumed spelling], who was a grower and a
very able guy, and also willing to spend the time. And, I think it cost him his
wife, because she divorced him after a time, but he just spent almost 24/7 on
that topic. And, it went on for several years. Now, on the California West Side
Farmers we’ve got, I was on the Westlands board at that time, and Jack was
president, I think. And, no; he was. Jack followed; he was president. And, we
hired, had to entice Bill McFarland to be the other, and he in turn found a man
named Whitert [assumed spelling], John Whitert, to be the head, the day to day
thing. That was built into a major crusade.
>> Tom Holyoke: We're in the 1970's now?
>> Jack Woolf: Yes.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Woolf: And, we went; our wives got involved, through California Women
for Agriculture. My wife made maybe ten trips to Washington. The wives had one
thing; you could go to Senator Cranston's office and he'd say, I'm just tied up;
I can't see you. Those gals go in and he'd. [ Laughter ] He didn't want to say
no to a bunch of women. And so, anyway, I recall going to Salt Lake and talking
to a group and one in Nebraska, of all places. Wherever there was a reclamation
area, they had interest in this thing. And, we got it done. We moved it from 160
acres to 960. Now, the 960 is for a husband and wife; there was a big debate on
that. They had it up to 1,920 acres for three sections, and then they finally
had it at two sections, and it finally got to 960. They did leave a provision
then for minor kids, if they were in a trust; how you could work that. It's
taken care of that issue pretty well.
>> Tom Holyoke: Now, at some point in the '70's, is this when you sort of step
up on your own as a farmer?
>> Jack Woolf: Well, the answer is yes. In 1973; let's drop back. In 1971, Mr.
Giffen had had a heart attack. And, he asked that; I was the general manager at
that time, and he asked me to take a feel and see what the land market was. And,
for a number of reasons, the lenders were just not in the marketplace, and there
just wasn't the time to get a sale, the broker. In about September, 1973, I flew
to Santa Cruz, where he was convalescing, and from a second heart attack, and
told him that the market, lenders had changed, and it was possible to get
financing on it. And, he said he'd be back in Fresno 30 days or so, and that's
what happened. We got the usual things, if you're going to sell 120,000 acres,

what you had to do. And so, we went through those steps; what's the tax
consequence and all of that, the usual that you'd go through. And, about the
first of December, he said; go ahead, sell it. Liquidate everything. And, in 30
days; no, we had the word was getting around. And of course, then 30 days later
I went in and told him; we've got it in hard escrows. We've got to get Bureau
approval, but they're all locked in, and what was one farm would be 42 farms,
and one of them was Woolf Farming Company. [ Laughter ] Now, Mr. Giffen; you may
find this of interest. When he said, Jack, sell it; he said, I've only got two
things I want. I want all escrows closed the same day, and I want cash. And,
cash; if you're selling land at the Bureau approved price, at a price that does
not reflect any enhancement of the canal water, then it was less than what the
market with it. So, if across the Westlands district land was selling for $1,200
an acre, but he could only sell it for $600 an acre, then that's the way the
appraisal run. So, you can see then, as an individual buyer, you could say; I'll
buy that section of land, Mr. Giffen, and I'll pay you $600 an acre, because the
lender will loan you 100 percent of $600, because it's actually worth $1,200.
Anyway, we had that.
>> Tom Holyoke: That's good for you, if not all that great for him.
>> Jack Woolf: Well, it's just the way the reclamation thing spun out. He also
said he wanted all cash, and I went back the next day and told him that my wife,
Bernice, and I wanted to take a run at some part of that. And he said nothing
pleased him more than to have me do that, but he still wanted cash. [ Laughter ]
So anyway, we turned over possession on March 16th, 1974, but it took awhile to
get all of the loans in place. It was about the first of August, 1974, that I
handed Mr. Giffen a check for all of his property.
>> Tom Holyoke: And did you go on to the Westlands Water District board at that
time?
>> Jack Woolf: Now, yes; I guess it was about that time. He stayed on for
another year or two, and then I went on. I replaced him on the board. I think I
went on in 1978, early.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay. So, you went on the board when the work in Washington, DC
was really underway to have the acreage limitation changed.
>> Jack Woolf: Well, that move was there.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Woolf: Just the move from 160 to 960.
>> Tom Holyoke: 960, right. Did you personally end up going out to Washington,
DC a lot [inaudible]?
>> Jack Woolf: Oh, several times, several times.
>> Tom Holyoke: Who were you working with out there?
>> Jack Woolf: What?
>> Tom Holyoke: Who were you meeting and working with out there?
>> Jack Woolf: Well, first of all, Mr. Giffen didn't just go home and close the
door. He was still involved. But, I know Jack Stone and Jack Woolf, the two of

us, went to Cecil; Secretary of the Interior, Cecil Andruss, during the Carter
years. And, met in his office, tried to do our best. Along while Mr. Carter was
President, Russell Giffen had headed Cotton, Incorporated; the merchandising
promotion for cotton. And, he was the national head of that, and he got
acquainted with a lot of textile mill people. And, there was the CEO of Springs
Cotton Mill, in Georgia, told Russell Giffen; if you ever need to see Jimmy
Carter, contact me. I can get you in. So, we had these water issues and were
aware that Russell had that route, so we went, asked Russell if he would go back
and have it happen. So, in due time, Mr. Giffen, myself and Ken Manock,
attorney, water attorney, and Bernie Sisk went into the Oval Office and had a
visit with Mr. Carter. Mr. Giffen, obviously, did the talking. We got our
pictures taken. We didn't do a bit of good.
[ Laughter ]
>> Tom Holyoke: Any sense as to why President Carter and his Interior Secretary
were so opposed?
>> Jack Woolf: Well, you had the environmental effort coming along. If you want
to drop back and think about this subject on the Bureau of Reclamation, that
started in 1902. The one thing all of those programs; they were the farmers, you
had the Bureau in your corner. And, along in the middle '70's into early '80's,
the environmental effort began to blossom, and it really took hold. And, there's
not much question during; Mr. Andruss was the turning point. The Bureau was no
longer in our corner; they were in the corner with the environmentalists. And,
it was just a fact of life. That's what transpired.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay.
>> Jack Woolf: Just a fact of life.
>> Tom Holyoke: So, what did you all end up doing, since President Carter and,
you know, Secretary Andruss weren't supportive? You mentioned Bernie Sisk. You
were still working with him, although he would have been leaving Congress about
that time.
>> Jack Woolf: He was getting ready to leave, but his right hand man was Tony
Coelho. And, Tony was very able. He was a master politician. And so, we felt
comfortable with him. Bernie did retire and Tony replaced him. So, we had a
voice, we thought, a strong voice, and that prevailed until, and we were in
great shape while Tony was working there. And then, Tony resigned and it was
during the era that everyone was poking how you had campaign funds and so forth.
At any rate, he resigned. And so, we were then in need of a good replacement.
[ Laughter ]
>> Tom Holyoke: Changing from the Carter Administration over to the Reagan
Administration, a Californian as a President?
>> Jack Woolf: We were disappointed with Mr. Reagan in so far as the water
issue. We felt that his Department of the Interior, and I'm searching for that
name; I thought it was a woman. But anyway, no; we had a guy named Wattsburg.
>> Tom Holyoke: That's right.

>> Jack Woolf: We had a guy named Wattsburg. And, we had high hopes, but it just
didn't quite materialize. But meanwhile, the environmental effort was very
strong.
>> Tom Holyoke: So, how was this issue finally resolved? I mean, ultimately,
legislation was passed to change the acreage limitation.
>> Jack Woolf: Well, you know we had the legislation on that. Barcellos finally
was resolved. Then we had what was known as the Miller-Bradley law. And, that
was where it became clearly evident; that law really gave into the hands of the
fisheries, or the environmental effort. Not only that, they took 800,000 acre
feet of water had to be reserved for the fish. When Shasta was built, one of the
fundamentals was that they would capture flood waters. It's waters that would be
through the delta in a matter of 24 or 36 hours. But, they would be captured up
there and then have a release. But, also a very important part was, every day
they had to release not less than the historic flow. They couldn't impound
water. They had to at least keep that historic flow so the fish and Contra Costa
County and all of those folks always had what the normal flow would have been.
So, when they took 800, that added to the flow. But, the environmentalists were
saying the fish needed cooler waters to spawn, and that was the reason. That
cost the Westlands about 400; about half of that 800 went directly out of
Westlands. There was other water districts that shared the other 400.
>> Tom Holyoke That was with the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act?
>> Jack Woolf: That's right.
>> Tom Holyoke: Miller-Bradley Act, as you say.
>> Jack Woolf: Miller-Bradley. And, we did not think that served us well. Mr.
Miller had always been an advocate for us.
>> Tom Holyoke: This was Congressman George Miller?
>> Jack Woolf: It's Congressman George Miller. He was never for anything we
wanted. [ Laughter ] And in fairness, he came out of Contra Costa County. And, I
would guess that his thinking was that they've got industry that are using
water, having to discharge some of their flow into the delta, and these floods
that would come through periodically would cleanse it out. That was probably a
better; but, Shasta had been built. And anyway, he was never in our corner.
>> Tom Holyoke: Through the 80's.
>> Jack Woolf: And we thought Mr. Reagan could have helped us there, but that
wasn't to be.
>> Tom Holyoke: Any particular reason? I mean, Ronald Reagan as governor would
have known something about valley water.
>> Jack Woolf: Well, you were beginning to have that Contra-Costa, the Contra
thing.
>> Tom Holyoke: Oh, sorry, Contra.
>> Jack Woolf: In Central America and I think that changed that a little bit.
We, overall, at least those that I knew in the water community, thought Mr.
Reagan was okay but not quite the advocate that we had hoped.

[ Laughter ]
>> Tom Holyoke: Any thoughts on the, I guess, lack of a better term, the rise of
the environmental movement and apparently.
>> Jack Woolf: There's no question that has occurred. Later, later we had the
question of the 40 year contract winding up with the original, the ’63 contract
winding up. There's been a extended, actually, instead of being 40 years, to
’63, should have been 2003, but it was 2007. I forgot why the four year thing, I
guess, when they have water available when they started counting. There was
always the issue in 2007, I had sat in Russell Giffen's office with Ralph Brody,
and had asked the question, what happened when the ’63 contract is over? And
they both said, “you're one district.” And so I would raise, as a board member,
I'd throw that out as a ball in the air, many, many times. And you could tell
that some in the area one didn't quite agree. And so, four or five years before,
about 2000, 2001, we, in area two, and I was much more involved in those days,
said we just got to get a determination, lets file suit. Let's get it, get an
answer, and that became the Segewsbi [assumed spelling] suit. And we won that
one.
>> Tom Holyoke: As in area two?
>> Jack Woolf: Area two led that and we won that lawsuit. Matter of fact, we
came and compromised. And I give a man that worked for me for many years, Al
Dangle [assumed spelling], and Don Devine, who was associated with John Harris,
and Gene Segewsbi, those folk deserve a lot of credit. They came up with the so
called retirement type thing. They were retiring lands and the Bureau had some
money to pay for retiring some of these lands for the drain. And that was
offset. We were going to waive our rights to the drain. They would put up the
money, retire the land, but we got the water, area two would get the water. So
when they retired enough land, we finally were up to par with everyone, area one
at 2.56, to be exact, acre foot per year. That's our entitlement, we never get
that much. [ Laughter ] And but that took care of it and the suit was terminated
and we all became one district.
>> Tom Holyoke: Do you feel this has resolved the tensions between area one and
area two, the internal politics of ->> Jack Woolf: It took care of most of it, all of that kind of went away.
>> Tom Holyoke: One item I want to jump
there, I believe it's when they started
for a peripheral canal around the delta
River, down into, down where Westland's

back to, in 1978 Westland's and growers
working on what became known as the idea
to bring us water out of the Sacramento
Water District --

>> Jack Woolf: Yes.
>> Tom Holyoke: Could you tell me a little bit about why this was something
Westland's wanted to do and what happened to it?
>> Jack Woolf: Well, Westland felt strongly about getting it done. The
environmental effort was getting louder and curtailing time that you could use
the Tracy pumps to lift the water to put in the reservoir. And we were told that
if there was a separate canal from the damn at Shasta, and dump it right into
the pump, then it would alleviate all the concerns that the environmentalist
had. And it seemed right and so it was put on the ballot. And at the same time,

Boswell was having some issues in their lake bottom property, where they had
water out of the Kings River. And somehow or other, not I’m not faulting that
belief, they felt that it might cause acreage limitations to come in to the lake
bottom and they were very opposed to that. There was never, as far as I know,
there was never anything, except there was that subject tossed around a little
bit. And so Boswell decided they did not want to have that happen and they put
up the big bucks to politically, and most of the rest of the world didn't know
what the heck that was all about. But they were successful. At that time, the
president of Boswell, J. G. Boswell Jr., usually had someone else as president
and he was chairman. And Jim Fisher was at that time, and Jim and I had several
visits on that and kind of harsh discussions about it. [ Laughter ] Because it
seemed like it would take care of the west side, but anyway, Boswell won that
one, in my, that's my opinion.
>> Tom Holyoke: So getting now into, really into the current times, into the
21st century. How are farmers reacting to the challenge from the environmental
movement? I mean, the issues you've talked about haven't gone away, if anything,
they've gotten worse. There's, you know, requests for more water for fish, less
water for the flow through the pumps.
>> Jack Woolf: The water issues of California are crying for leadership. We need
some men the stature of Russell Giffen and Gilbert Jertberg and O'Neil, and
Brody, to be there, where they're nonpartisan, they recognize the place at the
table, shall we say, of everyone, but they negotiate through and get it done.
It’s crying for that leadership. And the endangered species thing is one issue
that has to be a part of that discussion. The humans are also part of the
species and you would expect us to say that. But, if it were managed right,
there's enough water in California to take care of all of the needs, or largely
to take care of all of the needs. You can't have a growing population and say
that definitely. If you have got 50 million more people here, you will need a
lot more water. But, most studies indicate that they think around 2050, our
populations are going to level out. They do in every other society and so
there's enough water, if it’s managed right. And so we need to rethink the
peripheral canal. I've talked about the drainage thing. We need to focus on
that. We badly need that to take place.
>> Tom Holyoke: Just in your opinion here, do you find that the
environmentalists are aware of these problems or concerned about these problems?
>> Jack Woolf: Well, I think yes. I think they're aware of it. I have a son
named Stuart Woolf that has become quite friendly with the head of the National
Resources.
>> Tom Holyoke: Defense Council.
>> Jack Woolf: Defense Council. And they have had a number of visits. And I just
think I'm repeating, we need men of the stature that I named to get in. It has
to be done. It has to be done.
>> Tom Holyoke: Did you think that the legislation passed by the California
Legislature last year, or is it this year.
>> Jack Woolf: For the peripheral?
>> Tom Holyoke: Well, I mean, sort of the big comprehensive package of which --

>> Jack Woolf: My personal feeling, it was more for show. I don't think it can
be as productive as we would like to see it. The Peripheral Canal is going to be
an expensive thing, very costly. And I don't think the rank and file of
Californians yet, are aboard, but they will be shortly, not to far distant, as
Los Angeles' needs to grow, they're going to have to firm up the supply and the
delta is where, but we're not going to drain the delta. We're going to take
really, no more than what we've been taking, but we're going to -- The present
system, as you may know, you release it from Shasta and it goes through the
delta and those channels, and you're pushing, using more water than the pump to
keep the saltwater intrusion away. And so if you have the peripheral canal, you
don't need that extra water for that purpose. But you will still have whatever
the flow is through the delta, the normal flow will be there. And I think
everyone gains with it.
>> Tom Holyoke: Do you get the feeling that California lawmakers really
understand the water issues? It’s very complex issues.
>> Jack Woolf: Its very complex, very complicated and many of the players feel
very strongly about their positions. It's not an easy one to handle.
>> Tom Holyoke: Just quickly, how have, in your opinion, have farmers done a
good job adapting to less water availability?
>> Jack Woolf: Say that again, now.
>> Tom Holyoke: In your opinion, have farmers done a good job of adapting to
water restrictions and less availability?
>> Jack Woolf: I think the answer is very definitely yes, and you're touching on
a good point. We've also learned. [ Laughter ] Today, farmers, certainly in our
case, we have buried drip. We are growing more high-margin crops, what that
trans -- under drip lines. We have return systems, you drive by, you don't see.
On our farm, we must have 25 miles of buried pipeline running. We can move water
just almost any direction. To the net affect, if they could assure me instead of
two and a half acre feet, they'd assure me that I could have one and a half acre
feet, I'd sign up. And we've learned how to get along with less. Now we are
pumping some but it's been a learning curve as well. And certainly, I think
agriculture is way out in the forefront of conserving water. We've been forced
to, I might add. [ Laughter ] But, we are and it's been costly. Now, there are
some neighbors, I have some neighbors that are just hanging on by a thread and
they, for whatever reason, didn't get started soon enough maybe, for whatever
reason, had other things they were doing. But those that have had the investment
in the pipelines and the drip system and the bury drip; it's been interesting to
see what we've been able to do.
>> Tom Holyoke: Sounds like Woolf Farms got in on that early.
>> Jack Woolf: Well, we did, we did and one reason that we got is that we had,
the distribution system wasn't completed through the whole west side. And as it
so happened, every other mile is out on our farm. So we had to put in pipeline
to cover that gap. And we had water wells that we needed to incorporate and the
Southern Pacific, for a while, did not want to make all of their lands eligible.
And so we were kind of, you might say, forced to do that when we first started.
And so that, in one sense, helped give us a leg up, you might say.
>> Tom Holyoke: All right, down to our last question actually. Just, in your
opinion, what do you think the near term future farming out on the west side, or

in the entire Central Valley's going to be, given the way things are? Are you
optimistic, pessimistic?
>> Jack Woolf: Well, you have to be an optimist to be a farmer. [ Laughter ] Or
you'd go cut your throat tonight. No, seriously, I think the demand for food
will continue, national, I mean, worldwide. There's going to be opportunities.
In our part of the world, most of us are attempting to diversify a little bit to
strengthen our hold card. In our own case, we have acquired two frozen food
companies. We've acquired some almond manufacturing, I mean, slicing, taking the
bone skins off, all of that is taking one step up the food chain to get at some
part of that profit. We have a tomato paste facility. We have an almond
processing facility. Those things we're doing to -- as an effort to try to
diversify to help cover the gaps that are inherent with agriculture. I do
repeat, we must resolve the water issue. We must come, that is a must. And I
just feel very, very strongly on that.
>> Tom Holyoke: Okay, thank you very much.
==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====

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