Water Archives · Randy McFarland interview

Title

eng Randy McFarland interview

Description

eng The history of water development on the Kings and San Joaquin rivers.

Creator

eng McFarland, Randy

eng Holyoke, Thomas

Relation

eng Water Archive Oral Histories

Coverage

eng California State University, Fresno

Date

eng 10/28/2013

Format

eng Microsoft Word 2013 document, 25 pages

Identifier

eng SCMS_waoh_00037

extracted text

>> Thomas Holyoke: OK. We are talking to Randy McFarland this morning
about development on the Kings River but let's just start off with a
little personal history so viewers know who Randy McFarland is.
>> Randy McFarland: Well, I am Randy McFarland or as I say in my business
J. Randall McFarland on my books, and I'm a graduate of Fresno State and
Fowler High School. I was a radio TV major and so very much at home and
the studio where this is being recorded. And I became interested in local
history at a very young age back when I was in 5th, 6th and 7th grade as
a boy in Big Creek. And by coincidence since I was a big power project
area I became interested in water and power so those are my professions.
Now, I'm a public relations consultant for water agencies, the Kings
River Water Association, Kings River Conservation District, Fresno
Irrigation District and Friant Water Authority and also done some work
related to power, but I've also done a great deal of local history. I’ve
was not a history major, I have no degree in it but I love local history
and have researched a great deal in Fresno County done a book on Fowler
history called Village on the Prairie, a book called Centennial Selma,
full length history of the Selma area that was published in 1980. A book
on water on the Kings River as it relates to consolidated irrigation
district called Water for a Thirsty Land. And I was a co-author of the
Fresno County Sesquicentennial book and that was in 2006. I've done a
couple of others and many, many research papers on local history parts of
local history and do a lot of speaking on it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well that's pretty extensive so I think today we'll
just focus to on a one topic and that would be development around the
Kings River.
>> Randy McFarland: And focusing on that is not as simple as one might
think.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, then we'll give you carte blanche in deciding
where you would like to start.
>> Randy McFarland: Well, let's start at the beginning and talk a little
bit about the natural conditions on the Kings River as they were before
the European settlement of this region began. The, the River was much
different than it is now, everything’s different but the river itself is
almost completely different on the lower end than it was under natural
conditions including the direction it goes, some of the channels it goes
through and course how it's managed because there was no use for it
except for water flowing down the river and to its terminus into Tulare
Lake. River has its origins of course, three forks in the Sierra, Nevada,
east of Fresno and Tulare in Fresno counties. The South Fork and the
Middle Fork are the longest and they're about equal in length and size
and how much water they generate. The North Fork is the shortest. North
Fork though is the hardest working because that's where civic gas and
electric company has its Kings River power project. And then extensive
series of reservoirs and hydroelectric plants that are located on the
North Fork. But on the South Fork the-- that is the most visited because
that goes through Kings Canyon and the Kings Canyon National Park. Then
the--perhaps the most scenic of all although Kings Canyon is certainly
scenic and is a rival I think to Yosemite Valley. The Middle Fork which

goes through to Tehipite Valley which is almost never visited, it’s all
wilderness and wild and scenic rivers. So, the rivers in each Fork come
from little lakes up in the very high country near the Sierra, Sierra,
crest there's a tremendous fall from the watershed goes right up to the
tip top at around 14, 000 feet in, in the highest levels. And of course
in the lower end on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. The
elevation is probably no more than a 100 or 120 feet. So, it's a huge
drop in elevation. And the result is that the Kings has a big watershed
of around 1600 square miles and it much, much of that is very high in
elevation and so it has a big snow pack which it tends to spread out the
run, runoff season in average and above average water years.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just been curious, Tehipite Valley, where actually is
that? I confess that I do not know where that is.
>> Randy McFarland: Well, Tehipite Valley parallels and is located north
of Kings Canyon. And you can look into Tehipite Valley as you start down
the switch backs from Grant Grove on Highway 180 going into Kings Canyon.
You, if you look down you will see the junction of the middle Fork and
South Fork. And as a form to main stem of the Kings river and looking to
as you look to the left and looking north you're looking back into the
lower end of Tehipite Valley, tremendously scenic area. And as I say it's
very difficult to get into. I believe there's only one trail in and one
trail out from each end. And it's very seldom visited. I've been
fortunate enough to fly it once in a helicopter at fairly low elevation
and truly a spectacular flight, a gorgeous area. The, the lower end of
the Kings since we're talking about the origin of the Kings River, the
lower end of the river is as far as the--where the river emerges from the
foot hills near the town of Piedra below Pine Flat Dam onto the valley
floor and it goes through what we call the Centerville Bottoms, that's
the area east of Centerville on Sanger. And it's a low lying area and a
flood plain before Pine Flat Dam was built with very high water table.
Looks completely different than the surrounding valley floor rather heavy
forested and very, very lovely. But it is prone naturally to flooding
then the river goes down through the Reedley narrows past what's now the
City of Reedley and finds its way down to what is now the city of
Kingsburg and passes just south of the city of Kingsburg and crosses
Highway 99. And Highway 99 might as well be a great boundary because from
that point above there the river is largely unchanged over the past
several thousand years at least. We know from the lay of the land, north
of Kingsburg and east of Selma from swales that, that there are ancient
channels of the Kings River which existed. And went into southwesterly
direction but the river changed at some point thousands of years ago no
doubt and followed its course down to where it crosses Highway 99 South
of Kingsburg. From there on, the river is completely different in almost
all reaches for what it was under natural conditions. Some of those have
happened rather naturally, some of those changes. Others have been helped
along with the hand of mankind and for one reason or another. Some
actually happened accidentally as a result of floods. But the original
river flowed from Highway 99 about a half mile to the west where it made
a sharp left turn and went down into an area what's now Kings County and
looped around, made a loop around what is now Burris Park in Kingsburg.
It was an ancient Indian village site that was surrounded on three sides
by water, absolutely ideal location to be able to defend. And also they

have plenty of fish and game in the area, very lovely area. The, the
channel that is still there, that we call it the old river. All together
it's about nine miles long and it crosses highway 43 in the area east of
Laton on a bridge which says the sciences it's the Alcorn Bridge for the
Kings River. Almost never has water in it unless we have a big water year
and then that channel is used for ground water recharge purposes. What
happened was that the floods of 1861 and 1867, two of the greatest storms
that ever occurred, certainly that the biggest that ever occurred in the
recorded history of the state of California. Those storms ended up
carving an entirely new channel. A resident of the area south of
Kingsburg a man by the name of Cole had built a little canal out of the
river where it made it sharp left turn. Well, the flood came along and
just followed the canal and carved, literally carved a new channel. So,
what we call today Cole Slough south of Kingsburg and west of People’s
Weir which is a diversion structure west of Highway 99. Cole Slough looks
like a river, it acts like a river but it really isn't the river. It, uh,
the main Kings River is still south going around--going down where in the
old river channel but it hasn't actually served as a river for probably
since around 1870 or before. The Cole Slough then, there were a number of
channels on out west toward Laton and I want to attempt to describe them
to you all. But suffice it to say that along the way as across the
valley, the Kings River had other sloughs that peeled off to the south.
The natural lay of the land was to the south toward Tulare Lake. Tulare
Lake was the largest fresh water lake in the Western United States. It
occupied under natural conditions most of the Southern Kings County. And
part of Northern Kings County as well up to an area west of the City of
Lemoore as it exist today. The, the lake, Tulare Lake was formed actually
by the Kings River by the alluvial fan that was spread coming down from
the mountains across the valley. And it formed a natural damn, the dam
at, at its low point its crest was a spill away for Tulare Lake and it
had an elevation of 207 feet. When the water in Tulare Lake would reach
207 feet above sea level it would flow through a place called Summit
Lake. And that was located southwest of what's now Riverdale and near,
very near to Lemoore Naval Air Station. Summit Lake was the spill away,
it was a small permanent lake had a water little water in it all the
time, the water would spill from that into what was known as the Fresno
swamp, an area west of Riverdale and rather, oh, probably southeast of
San Joaquin and Tranquility, a huge area that was all marshland, wet
lands. And a whole bunch of channels that no longer there or can't really
be defined now. It was later reclaimed into very fertile farm land out
there. But the Fresno Slough is the general main channel through that
area that we call it today. It was a meandering channel it really never
carried much water until Tulare Lake overflowed and then it was all
flooded. Finally, in 1913 and 14 in that era, a series of smaller sloughs
and earlier canals that have been built in that area were expanded into a
flood control channel called the James bypass which still functions today
and serves as a link between the Kings River and the San Joaquin River.
But in between People’s Weir and the James Bypass there was another
section of river that we call the North Fork today that did not exist
under natural conditions. The, any water that reached from the Kings
River to the San Joaquin River had to go through some very small channels
that meandered their way across western Fresno County west of Laton
through the area North Riverdale onto the Fresno swamp and that would put
water into that. And some water did get that way, but it meandered that

what most of the flow, almost probably hard to say exactly but probably
90-95 percent in a regular under anything but a flood condition went
south into Tulare Lake. This huge expansion was also fed from the Kaweah,
the Tule and the Kern rivers and covered this massive area. The--in the
1872 of group of farmers out there in that Riverdale area built a, a
canal called Zalba canal that went on out toward this Fresno swamp area
to just to bring irrigation water from the lower end of the Kings River.
And subsequent floods widened it out and it too looks like a river, it
acts like a river. For all intents in fact we called it a river, we call
the North Fork of the Kings River. But it wasn't a river, in 19-, in
1872, it did not exist. The original North Fork was some distance
upstream and it was fill net so it doesn't even exist anymore. And there
were sloughs and canals that were--that were there then it weren't there.
And to the South harbor there was a series of sloughs which cut off
toward the south and southwest. And they took started peeling off flow
naturally off of this alluvial fan and went across what's now Kings
County through the Hanford area to the Lemoore area and the canals today
kind of follow some of those lines. But they ended up in Tulare Lake. And
so, not--there wasn't one big channel going down stream into Tulare Lake.
There were a whole bunch of channels and eventually the summary is canals
others were use-- just closed off and reclaimed for farmland. And today
we have pretty much a single channel that goes North through the North
Fork to James Bypass, that carries the basic flood release flows when we
have a big water year. And the South Fork which is also a part of its
reach to further confusing is called Clarks Fork for an early land owner
out there in that region. And the Clarks Fork South Fork system take
water gradually to the south and ends up at just west of Stratford on
Highway 41 were choose the control point the end of the Kings River at a
point called Empire number 2 where, where water is discharged into the
Tulare, Tulare Lake bed for irrigation and agriculture.
>> Thomas Holyoke: A couple little qualifying questions here. First off,
because it's always been my understanding that the Kings River is the
Northernmost River in the valley that does not flow into the San Joaquin
but everything--all rivers north of the Kings actually at some point
connect into the San Joaquin River. And you kind of mentioned that the
Kings turns south rather than north->> Randy McFarland: That's correct.
>> Thomas Holyoke: -- but that’s kind of a dividing point in there
between the southern flowing rivers and those that go into the San
Joaquin ultimately the Delta.
>> Randy McFarland: Yes that's correct. The Kings River was naturally
tributary to Tulare Lake and remains that we consider it that way today.
The only water from the Kings River that goes North is flood water and
that was a decision was made by congress long ago when it authorized Pine
Flat Dam to flood protect Kings County. So, by--after the Tulare Lake
cease to be a lake it was reclaimed due to the fact that the lake dried
up. The lake was full for the last time in 1878 and empty for the first
time in 1898 as a result of upstream diversions for a new canal systems.
And it took most of the water not just from the Kings but from the other
rivers. And so, the Kings and the Kaweah and the Tule and the Kern

occasionally during flood times would re-- would flood back into Tulare
Lake and parts would reappear. But Tulare Lake did get most of the water
from the Kings River and all of the water from the rivers further south
and the result was they're except for this flood flow that occasionally
occurred from-- from Tulare Lake into the Fresno swamp and then further
on downstream. The-- the, the Kings River really did not contribute, was
not tributary to the San Joaquin River. And thus, it today it is in, in
flood years. And that because the, the water is sent north in order to
not flood Tulare Lake.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Also a term that you’d use that some people watching
this might not be familiar with and that is alluvial fan could you just->> Randy McFarland: Sure, an alluvial fan it's a--basically it's a
geological term, I'm not a geologist but a river naturally will carry
sediment and sands. The Kings is a very pure river. The water quality is
exceptionally high because of the granite base of the Sierra Nevada. And
even in flood times they may get a little milky and chalky and look kind
of brown for few days but that settles out. But overtime given as much
time as the Sierra has been here millions of years perhaps a huge amount
of material has washed down from the mountain soils, granite, sand, the
area that is such valuable farmland in Fresno County imparts of Tulare
County and Kings County today is the result of wonderful soil that's
loose and very sandy in nature in many areas that is washed down the
Kings River. It naturally fell down and formed a kind of a ridge across
the valley. And so, this alluvial fan spread out. The soil was spread out
across the valley, Fresno is located on it much of the city of Fresno is
the area between Fresno and the Kings River is mostly all an alluvial fan
from the Kings River of the soil which has been deposited in the river
itself actually is on higher ground than the area to the South where
Tulare Lake is located. And so, the fan drops off slowly across Kings
County and that of course made sure that the, the water from the Kings
River would flow south instead of the North.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK thank you. Getting into some of the early
development on the river somewhat what you've already touch on. But I, I
gather that there was your development going on the-- on the upper
reaches of the river and maybe at the same time on some of the lower
reaches of the river. And so, I guess I would let you decide what you
might like to talk about first.
>> Randy McFarland: Well, let's talk about when the river first came to
be known. And it was the Indians note of course. The Native American
tribes that were located all along the river, they were real smart folks,
they didn't leave out on the valley floor because it was little more than
a dessert. There was no water, there were no trees; there was nothing
except for a seasonal grassland. And the river itself awaited discovery
by the-- by the first occupants in California from the European nations
course that was the Spanish and, and the Mexicans. In-- In 1804, Gabriel
Moraga who was a Spaniard, he was stationed at San Juan Bautista and he
was sent on an expedition of the interior which that time was the San
Joaquin Valley. It was very little known and he began explorations of
what turned out to be the entire central valley is the Sacramento and San
Joaquin Valley, probably named more features in the two valleys than

anybody else. One of the features he came across was the San Joaquin
River. He discovered it probably late in 1804 as he came down from
Pacheco pass. He also discovered Pacheco pass which he named west of Los
Banos. And he named the San Joaquin and he named it probably he may have
named it for a saint by the name of Joaquin or it could have been to
honor his father who's name was Joaquin. In any case it became the San
Joaquin River and the name of the valley was applied from the river.
Continuing to the east and then to the south, on January 5th of 1805, he
came upon a stream coming from the mountain south of the San Joaquin
River, it was running pretty high it was January. I guess there had been
some storms and it was a very favorable area. We don't know where he
camped on it. We think it most likely was probably somewhere in the area
around where Centerville is today out in that, that area but we just
don't know. The next day January 6th was the 12th day of Christmas, the
day of the epiphany. And Moraga named the stream he had found The El Rio
de los Santos Reyes, the river of the holy kings. And that's where the
name came from. Now, the discovery of the Kings River and a little bit
that was written about and then some other explorations that occurred did
absolutely nothing to put the river to what we today would call
beneficial use. That remained until they started to be some settlement in
the area. The-- the Spanish and then later the Mexicans really didn't
want anything to do with the San Joaquin valley. There were very few
settlements. What, were-- there were tended to be on the west side closer
to the outpost of civilization along the coast. And so, the, the east
side of valley remained pretty much undeveloped until the gold rush came
along. And then of course like anything else in California, in northern
California there were so many mostly young men who came out to California
and they try to strike it rich, most didn't. But very few wanted to go
back home to wherever home happened to be. They found that here in
California, they could make a life that they didn't have mom, dad, aunts,
uncles, grandma, grandpa looking over their shoulder. And-- and they
didn't have snow, they didn't have humidity. They had a--this garden that
was waiting to be created. And the-- it didn't look like a garden and it
look like a dessert and they called it a dessert. But somebody sure as
heck could tell what would happen when water was applied to it. And
they're starting to be some tricklement-- trickling of settlement down
the San Joaquin valley. And it-- it occurred along the San Joaquin there
was some gold mining up there. It, it came south of course Tulare County
was established before Fresno County because there was some settlement in
the what was known as the Fork Creek's country, the Delta-- the Quia
Delta area where Visalia came into existence in the mid 1850s. And Tulare
County was established from Mariposa County in 1852. Fresno County was
established in 1856 with almost all of the populations such as it was
located in the mining camps of what are now Madera County eastern Fresno
County and then Fresno County actually went over into the east side of
the valley or the east side of the mountains as well to the Nevada line
in those days. So, the Fresno County was--there was no farming or
anything here like that. But on the Kaweah River by the mid 1850s there
had been some experiments with irrigation. In 1858, some settlers in the
Centerville bottoms area this very lush area east of where Sanger is now
located built a small ditch out of the Kings River and they called it the
Bird Ditch, it still exists, it's a little tiny ditch in the Kings County
water district one of 16 canals that that agency operates with the best
water right on the Kings River because it's been the longest irrigated

among other things and it's basically all riparian. And so, the Bird
Ditch was built. Then a few years later they started to be some other
canals that were built into the same area, a real small imperfect
ditches. There was one which was built in the 1860s called the
Centerville Ditch. And it was a little bigger and it was different, it
came out of the river somewhere up in the area right around where the
Fresno canal does to this day which is near where the Friant Kern canal
crosses the King's River. And it was pretty well wiped out by the flood
of 1867 but that canal was rebuilt and it was important because it went
to the new town of Centerville. And the Centerville was different than
the river bottom because it was on high ground, there were bluffs out
there which are still are. And they-- these fellows had to be pretty
clever to engineer it so the canal could reach the high ground from the
low river and there was a trick involved if it's a clever engineering to
make it look like water flows uphill. There's actually couple of places
out there where that's still the case today. In 1870, actually a little
bit before that as in the late 1860s, AY Easterby who is from Northern
California and the name is preserved in a junior high school in Fresno to
this day. Easterby he acquired about 3,000 acres east of what's now the
Central part of Fresno and there was nothing else here at that time. He
planted wheat. Well, apparently at least in one of the first years or so
it was a wet year, the wheat grew great. And he was pretty impressed but
then it turned dry. We didn't grow so well but he'd seen enough to know
if you can have water on that crop, he-- anything would grow here. The
climate was perfect, the soil was perfect all he needed was water. So, he
would-- he knew, Easter, Easterby knew a man by the name of Moses J.
Church. Church was a sheep man basically. And that he was from Napa
County. He came down here and built and developed for Easterby the--what
is now the Fresno Canal. It was finished in 18--it was started in 1870
then serviced by 1871 and brought water to the Easterby wheat fields and
actually the canal was only a few miles long and took water to Fancher
Creek which is a natural creek that came out of the hills north of the
Kings River but it transported water out as it still does to this very
day into the Fresno area to the Easterby wheat field. And then there was
cause and effect the next year was the year that the Central Pacific
railroad was built down the valley. In the spring of 1872 in May when the
tracks reached a point about 10 or 12 miles south of the San Joaquin
River and inspection train came down with the president of Railroad,
Leland Stanford. The railroad had planned to build a major community a
division point on the railroad at the San Joaquin River. But when they
got to the point a few miles south of there and Easterby took Stanford
out to his wheat fields, Stanford saw the incredible transformation of
this area into a lush wheat field. In the spring time it was still green,
it was beautiful, everything else was dried out. He apparently realized
the incredible agricultural worth and potential of the region and ordered
that the division point and the new town be moved 10 or 12 miles to the
south and Fresno station came into existence where it is now located in
downtown Fresno. And that became the division point and very shortly the
city of Fresno began to boom or the town of Fresno so much so from 1872
to--and only two years it became the county seat. County seat was moved
from Millerton strictly because there was a water supply. Water made
everything happen on the-- the plains. Everywhere along the Kings River,
if there had been no water there would have been no settlement. As it
turned out the next canals that were built were built in the what we call

the lower river and what's now Kings County. The people's canal which
comes out of the river just below Highway 99, was built in 1872 and 1973.
Downstream, just just upstream from Laton, the Last Chance Canal always
my favorite name on the river. The Last Chance canal was own by the last
chance water ditch company about 1874 in that era. 1872 further
downstream a few miles the lower Kings River canal which later became
known as the Lemoore canal, well it's still known today was constructed.
And those are the senior water users on the-- on the lower end of the
river. On the north side of the river through that area was the Laguna de
Tache land grant. And it would eventually figure mightily and we'll
probably talk a little bit more about that into the huge squabble over
water rights that develop. But the development on the Kings in San--or
Kings River both upper river and lower continued and it continued
uninterrupted from 1870 until 1900. By 1900 virtually all of the canal
systems that we know today in the Kings River Service area were in place.
So, when Pine Flat Dam was built it wasn't like the France system and and
Friant dam which actually opened up a big area to irrigation on the Kings
River. Pine Flat Dam did not create the opportunity to irrigate because
it was already being irrigated. It just changed the timing of the water,
made it more practical to use. And we'll explain that a little bit more
later on. The canals that were build on the upper-end of the river in
1874 the Gould canal, which became the northern end of the Fresno system
and still exists today. In 1874-1875 the Lone Tree Channel, the first
small ditch down into the Kingsburg and Selma areas. In 1877-78 the
Centerville in Kingsburg Canal which linked Centerville and the Kingsburg
area with the branch going to where Selma was established. In 1883, the
Fowler Switch Canal located between where Fowler and Selma are now
located. And also that same year, the Alba can--what's now the Alba
Canal. At that time it was known as a system of the 76 land and Water
Company east of the river through what is now the Reedley, Dinuba, Orosi
and Traver areas. On the lower river, there were also many, many canals
that started to be built in various local areas. Some exist today, some
do not. There are actually probably been four or five canals and for
various reasons have no longer exist or gone out of service. Some lasted
only a few years. Some lasted for number of years. But, for the most part
the system of canals that we know today has been there since was
completed by 1900.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Who is building all these? This-- these would not be
public projects.
>> Randy McFarland: These were not public projects. These were all--they
were built basically by the farmers themselves. Some--well, they were all
canal companies in those days that were built. They--there were no public
irrigation districts at this time. These were all companies that were
capitalized by the farmers themselves through sales of stock. A few were
very well healed like the Fowler Switch Canal Company had a lot of
investors in it and was able to hire a lot of people to build the canal.
And to do a great deal more than build a better canal than some of the
earlier ones. The Centerville and Kingsburg Canal and the Fresno Canal
were pretty well they were built rather simply. The Centerville and
Kingsburg Canal is probably the best example of that. And I have if I can
find it from my book Water for a Thirsty Land perhaps something which
will explain a little bit about--all I have to do is find it here. The--

how the construction went and how they organized it. The Centerville and
Kingsburg Canal went through an area that basically was totally
undeveloped. It was--at that time, Selma was not in existence, Kingsburg
was, but a very, very small community it was-- what little farming there
was, was wheat, it was dry land farming. And so, the canal was going to
bring life to this area. And the people who lived there knew it. And they
organized this company. But, the company had no money. The farmers had no
money. So, the farmers decided that the canal, the Centerville and
Kingsburg Canal would be built on force account and they were the force.
They had an engineer by the name of John S. Urton [assumed spelling] from
Hanford. Mr. Urton had a reputation for seemingly being able to make
water flow uphill. And that was important at the head end because the
canal had to go from the river bottom. It went-- it went across the river
bottom from the river and there's a bluff sitting there and it had to get
up to the high ground. As he engineered it very cleverly in an incredibly
short reach, maybe a quarter of a mile long along the face of this bluff
and reach the high ground. To this day, you can stand there and you would
swear that that canal is going uphill. The water is flowing uphill and it
is not. The force itself had to build the canal. There was a man by the
name of George Otis [assumed spelling] who was one of the builders of the
canal, one of the founders of Selma. And he later wrote how this
occurred. And let me just read a little bit of this to you. And I think
it will explain--I said by the way a background in the book that the
engineer Mr. Urton had state the canals route. And he had calculated the
amount of soil that had to be removed from what he called chunks. That
was--and each farmer had a chunk that he was assigned to build. The total
numbers of interested ones and all of the branches was listed and
numbered. And the engineer so divided the excavation so that there was an
even amount of work to be done by each. Then each numbered one in order
was designated as, beginning at and so many feet from stake such and
such, how many going to another state. The numbered tickets were numbered
in order and put in a box, mixed. And at a meeting of the company were
drawn without looking in the box and was known as Mr. such and such's
chunk. Each one had an undivided right in the finished job. Mr.Otis said
that a shareholder then would take that information go out to the side of
the canal where the stakes have been driven. And when he looked at it and
saw the enormity of the task he faced, he saw light--he saw life in a new
light. And then the engineer later engineer of the canal described what a
shareholder had to do. The engineer had staked the ditch width on the
ground and had set slope stakes marking his idea of where the outside tow
of the levy should reach to according to the amount of excavation that
was necessary. Before beginning work on his chunk each man dug a hole as
deep as the cut required and drove a stake in the bottom of the hole with
its top as far below the surface as the cut required at that point. He
then plowed and scraped out each plowing until he plowed out the grade
stake. The canal was then considered finished at that point. In time, the
work was tested by the engineer and accepted or more work was required as
the occasion demanded. And so, this was basically done by hand or with
small slip scrapers. It was extremely tiring work. When they finished the
canal then the entire force went up to the head end and built the very
first section of the canal which is very difficult because it went
through cobblestones and built a head gate which had--they had to wade
into the cold water of the river and build the control structure and a
rock and brush them across the river to act as a weir to pull water to

get it into the canal. This was not for the timid. This was very
difficult work. And this was a scene that was repeated over and over on
all of the canals particularly in the 1870s. After that when there was a
little bit more wealth available more investment some of the canals came
to be better constructed by companies which did not have to rely on
farmers themselves. Farmers also then had to build laterals from short
canals to get from the main canal to their farms. Because there weren't a
lot of big distribution canals to convey the water. There had to be
smaller canals which are still are to this day. Most are pipelines now.
But, they—that, that was another bit of work and those had to be
maintained by the farmers themselves.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you happen to know what kind of crops that were
growing in the end of the 19th century with those [inaudible]?
>> Randy McFarland: Well, in the 1880s almost everything in this area was
grain, wheat, barley, oats as one big grain field. Fresno's early
development was built on grains so was Selma’s. Selma was basically a
boom town like a mining town but the—in, in the Selma area the richest
weren't mineral they were agriculture. And every year in, in all of these
towns Traver, later Dinuba, Fresno, Selma, Fowler when it came into
existence the-- these big grain warehouses were full of grain that were
being brought in and processed and loaded on to railcars and taken off to
who knows where. And this was a huge grain growing area but then
something happened. In the 1880s, there were a few folks who started
experimenting with irrigation water and plants other than wheat and
barley, grain crops. They thought that this climate being a Mediterranean
climate would be ideal for various types of fruit trees and grapes. And
so, almost overnight in the late 1880s and the early 1890s much of this
area turned into a huge grape-growing area. And the raisin industry was
born. The farmers were really good at making raisins. They weren't as
good at marketing them. And so, in the panic of 1894 the raisin industry
had its first total collapse and the whole area went into a depression
that was very serious. But basically, as each canal system opened up a
new area after that there was hardly any wheat being planted, it was all
permanent crops. The result was that by 1900 this area which is least a
portions of it that are still agricultural and have not undergone urban
development took on a look of grapes and fruit trees although not fresh
fruit because there wasn’t any way to convey it at that time for canning
purposes basically. It-- the countryside took on a look that it basically
has to this day. Well sure, there aren't paved roads, there weren't cars,
there weren't power lines but everything else looks pretty much the same.
And it-- it has full lot of people who have come along because almost
everybody here at one point or another they or their families came from
somewhere else. And the later arrivals who had no idea that we're talking
about what had been a desert here before irrigation. Looked at this--all
this farm land and all of the lushness and the green even the weeds that
grow everywhere. They looked at that, they have some sort of natural
condition. And it's totally man-made. It-- it basically, the result of
irrigation. Without irrigation, it would not exist. It's just that
simple.
>> Thomas Holyoke: A whole reengineered valley.

>> Randy McFarland: Very much so. Actually, one of the greatest
environmental impacts here and elsewhere in the valley that there ever
was. It took a natural native grassland that died back to look like a
desert when the heat hit every summer. And there was no water, there were
no trees, there was no nothing. It took that in the making of this garden
which we know today and setting the stage for the huge urbanization which
followed and talked about a change. It has been--and all of these things.
All of these canals made this possible. Were done without any kind of
public review. They just were done because that's how things were done in
those days. There were almost no--most of it was public lands had no
trouble giving rights away from the canals, things just kind of happen.
The land was in the public domain. So, the canal system which made all
this possible massive, massive environmental impact just was built and it
changed the face of the land forever.
>> Thomas Holyoke: With people buying or acquiring land and land rights
out here under things like the Homestead act->> Randy McFarland: Yeah. So, there's a lot of homestead land here. And
then, in--after the railroad system was built the civic railroad was the
line through Fresno and Selma and Kingsburg. And it-- it the railroad
company actually built the railroad itself paid for completely as far as
South as Goshen. But, from Goshen to the west across the valley there was
a branch line of the Southern Pacific that was there for many years. It
was supposed to have been a main line from San Francisco to New Orleans.
And it was a land grant railroad. And the railroad received sections of
land about roughly 20 miles on each side of the railroad, older sections
of land that were--that the railroad then could sell. And to recoup it
the cost of building the railroad and helping build its business. And of
course that led to the Mussel Slough Tragedy which a land issue rather
than a water issue. But, it, it also had the effect in much of Fresno
County and especially South--the Southern part of the county of keeping
partial sizes rather small unlike the West side of the valley where the
partial size--water and development came along much later. And land
parcels are much larger. Here basically no parcel could be bigger than a
section which was 648 acres it tended to be a quarter section 168 acres
or even less. And so, farms were smaller. And for small family farm
became the, the way of things very densely populated rural area
throughout and that remains true to this very day.
>> Thomas Holyoke: The Kings River as it flows down into the valley. By
the end of the 19th century, how much--any sense to how much of that
river was now appropriated in being used?
>> Randy McFarland: Well, it was--there's no way to look at the record
and-- and how-- figure out exactly how much of it was--none was being
regulated because there was no regulatory agency except for the courts.
The way it used to work was if somebody wanted to build a canal—If I
wanted to get out there and I wanted to build a canal from A to B which B
is somewhere out there away from the-- from the river. And I have-- think
it'd be just swell to build this canal. And I have a nice route picked
out. And I get out there and discover that you have been there first with
the same idea and have--you've made a claim, you've posted a claim and
recorded that claim with the county recorder. If you start perfecting the

claim by building the canal first, you have a better right to it than
anybody else does including me. First in time, first in right it was very
easy to make water claims. You just post your sign and had some real
flowery language on it. Went to the county recorder, filed it,
everything’s swell. There were some--well, over 300, maybe about 340
claims, to Kings River water that were filed overtime. The total amount
of water that was claimed--flow--now, this is flow we're talking about
not acre feet. We're talking about flow in cubic feet per second. Now,
first of all let's consider what is a river usually take, it flow in the
peak months, it carries 5 to 10,000 cubic feet per second, it's typical
except for the peak snow melt months which could--the natural flow could
go up to somewhere maybe 17,000 to 25,000 in a really big year. That's
quite a bit of water. When you have a big rain event. One of these
tropical pineapple type rain events that comes in with a huge amount of
rain on a snow pack in December or early January the river can go up to
100,000. And that's the biggest on the Kings River calculated natural
flow was around 110,000. The total that was claimed by these 340 some
filings was 750,000 cubic feet of water. Now, if you want to figure out
what that equates to--if you're familiar at all with the Ohio River at
Cincinnati was it flows by. In some of the bigger flood years it has
carried as much as 750,000 acre feet of water or cubic feet per second of
water. So, obviously there-- there were far more claims than there was
water in the river. And there was only one thing that could happen and
that was litigation. And there turned out to be--there's all sorts of
different figures of how many lawsuits there were--I've heard as many as
250 just say a whole bunch. So, most of them never came to trial but they
were a pain in-- to these farmers. They didn't have--farmers didn't have
any money. But here they are they're getting sued, they're suing. And the
attorneys--generations of attorneys on Kings River have made very
comfortable livings for-- for as a result of the water rights fights and
whole bunch of other things that in the development of the order which
came to be was not an easy task. And so, the water rights did not exist
on the Kings River except for these filings. And then, there started to
be court cases that-- that came up. But the biggest court cases initially
were not between the appropriators. The appropriative right of water in
California had been handed down from Mexican-California. That's what our
water law is based on today. First in time, first in right as we
described.
>> Thomas Holyoke: It's called the law of prior appropriation.
>> Randy McFarland: That's correct. That's right. And that would work
just swell had there not been another water right riparian rights. The
first legislature in 1850 at San Jose the one which was also known as
legislature of a thousand drinks in case it may have been a little
distracting but they--the legislature had a lot to do for new state, new
constitution, new everything. And they were-- knew they weren't going to
get around to covering every aspect of life. So, they adopted English
Common Law to cover everything that they didn't get around to
legislating. English Common Law including the notion of riparian rights
that had been imported to the Eastern United States from England worked
fine in the Eastern US where there's a lot of rain. And basically it
meant that no one could diminish the flow of a stream past a given point.
And except for other Riparian uses. Well, clearly on the Kings River,

here we have these new canals that have been built on the upper-end. We
have canals on the lower-end we have a couple of really big Riparian land
owners downstream from Kingsburg to near Riverdale on the right bank. The
north bank of the river was the Laguna de Tache land grant, Mexican Land
Grant. And on the South side of the river, about 12, 000 acres in what's
now the Lemoore area was the John Hyland Property. There was clearly
riparian it was right next to the river for its entire distance. And the
canal companies were down there that had been the earliest canal
companies were down there too. Well, with nobody saying who could do what
the-- is in dry years. The upper canals like the Fresno canal and the
Centerville and Kingsburg canal would open their gates and they were
quite capable of taking it-- when the river stated to drop there was no
storage. They were quite capable of drying up the river. And no water
would get downstream. And so, the-- the river was just made for
litigation at that point. But the litigation came not from the canal
companies initially. 1879 was a real dry year and that started some
rumblings downstream about riparianism, riparian rights. And it's a very
long story and I'm going to paraphrase it here. But basically, in 1883,
which was an even a drier year. The Kings River-- riparian, big riparian
users downstream. John Hyland started this off. And he filed a law suit
contending that his riparian rights were being ignored. He had the right
to this water undiminished past his property and the river is being dried
up, up stream. The-- one of the agencies he sued was the Centerville and
Kingsburg Irrigating Ditch Company. Now, these are the farmer same, same
guy that just built this canal and-- a few years before they still didn't
have any money. And all of a sudden they're handed a law suit. So,
they're going around trying to get people to donate and to a defense
fund. And one of the land owners in the lower end of the C and K System
was a cattle company called Poly Heilbron and Company. And they sent a
notice to Poly Heilbron and Company well it turned out the Poly Heilbron
and Company leased the 48,000 acre Laguna de Tache land grant which was
also claimed riparian rights. We won't go into the convoluted land
history and ownership history of that grant. There were other parties to
the grant Jeremiah Clarke from Clarks Fort was probably named was the one
who seemed to have it the most. And he had leased it, Clarke had leased
it to Poly Heilbron with an option to buy in the early 1890s. And Clarke
basically never figured and what went on. But Poly Heilbron did and they
had a manager by the name of S.N. Lillis [assumed spelling]. And Mr.
Lillis took a real hard nose and he probably did so because he was a one
fifth owner in the company and he had a, an obligation through an option.
That he had to come up with a huge amount of money hundreds of thousand
dollars which at that time was unheard of by 1891. And so, hit really he
had to make this thing work. He had to make the-- the grant work. And
we're doing some supposition here just based on the old records. But the
fact is that he wrote back to the C and K Company and said that he could
not-- Poly Heilbron would not contribute to their defense fund because it
had a similar complaint. And so, Poly Heilbron joined with the John
Hyland Group and started prosecuting these law suits. At the same time
there was a law suit from the Kern River known as Lux versus Haggin. The- the cattle company Miller and Lux which was so prominent along San
Joaquin River and always so smart enough, Henry Miller always knew to get
land right along the river. He had figured out what Riparian rights were
all about. And how valuable they were and the Kern River was no
exception. And in the case of Lux versus Haggin decided by the California

Supreme Court in early in 1887 the-- the case went against the canal
companies. And the farmers and in favor of the Riparian land owners. So,
all of a sudden in the next dry year which happen to be 1887 all sorts of
law suits were filed again that year. There'd already been injunctions
that had been put in place by against the canal companies from 1883 dry
year. Now, we have 1887 a dry year, excuse me, and the canal companies
are finding that legally they can't, they have no water to-- to deliver
because the court has ordered that these canals be closed. There were
other events which occurred along the way and I should mention 1883.
Sometimes these events were between canal companies of 1883 there was a
celebrated case in which the Fresno canal was taking all the water out
the river in that dry year. And the C and K users about the time they
were getting sued weren't getting any water. And Fresno refused to give
them any. And they solved the problem by W.H. Shafer who was the engineer
for the company went to Visalia accompanied with a few others. and
purchased dynamite and they took it up to the Fresno head gate which is
Fresno weir at that time was a rock and brush dam. They set, they knew
from having turn the water off once to the Fresno canal that the--and
they superintendant of the Fresno Canal came up to see what was wrong.
They knew who was responsible. And they blew the dam out of the water.
And the result was Selma for a couple of critical weeks in August of 1883
had water save their crops. And Fresno did not have water and just
happened to be an excursion train come though during that time and Selma
had water and Fresno did not they--the plan had been that it would go the
other way around. But 1887 was different, it was the riparian users who
were pressing the injunctions. And we can tell you a little bit of what
happen because this happened over and over. And again I'm going to read
from the book--my book Water for a Thirsty Land as soon as I can find the
right page here. I have a chapter in this book called, Riparian
Rebellion. And basically what happen was that the farmers themselves
rebelled against what they felt was an unjust English law that they were
under, really in a way was a lot like the Boston Tea Party, I mean the
American Revolution. And they seized canal control of the canals. One of
these canals was the Centerville and Kingsburg Canal. Poly Heilbron was
making life miserable. S.N. Lillis was basically a hated man. And--but he
had, he had the upper hand and had these injunctions. And so, on March
12th, 1887 the Selma irrigator reported this. Last Monday, March 7th, the
directors of the C and K Canal noticed water running in their canal,
remember it had been shut off. And they ordered Superintendent Shafer to
go and shut it off. In company with John Stroud [assumed spelling] he
went to the head gate and undertook to close it. When he touched the
gate, a man arose from the bushes nearby. He had a barley sack over his
head with the eyeholes cut in it and carried a very formidable looking
shot gun which was pointed directly at Shafer. "You let that gate alone,”
was the first salute. Shafer informed him that he was the superintendent
of the canal and had been ordered by the courts to shut the gates. The
man in the sack spoke again, "I don't propose to argue that question with
you. You let that gate alone and get out of here." His fingers were on
the trigger of the gun and as the argument thus presented was decidedly
forcible Shafer decided again. Shafer later wrote and this is from my
text that the willows around the gate were filled with armed men. Well
Shafer returned to Kingsburg where the office of the company was. And
told directors what had happened. The President of the Board was I.N.
Parlier for whom the town of Parlier was later named. He intimidated that

the superintendent had not been persistent enough, Mr. Shafer wrote. Mr.
Shafer at once invited the President to accompany him to the gate on the
next day. The whole board decided to go along. They were not allowed to
get on the gate at all. And also that day I didn't include it in here.
But there was at least one shot fired. No one was ever hit in these
incidents. But the-- they were willing to resort to violence. Well it's
also interesting to note who was this man, who was the spokesman? He was
pigeon toed and he had walked with this unusual gait, as you would
expect.
>> Thomas Holyoke: He's the man in the burlap sack.
>> Randy McFarland: The man in the burlap sack, that's right. And a few
weeks later Mr. Shafer was walking down East Front Street in Selma and
this is--he later related this in his writings. And he saw a man with the
same stride coming toward him. He was looking down and that Shafer later
described the encounter, "I had no idea who the man would be. When he
neared me I raised my head looked at the man and said why Reverend
DeMumdrum [assumed spelling] haven't we met somewhere before?" The
Reverend J.M. DeMumdrum of the United Brethren Churches of Selma said,
"It could be Mr. Shafer, it could be." There were other cases like this
on the Fowler Switch, on the Alta System, on the Fresno Canal where the
farmers themselves took control of the water because they were enjoined
by the court from delivering it. So basically there was no legal water
being delivered and the value of the irrigated land was removed. And this
was the problem that thus presented itself leading into 1890s. That was-there was--one historian wrote, "It was the relationship that the horse
thief has to the horse stolen. And so there was no value in it. The water
was still there. They continued to farm. But in 1891 this Laguna Grant
situation came to a hit. The land options had to be exercised. And Poly
Heilbron couldn't afford to do it. The economy was going bad. And--but-and the Jeremiah Clark group had to sell, they were--they wanted—they
wanted out of it. And they were going to exercise the option. But there
was somebody who was desperate for water by that time. The owner of the
Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company was Dr. E.B. Perrin. Dr. Perrin had
bought the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company from Moses Church few
years before that. And he had run around the Fresno area as had Mr.
Church selling water rights to individual farmers. They didn't sell stock
in the company. They sold water rights for 50 year licenses throughout
the Fresno Company--service area. And unfortunately for them the court
had allowed the Fresno Canal to only divert 100 cubic feet per second. At
least they got something. But clearly this huge area around Fresno, a
couple hundred thousand acres that was already being irrigated by the
Fresno Canal System could not provide enough water for this--for the
people who had the water rights and they were furious. He was-- Perrin
was desperate. And so in 1891 he secured funding and financing from a
group of English insurance companies. And with that--with that financing
he put the whole for collateral--the whole value of the Fresno Canal and
Irrigation Company up. And he got this financing and went down and bought
the Laguna de Tache grant. Well he really wasn't terribly interested in
cattle ranching down there as Poly Heilbron had been. What he wanted was
the water because Poly Heilbron had to secure riparian rights on this
land and basically control the river. In 1892 there were two deeds that
were-- were approved and basically through-- it's another convoluted

thing that only a title insurance person could probably appreciate. But
the bottom line was these two deeds transferred the better part, not all,
but the better part of the low flows of the Kings River under about 2,500
cubic feet per second with the exception of maybe 900 to 1,000 in
between. They transferred these flows the right to them to the Fresno
Canal and Irrigation Company. The water was transferred up. It was
literally floated uphill to the Fresno head gate where it has been ever
since. And as the basis of Fresno's favorite water right that and the
fact that Fresno was a senior appropriator. And what was the value of
this? What was paid-- course this was the case of Dr. Perrin paying
himself by that point. It was 1 dollar, the most valuable water right on
the Kings River. Then in the next couple of years as the Depression hit
in the panic of 1894, Dr. Perrin for-- was foreclosed upon. He couldn't
make his payments. He left town and the English Syndicate took over the
system. And that was in the--about 1894. And they sent a man by the name
of L.A. Nares to Fresno to manage the system. Mr. Nares, for whom the
town of Lanare in Western Fresno County is named, was a very fair man. He
was aware that he controlled the river and he didn't like the idea of
hogging all the water in the river. He knew that there were some other
claims for very old water claims. And he had an idea for scheduling
water. Built-- developing a water schedule to say who was entitled to
what water. And he proposed in 1897, a conference to among the senior
proprietors on the river to talk about and was told we can't do this. And
he asked, "Why not?" and he said, "Well the attorneys will not permit
it." Well as he--I think we all understand--we understand the reason why
the attorneys would not permit it. He came up with a very sensible
solution. Mr. Nares did and said that we will sit without the attorneys.
And progress started to be made. The first water schedule on the Kings
River was developed for the very low flows of the Kings River up to about
2,500 cubic feet per second in 1897. It involved the Fresno Canal and
Irrigation Company, the People's Ditch Company, the Last Chance Water
Ditch Company, and the lower Kings River Company which is now the Lemoore
Canal. Plus, since Fresno own the Laguna Grant there was a provision made
that the two canals that went across the Laguna Grant Murphy Slough and
the Laguna Canal would have a continuous flow of 15 cubic feet per second
at very least in order for--there'd be stock water on the ranch for-- is
still a cattle ranch. And this number--these numbers and this schedule
were the first Kings River water schedule. So well done in fact that they
are still in use today as the low flow numbers of those same units still
hold to this very day. And that was the beginning. But it was by no means
a settlement of the whole dispute.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well unless there's more to that, I don't know if it’s
we could get in to some of the development of irrigation districts along
the Kings River.
>> Randy McFarland: Well I think we need to understand that the
development of irrigation districts was very much tied to the uncertainty
over water rights and water supply. The earliest days on the Kings River
were--there were no irrigation districts. There were no public agencies
at all. The canals were built by canal companies. Then there--in the era-oh, in the early 1880's, there was a gentleman, a lawyer from the
Modesto Area named C.C. Wright who had an idea of public ownership of
irrigation facilities already there were all these problems with water

rights that were developing. And he thought that maybe a public system
would be the way to go. And so Mr. Wright elected to the assembly and on- basically on an irrigation platform and he proposed what was known as
the Wright Act. Essentially that is still in use. It’s changed a lot,
gone through various convolutions over time. But the Wright Act is still
basically what irrigation districts in California are organized under.
The first irrigation district in this area was the Alta Irrigation
District. Now the Alta System had been built as-- by the 76 Land and
Water Company in 1883. Within a couple of years the landowners in the
Alta Irrigation District who were also being sued by the downstream
owners of the riparian users and the other canal companies who were-didn't like the idea of the upper districts taking all the water. The
growers in that area, the landowners started a movement to form under the
Wright Act, a-- a water--an irrigation district. And they were
successful. The Alta Irrigation District was established in the movement-I believe it was in 1887. And the Alta District then acquired the canals
from the 76 Land and Water Company and typically what this was done the
way it was done the canal companies usually came out in really good shape
on this. There were some cases where hundreds of thousands of dollars or-and maybe even a couple case over a million dollars was paid to a
private company by the farmers who sold bonds, approved bonds in order to
do this to get rid of the private canal company. In the Alta Case, the
Alta Irrigation District became the first Irrigation District in
California to actually deliver water. It was the second irrigation
district formed, the first to deliver water. Several other districts were
then formed on the King' River. Most notably in about the same time was
the Selma Irrigation District which was going to be a couple of hundred-well it was a couple of hundred thousand acres. But there were three
elections held. They never could get approval from the landowners to buy
the bonds after the--because the landowners felt too much money was going
to be paid to the private companies. And on the west far west side of the
valley was the Sunset Irrigation District which is located now pretty
much where the Westlands Water District is located. And it had filed a-it had a scheme in order to move 3,000 cubic feet per second of Kings
River water to the west side pump it up and irrigate the area that
Westlands is now located in. Had it come into being it would have
rewritten Kings River history. But instead what happened was after only
two or three years the Fresno County Superior Court ruled that the
district did not exist because it had been fraudulently formed. And that
was the end of the Sunset Irrigation District. There were a couple of
other smaller ones and there's still some to this day that had-- formed
irrigation districts that have never operated. But starting in the World
War I era there was an--a big effort. There had been efforts made to
develop water rights on the Kings River. Typically these were being done
through agreement or court decision between-- in various lawsuits. They
were also done through purchases of canal companies. One of the-- the
most interesting involved Fresno. And that was the old Fresno Canal and
Irrigation Company. In about 1900 the Centerville and Kingsburg Canal
Company was taken over by its own secretary who had been acquiring stock
in it. And he was able to control--get a controlling interest. He then
got a controlling interest in the Fowler Switch Canal and formed the
Consolidated Canal Company. That's where the name consolidated in the
irrigation district came from. Then right after that in the next couple
of years about 1903 he sold the Consolidated Canal Company to the Fresno

group which didn't go over well with the Selma and Kingsburg and Fowler
growers. But all-- they didn't have a say in it. Here all of a sudden
Fresno owns their water supply. It was the best thing that could have
happened. Because Fresno was the only agency on the river that actually
had a right to the water. And they could extend water rights or make
water available to their own companies. They also-- they owned the Laguna
Grant and down there the water rights were extended and more water was
made available up in the Riverdale and latent areas. The--as time went on
and the World War I era came-- came along the Fresno Canal and Irrigation
Company still this English Syndicate of insurance companies wanted to get
out of the irrigation business. And they encouraged the formation of
public irrigation districts in several areas. So, the Fresno Irrigation
District came along in 1920, 1919, 1920, the Laguna and Riverdale
Irrigation Districts were formed. A few years after that, the
Consolidated Irrigation District was formed. And the whole idea was
twofold. First of all that public ownership would be better under the
Wright Act then the private companies which wanted to get rid of the
canals, and secondly by that time Pine Flat Dam was under serious
construction, not construction but serious consideration for development.
It-- that had started in 1913 and 14 and it was--it was felt that having
public agencies would be better in many areas than private canal
companies in order to make this huge obviously public type program come
together. A lot of uncertainty in it, it was a very general in the
thinking. This was all new to these people. And it didn't really work out
that way exactly, but it-- it was a start. And so the irrigation
districts were formed largely in the Kings River service area. There were
a couple of other like James Irrigation District that was a little
earlier, Empire West Side Irrigation District on the west side that came
along perhaps a bit later and a few others that have never really
operated. But these irrigation districts and some--there's a couple of
reclamation districts and a water storage district and at least one water
district that was much later in 1950-51 when the Kings River Water
District in the Centerville Bottoms, they're organized under different
laws. But they still are public agencies. On the Kings River there were
13 public agencies to this--at this time that hold vested water rights
and 15 mutual water companies that still exist. And those are mostly-well they are all in the lower river downstream and the big ones are
still people's last chance in Lemoore, but there were several others as
well.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just gonna interrupt here for a second. Can you sort
of explain a little bit what the difference is between an irrigation and
a water district?
>> Randy McFarland: It's a matter of law. In the--an irrigation district
and is a setup under some--a whole different section of the water code
than a California Water District is. And a lot of it deals with ownership
and many water districts like the Westlands Water District which is not
in the Kings River service area. Water districts landownership will
decide elections. And it'll be--in other words the--it might be an
acreage sort of thing that so many votes per acre or a vote for so many
acres that you own and so a larger landowner would carry more weight than
an individual landowner just a single vote in a--in an irrigation
district. That's probably one of the biggest differences. There's some

other things. It's all a matter of law and reclamation districts are
different beyond that as well. They typically--as their name implies were
to reclaim land, there’s some reclamation districts only one of which has
water rights on the Kings in the Tulare Lake Bed and then another small
district out in the southern end of the Fresno swamp area, former area
called the Clark's Fork Reclamation District which is the smallest public
district and water unit on the Kings River less than 2000 acres.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Another question. When these irrigation districts
reformed did they then purchase or maybe condemn the water rights from
the canal companies?
>> Randy McFarland: They didn't condemn it. They would negotiate and it
would then hold a bond election that might be successful as it was in
Fresno, you know, or Alta or Laguna or Riverdale or/and ultimately
consolidated which was formed after the Selma Irrigation District failed.
Interestingly in that case the Consolidated Irrigation District, the
first steps to form it were taken six months before the last steps were
taken to dissolve the old Selma Irrigation District on the same
territory. It--but the--typically within a fairly short time, within a
year or two the irrigation district would purchase the water works from
the canal company and take over the system. And in a few cases that was
not done. There are couple--as I mentioned a couple of irrigation
districts in this day-- to this day, one which is rather interesting the
Stinson Irrigation District on the west side has never delivered water,
but it owns the canal system and leases it the Stinson Canal Company
which has always operated its system down on the lower end of the North
Fork system. So they can take like all water in California, water is a
very local thing. We tend to see that is broad brushed. People want to
say well we should apply the same rules to everybody, everybody should be
exactly the same. Well it isn't that way. We have very large districts
like Fresno with 200 and--well something like 220 some thousand acres. We
have Clarks Fork which is less than 2000 acres. We have mutual water
companies that have stock ownership that some of the stock owners may not
be in the primary service area. And that's the case in a couple of areas.
Everybody has their own way of doing business. Their procedures are
different. The only thing that's really the same is the water and even
the amounts of water turned out to be different the way it was finally
settled in when we get into the development of water rights on the Kings.
>> Thomas Holyoke: OK, so that being--so I sort of pulled you out of your
story here.
>> Randy McFarland: That's all right.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I think we were getting into post World War I area.
Some thoughts on Pine Flat Dam to develop but although I think that came
later and yeah, so.
>> Randy McFarland: Yeah, Pine Flat Dam was first thought of as I
mentioned around--well it’d been talked about for years. But it had--it
was really developed or considered--the consideration began--the strong
political movement began 1913 and 14. And what happened then was that as
the years went by the next few years the--there was no federal money or

state money to build a dam. The early projects in the San Joaquin Valley
further north on the Stanislaus, the Tuolumne, the Merced Rivers had been
built by the local farmers themselves. The early projects in the San
Joaquin Valley, Northern San Joaquin Valley and the Merced, the Tuolumne
and Stanislaus rivers had been built by the farmers themselves through
irrigation districts. But those districts pretty well control their own
water rights. The Kings' water rights were a mess. There was no overall
jurisdiction. There were all these lawsuits that were still hanging out
there. And the farmers began to realize if we're ever going to do this
then we have to settle our water rights. And so they really turned from
pursuing the development of the dam to trying to find a solution to the
water rights. And in 1917, the users on the river, the various canal
companies and districts got together which they didn't always do because
the lower river didn't like the upper river. But they did jointly agree
to ask the state division of water rights to send a hydrographer, an
engineer to Fresno to help them develop water rights. And to do so they
needed a lot of information. They needed measurements. They had to know
how much water was being taken in the various canals, how much water was
flowing. There had been measurements on the Kings River itself at Piedra
where Piedra is now located since 1895. And those records still exist and
they’re continuous. But there weren't very good records on who was
diverting what water along the way. And so the-- the state asked a man by
the name of Charles L. Kaupke, if he would be interested. And the story
is that Mr. Kaupke was told it would be a temporary assignment. It
wouldn't take long, he’ll only be in Fresno for six, seven months. Well
he was here for 40 years which gives you some idea of how fast things can
happen on the Kings River. And it's--it's kind of a joke on the Kings
River that nothing happens quickly. And that he--actually the reason Mr.
Kaupke was here all that time is his work was so satisfactory and he was
such a fair man, fair individual. So even tempered and reasoned that he
built trust among the different parties. And in 19--the late teens he was
asked to serve as a one year water master. It was a dry year and they
wanted to see if they can get some sort of order into it just on--based
on some temporary agreements. And he did a fine job. And he became the
water master at that time on a--on a year by year basis at that point
still working for the state. 1920, they were able to develop an interim
water schedule which included essentially the entire river although the
South Fork was not a part of it, the Tulare Lake area. And there were-there was only one schedule for the entire year with a few exceptions but
it was a beginning. There were some changes made in the next few years.
And there were some disputes over it. It didn't always work well. But the
movement was clear toward a permanent agreement on the Kings River. And
that was reached in 1927 when the Kings River Agreement was signed. And
the Kings River Water Association, a private association membership in
which were the originally 19 water right holders on the Kings River, that
did not include the Centerville Bottoms, it did not include the Tulare
Lake area. But what was included was a water schedule, three engineers
worked for about two years, worked very hard to develop not just one
schedule but 12 water schedules. And by a water schedule I mean they were
taking the flow of the river in 100, 200, 300, 400 and so forth cubic
feet per second as it was occurring at Piedra. And at each point on the
schedule you look at this chart. So well let’s say the flow at Piedra was
400 cubic feet per second. You would look across and see your favorite
canal company or irrigation district say, Fresno for example. Look there

at 400, see what Fresno was entitled to divert? That's how much water
they got. They were scheduling the amount of water some obviously at the
low flows, most agencies didn't get any. The--they were--there are some
units that are in the middle of the schedule and a whole bunch in the
lower river that are at the high flow end of the schedule. The river has
to be up to 7, 8, 9,000 cubic feet per second before they get any water.
And that was agreed upon but not just one schedule. It had been found by
then that a single schedule for a year didn't work very well. There were
a lot of complaints about it. And there was, you know, a controversy. So
they developed 12 schedules, one for every month of the year. They took
into consideration when the various canal companies and districts
historically used water. For example, Alta at that time, the Alta system,
on the east side of the valley was still a big wheat growing area. And in
October and November they won't irrigate. And so to this very day the
Alta Irrigation District is a low flow district. They are entitled to low
flows in October and November and then after that they go higher on the
schedule or drop down to the higher flows if that makes any sense. It-but it, it worked from month to month and it-- and it brought a good deal
of order. Now the Centerville Bottoms were not included and the Tulare
Lake area chose not to be included, but the schedule left water
anticipating they would eventually come in and-- for them-- they didn't
schedule all the water. There were a whole series of things that went
into it. This was a masterpiece of compromise and common sense. They
started from the perspective, these engineers did, that the goal was to
provide two acre feet of water per acre which--and that they assumed the
ground water would be used as it basically has been in most areas to make
up for anymore crop needs. So from the beginning they were looking at a
conjunctive use of ground water and surface water for a whole water
supply. But they used two acre feet as the-- as the basic starting point.
Then they looked at prior agreements between the units. There were a
whole bunch of court decisions that were out there. Some of them didn't
make much sense, they were all complicated. There were a lot of other
agreements that Fresno with Consolidated and Laguna and Riverdale
providing water supply to them. There were--there was also the matter of-you wouldn't give a district more water or a unit more water than it
could actually divert. So the size of the canal determined maximum flows
at various times. All of this went together and in 1927 the water sched-the first water schedule of the Kings River was put into play and it was
adopted. It was a big step in the right direction. In 1930 a South Fork
schedule was developed internally by the Tulare Lake Units on how they
would agree to the--to the water and it was going their way. There were—
there were had also been disputes over time over the division of water at
the lower end. One of the unique factors on the Kings River makes
different from most other rivers is on the lower end the river divides.
Now remember we said originally it all went to Tulare Lake. But after the
North Fork system was created by flood that opened up an area along the
North Fork. And so the division of water out there was long a controversy
and that had to be worked out. And it’s way too complicated to get into-in this discussion. But the—it, it was eventually worked out and-- and is
in place to this very day. Now the schedule of 1927 was not the final
word in it. And-- it was realized when Pine Flat Dam-- came to be--was
going to be developed. That the river had to be--there had to be a
broader schedule. The original schedules did not cover hardly any of the
upper flows of the river. And that remained a problem what was called

over schedule, water was fought over and argued over and cajoled over.
And so there was an attempt made with the new water schedule and it. This
took like two or three years to develop from 1946 to 1949, to develop a
broader water schedule that included the Tulare Lake interest, brought
them on board, made provision--more firm provision for the Centerville
Bottoms area. And began and covered the higher--some of the higher flows,
much higher flows up to around 10 or 11000 cubic feet per second. And it
led to discussion on how to operate the river under storage conditions.
Now you think, "Well, gee, that's not a--that shouldn't be very
difficult. They do it now all the time." At the time no one knew anything
about running a river under storage conditions. They didn't know how
make--how big Pine Flat Reservoir needed to be. They-- they had an idea
of what their irrigation demand was, they thought it was around 600,000
acre feet. But then how much more should they have in there for flood
control and how was that going to be handled. And-- and there were water
rights that were set aside for storage and they really weren't sure how
that was all going to work. Plus they had to figure out how to work the
channel losses. Channel losses are a big thing on the Kings River. And
that's the amount of water that's loss to seepage so the water goes
downstream. Under natural conditions it didn't matter if you're taking
the run of the river, you take what the, the--what's in the river that
you're entitled to at that point. But under scheduled conditions of
certain amounts being released, certain amount is being delivered is
there any means of making that up. And they--they didn't have an idea on
that for a long, long time. And finally came up with a system of creating
a pool to cover the channel loses downstream. And so in some years, in a
real dry year it might not be available. But other times it is. And they-that makes up the-- that way the amount of water that's being lost to
percolation in the river channel is not resulting in a necessarily in
some years in being a huge loss at the head gate of the canal downstream.
All of these things had to figure in. And that had to all be done before
they could come up with the final agreement to operate the river under
storage conditions. And that occurred in 1963. That was nine years after
Pine Flat Dam was built. Now Pine Flat Dam's construction, remember we
said that it was originally thought of in 1880. In 1900 there was a study
by the state which looked at the sight of Pine Flat and recognized it'd
be an ideal dam site. 1914 they’re talking about the dam. It's getting
serious into the 1920s. But then the economy went bad and the Great
Depression came along. There was no way they were going to build a dam.
So they concentrated on the development of the water right system and the
operation of the Kings River Water Association until the 1930s and they
ever got really serious to build Pine Flat Dam. And there were two
schools of thought on how this should be done. The Kings River ended up
siding with the US Army Corp of Engineers, which had been assigned by
Congress to handle flood control in the country. The Corp of Engineers
was fine with the Kings River Water Association managing the river except
during flood releases. There's a--to this day we have a flood control
criteria in Pine Flat Reservoir, at a certain point the Corp takes over
the operation of the river because they can't let Pine Flat get too full.
They have to if it gets--starts to encroach in the flood control space
then the Corp of Engineers will order flood releases. Our system of water
rights is developed under storage conditions so that it basically becomes
a free river. Everybody should and is encouraged to take all the water
they can under flood release. And that helps bring the reservoir down

into--back under control again and hopefully then will leave it with a
full reservoir for what it'll be a really great water year. Well the Corp
of Engineers was willing to let the Kings River Water Association be in
total charge of the river at all the other times and that was great
because the other agency that wanted to build Pine Flat Dam was the US
Bureau of Reclamation as part of the Reclamation program under the--and
the Central Valley Project. Of course, Friant, the Friant system, FriantKern Canal, the Madera Canal, the San Luis Unit out on the far west side,
the Delta-Mendota Canal, that's Tehama-Colusa Canal up north are all part
of the Central Valley Project. And the Bureau of Reclamation seeing the
potential power benefits on the Kings River wanted the Kings River to be
part of the Central Valley Project. And actually did its own feasibility
study for Pine Flat Dam at the same time that the Corp of Engineers was
doing a feasibility study. And both came up with the same size dam for
the same size reservoir as it was built, one million acre feet. That was
the only thing that was the same about it because the Central Valley
Project would have resulted in Kings River water going elsewhere and
that--there was nothing being reclaimed by this project. It was a matter
of flood control was the primary purpose and timing releases of water to
better times of the year. When water was--when water was needed most in
the hot summer, but it was in short supply because the snow melt run off
was was over. And that has been the big benefit of Pine Flat. The Pine
Flat System was a Corp project in the minds of the Kings River water
users from day one. And they fought the Bureau of Reclamation. The Corp
of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation fought each other for several
years over who was going to build it. And ultimately in the Flood Control
Act of 1944 and of course there's a lot more to all of these stories and
we’re-- we’re just we’re-- we’re really glossing it over. But in the
Flood Control Act of 1944 Pine Flat Dam was authorized as a Corp of
Engineers project. And several other Corp projects around the nation were
authorized at the same time. Pine Flats’ ground breaking was held in
1947. Construction did not start immediately. And that's because
President Truman after he took office after the death of President
Roosevelt ordered that the repayment and storage contracts for Pine Flat
be negotiated not by the Corp of Engineers whose going to operate the
project but by the US Bureau of Reclamation who had just been handed its
head on a plate and a humiliating defeat to the Corp of Engineers on
whose going to build the project, but they were going to get to negotiate
the contracts. So needless to say the negotiations did not go well. And
they went on and on and on. In-- in fact there was a delay. The Corp was
delayed in starting construction on the dam by the Bureau of Reclamation
over the-- these disputes. And it was not until really 1948 and '49, that
construction began, the dam was finished in 1954 when it was dedicated.
It was then-- by then efforts had been made on the Kings River, they knew
they were going to have to deal with the Bureau of Reclamation. The
bureau made it clear that they did not want to negotiate with a bunch of
private water companies as we have a lot of on the Kings River in those
days, we still do, they wanted a single public agency. Well, there were
no-- was no such thing at that time. The water rights were held in trust
at that point by the Fresno Irrigation District for everybody else, but
Fresno didn't represent the whole area in terms of its land mass. So, the
Kings River Water Association led the development and establishment in
1951 of a public agency, the Kings River Conservation District. So, ever
since then we've had two agencies, the Kings River Conservation District

has no water, but is a great support agency and was fundamental in
developing and negotiating the water storage and repayment contracts with
the federal government, US Bureau of Reclamation, including nine years of
interim contracts, temporary contracts in which the water users were
allowed for a dollar-fifty and acre foot that was released for irrigation
to store water in Pine Flat. And they did that until the permanent
agreement was reached in 1963.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I-- few questions I like to come back to here.
>> Randy McFarland: Sure.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Back when the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corp
were fighting over who is actually going to do it, you mentioned that the
bureau wanted to tie Kings River into the much larger Central Valley
Project, would that actually involve then moving Kings River water to
places that it wasn't going otherwise?
>> Randy McFarland: Conceivably it could have, because the Friant-Kern
Canal was being developed and it crosses the Kings River just above the
Fresno Canal Head Gate, and Fresno Weir northeast of Centerville and it
actually is possible through pumping to get water into the Friant-Kern
Canal, that’s done at times as a flood mechanism to move water to Kern
County from--and keep it from flooding more area in a really big water
year. But-- the, it conceivably could've been possible to divert into the
Friant system or somehow through some--there were a bunch of other canals
that were envisioned of the east side system of the Bureau of Reclamation
that was never built, would've brought more surface water down into this
area. It, it's possible that the Kings River could've been integrated
into it, but it was never done, it's really never planned. But the-- the
biggest integration would've been power. Pacific Gas and Electric Company
had developed the North Fork system on the Kings River. And they started
with a stream flow power plant in 1927 at Balch Camp, above where Pine
Flat Reservoir is located now. They wanted to build a couple of
reservoirs up there and more power houses on the North Fork of the Kings,
but the water users wouldn't let them until Pine Flat was built. When
that occurred in 1954, Pine Flat Reservoir as big as it is became the
after bay for this Kings River power system, that PG&E ended up
developing and they also developed Courtright and Wishon Reservoirs on
the North Fork of the Kings which are much smaller than Pine Flat but
still figure into very valuable water storage. So, the Bureau of
Reclamation saw that the potential for that power project up there and
wanted to build exactly what PG&E did, and but they--then wanted to be
able to sell the power, take the revenue and run with it, but also have
water available too.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I also heard it said that one reason that water users
didn't want the Bureau of Reclamation do Pine Flat dam is because that
would subject the whole project reclamation along the time reclamation
law had some rather strict acreage limitation of 160 and that-- lot of
water users preferred to avoid that is->> Randy McFarland: And that was absolutely true on the Kings River but
they didn't avoid it, not for many years. After the 1963 agreement was

established, the Bureau of Reclamation went ahead and started imposing
reclamation law on the Kings River. That was fought politically. It was
fought legally. The-- actually in the 1963 agreement it was agreed by the
bureau and the Kings River users that there would a test case in in
federal court over whether reclamation law would apply or could apply in
a project such as the Kings where everything was billed and paid for.
And-- the ultimately the trial court said it did not apply, but that was
later overturned on appeal and the US Supreme Court would not hear the
appeal and so that became--the reclamation law was applied to the Kings
River and not until the passage of the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982
where Corps of Engineers project such as the Kings River removed from
reclamation law, and it no longer applies.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I also heard that President Roosevelt had really
wanted the Bureau of Reclamation to do the Pine Flat Dam Project. I'm
assuming it was because I think vigorous advocacy by area members of
Congress that ultimately went to the Army Corps.
>> Randy McFarland: The Bureau of Reclamation was seen by at least in the
Kings River and others in the San Joaquin Valley throughout the state is
having a social agenda, out of the new deal which they wanted to impose
on California agriculture and control it through controlling the water
supply. On the Kings River, the farmers control the water supply, as they
still do through their irrigation districts and canal companies. And,
they were real pleased with the way things were working and had no i-- no
reason to want to change it. And so the die was cast for a great
political fight, and that was really at the root of this long term fight
over the Kings River water between the Bureau of Reclamation and the-and the Kings River users. It's so interesting. This was a-- this was a
huge battle. It dominated the press in the 1930s and '40s. Even into the
'50s and 60s, I can remember in the '60s when I was in high school
reading about Kings River battles over whether acreage limitation would
apply. And today, it's almost completely forgotten. It's-- we’ve gone
past that and as are all the other fights over water rights on the Kings
River that are so fundamental to our area. It's all forgotten. The
building of the canals that was fundamental to our area is all forgotten.
The fact that this was a desert and a native grassland that the grass
would die out when the rain stopped and no one wanted to live here is all
forgotten. And we moved on and now we're doing our best to actually
urbanize big chunks of water, some of the finest farmland in the world
and those that's going to--in the long run going to create a whole new
set of water issues if we continue to pave over the area. But the-- truly
the fight with the Bureau of Reclamation and the Kings River was just a
fundamental thing for local control, and the the farmers were the local
element, and they won.
>> Thomas Holyoke: What if that might be a good stopping point for today?
>> Randy McFarland: Might be. I think we're not going to get to rest of
it. We have all the fisheries so I think we're going to have to try it
again sometime.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I think so too.

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