Full text of "Water resources of California : a report to the legislature of 1923"

THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

DAVIS

STATE OF CALIFORNIA
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS

DIVISION OF ENGINEEKING A'ND IRRIGATION

BULLETIN No. 4

rc?2^

no.

■^

WATER RESOURCES OF
CALIFORNIA

A REPORT TO THE LEGISLATURE OF 1923

CALn'ORNIA STATE PRINTING OFFICE

FRANK J. SMITH, Superintendent

SACRAMENTO, 1923

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL l 5

LETTER FROM THE CONSULTING BOARD TO THE MEMBERS OF
THE LEGISLATURE 7

.\CKNO\ML,BDGMENT 8

FOREWORD • 9

ORGA^^ZATION 11

CHAPTER 889 OF THE STATUTES OF 1921 13

LIST OF TABLES 15

LIST OF PLATES 15

Chapteb I.
Recommendatious: to the Legislature of 1923 17

Chapter II.
California 19

Chapter III.
Climate 24

Chapter IV.
The State's Waters' 27

Chapter V.

Utilization of the State's Waters 34

Chapter VI.
Comprehensive Plan for Achieving the Maximum Service from the Waters
of the State 39

Chapter VII.

Settlement 52

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

January 1, 1923.
To tke Members of the Legislature,
State of California,
Session of 1923.

The report on the "Water Resources of California," prepared by
the Division of Engineering and Irrigation of this Department, is
transmitted herewith. This report compiles the results of the state-
wide investigation authorized by Chapter 889 of the Statutes of 1921.
In placing this in your hands, I desire to mention the helpful services
of the Consulting Board appointed pursuant to the provisions of the
act and of the members of the civil engineering profession who have
served on advisory committees and reviewed much of the work in pre-
paring this report. The}- have freely given to the state valuable advice
and assistance that have greatly aided these endeavors.

Respectfully submitted. i

Director of Public Works,

2 — 25712

LETTER FROM THE CONSULTING BOARD TO THE
MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE.

To the Honorable Members of the Legislature,
State of California,
Session of 1923.

The Consulting 'Board appointed under the provisions of chapter
889 of the Statutes of 1921, approves the report of the Division of
Engineering and Irrigation of the State Department of Public Works,
herewith submitted.

It is the judgment of the Board that the Division of Engineering
and Irrigation should continue this work and that the required appro-
priation therefor should be made.

Respectful!}' submitted.

Chalrniaji

c^^t/Mfm^-^^^.^^..^

Members of Consulting Board.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

Much data have been contributed to this report by public and private
offices without which the Department would have been wholly unable
to produce this volume. The Department desires to publicly express its
sincere appreciation to the parties who, through the furnishing of these
data, have made it possible to increase the service to the public several-
fold, in publishing this report.

FOREWORD.

The legislature of 1921 appropriated $200,000 for an investigation
of California's Avater resources by the State Department of Public
Works, Division of Engineering and Irrigation. Accordingly, an
engineering investigation has been completed and a report transmitted
to the legislature on January 1, 1923. The great mass of data collected
and the complex analyses thereof made it advisable to present much of
the information in separate volumes. Four of these are in print,
entitled :

Appendix ''A" "Flow in California Streams." Bulletin No. 5,
State Department of Public Works.

Appendix "B" "Irrigation Requirements of California Lands."
Bulletin . No, 6, State Department of Public
Works.

Appendix "C" "Utilization of the Water Resources of Cali-
fornia." Bulletin No. 7, State Department of
Public Works.

Appendix "D" "Relation of Settlement to Irrigation Develop-
ment." Bulletin No. 8, State Department of
Public Works.

Chapter 889 of the 1921 Statutes, which authorized this investiga-
tion, provided for the appointment by the Governor, of a Consulting
Board to advise with the Department in their endeavors. The follow-
ing were appointed by Governor Stephens:

J. C. FoRKNER, Chairman
Peter Cook
Jonathan S. Dodge

B. A. Etcheverry
Harry Haw^good
H. A. Kluegel
Robert B. Marshall
H. D. McGlashan
0. B. Tout

U. S. Webb

Additional advice on the technical features of Appendix "A" to
this report has been sought by the Department from :

C. E. Grunsky
Louis C. Hill
Charles D. Marx
H. D. McGlashan

10 WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

Also, further advice was sought on the technical features of Appendix
''B" from:

A. N. BuRCH

B. A. Etcheverry
Samuel Fortier
A. L. Sonderegger

• The Department sought added advice on the technical features of
Appendix "C" from:

A. J. Cleary
G. A. Elliott
F. C. Herrmann
W. L. Huber
A. Kempkey
William JMulholland

Appendix "D" was prepared by Br. Elwood Mead, Professor of
Rural Institutions of the University of "California, and Chief of Divi-
sion of Land Settlement of the State Department of Public Works,
under cooperative arrangements with the University of California.

WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA.

ORGANIZATION.

A. B. FLETCHER, Director of Public Works
W. F. McCLURE, Chief of Division of Engineering and IrrigaUon

The investigation of the water resources of the
state and the preparation of the report thereon,
was planned, directed and brought to completion by

Paul Bailey

Fred C. Scobey

Chief Assistants
Robert L. Jones

William S. Post

Senior Office Engineers

H. A. Armstrong
J. J. Jessup
Clarence F. Johnson
C. B. Meyer
S. B. Nevius

J. H. Peaslee
W. A. Perkins
Walter Ruppel
S. H. Searancke
Edward G. Sheibley

Junior Office Engineers

P. S. Barker
J. G. Bastow
L. N. Clinton
G. D. Clyde
H. L. Davis
Herbert E. Doolittle
P. K. Duncan -
Arthur C. Dunlop
0. B. Field
Frank P. Foote
George B. Gleason
S. S. Gorman
William H. Gorman

F. B. HiLBY

E. R. Hoffman
Irvin Ingerson
H. E. IviE
J. R. Jahn

BiSCOE A. KiBBEY

Thomas Lewis
J. A. Lindsay
P. H. Lovering
W. J. Manetta
T. C. Mead
J. W. Merideth

S. C. Metcalp
R. I. Meyerholz
E. H. Moore
M. F. Moore

W. B. MULLIN

T. R. Neiswander
T. Neuman
C. M. Newton
Harry Olsen
Noel Pike
Norman C. Raab

B. A. Reber
Glenn Rood

E. N. Sawtelle
N. E. Spicklemire
R. C. Stevenson
h. n. sulliger
Otto Von Seggern
E. G. Waters

V. W. WiLLITS

Robert L. Wing
Charles J. Worden
A. A. Wren

C. L. Young

WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA.

Field Engineers

R. L. Allin
E. W. Case
S. A. Hart
Chester Marliave

John A. Rice

F. W. Bush, Jr.
Ed. W. Case
CD. Divelbiss
Ward Eisan
A. Fankhouser

F. L. FiREBAUGH

Gerald Fitzgerald

H. L. McCready
G. H. Russell
Burton Smith
H. S. Williams

Geologists

Alfred R. Whitman

Topographers

Redick H. McKee
L. 0. Newsome

F. Rider

Earl D. Stafford
J, E. Stafford

G. H. Walters
A. V. Wilson

A. F. McCoNNELL, Editor of Report
J. J. Haley, Jr., Office Manager

WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA. 13

CHAPTER 889 OF STATUTES OF 1921.

An act to provide for the investigation hy the State of California of the possibili-
ties of the storage, control and diversion of water for publie use and public
protection in the State of California, and making an appropriation for said
purpose.

(Approved June 3, 1921.)

The people of the State of California do enact as follows :

Section 1. It is hereby declared that the people of the State of California
have a paramount interest in the use of all the Avaters of the State and the State
of California shall determine what waters of the state, surface and underground,
can be converted to public use, or controlled for public protection.

Sec. 2. The state engineering department is hereby authorized and instructed to
make the investigation in this act provided for and for the purposes herein specified.

Sec. 3. It shall be the duty of the state engineering department to deternsine
the maximum amount of water which can be delivered to the maximum area of
land, the maximum control of flood waters, the maximum storage of waters, the
effects of deforestation and all possibile and practicable uses for such waters in the
State of California.

Sec. 4. It shall be the duty of the state engineering department to determine
a comprehensive plan for the accomplishment of the maximum conservation, con-
trol, storage, distribution and application of all the waters of the state, and to
estimate the cost of constructing dams, canals, reservoirs or other works necessary
in carrying out this plan, and to report the result of such investigations with
recommendations not later than the legislative session of 1923.

Sec. 5. In carrying out the provisions of this act the state engineering depart-
ment is hereby authorized to examine any and all data, estimates and proposals
in furtherance of the above purpose, according to its judgment of their engineer-
ing worth, and to cooperate with any department, bureau, office, service, or division
of the United States, or of the state or counties, or with any municipality, irri-
gation, reclamation, conservation, drainage, flood control, levee, or other district
agency for irrigation, reclamation, drainage, or flood control purposes, or for the
development of hydro-electric power ; or with any interested association, com-
pany or individual ; provided, further, that the eng-ineering department is hereby
expressly authorized to accept, receive and use any funds or rooneys contributed to
it by any person, irrigation district, reclamation district, water and conservation
district or any political subdivision of the State of California for the purpose of
cooperating in the work aforesaid and carrying out the pui'poses of this act.

Sec. 6. With the approval of the governor, the state engineering department
is hereby authorized to employ such assistance as in its judgment it may require
and to incur such expense as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this act.
The governor is further authorized to appoint a consulting board, composed of
citizens of special and technical qualifications, to serve in an advisory capacity,
and without pay, in making the above investigation.

Sec. 7. There is hereby appropriated out of any money in the state treasury,
not otherwise appropriated, the sum of two hundred thousand dollars, and made
immediately available for any of the purposes of this act.

Sec. 8. This act shall not in any way be construed so as to deprive persons,
corporations, or districts of vested rights.

Sec. 9. Any section or portion of a section of any act, statute or law of the
State of California in conflict with the provisions of this act is hereby repealed.

3—25712

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA, 15

LIST OF TABLES.

PAGE

1. Water Resources of California (facing) 32

2. Agricultural Areas and Net Duty of Water in the Sixteen Sections of

California 37

LIST OF PLATES.

PAGE

I. Illustrative Climatology on Agricultural Lands (facing) 24

II. Characteristics of Run-off from California Mountains (facing) 30

III. Map of Agricultural Areas and Duty of Water Sections (facing) 36

IV. Preliminary Comprehensive Plan for Maximum Development of Cali-

fornia's Water Resources (facing) 46

WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA. 17

CHAPTER I.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF 1923.

One-third of the aggregate value of all of California's products are
those raised on the farm, and one-fourth of all its manufactories are
concerned in milling, canning or preserving, cleaning, or otherwise
preparing food stuffs for the market. In a state whose wealth is taken
from the soil in such large portions, agriculture and the problems
attendant to its expansion, press for consideration. The accelerated
expansion of agricultural production in California has been attained
through the more intensive cultivation of its fertile soils. Irrigating
about one-third of all the lands farmed, this state now yields an average
crop value that is almost three times larger for each acre cultivated, ^^'
than the average production on an acre of tilled land in any of the
three stat&s that exceed California in total annual production on their
farmed lands. The abundant soil-moisture obtained through the sup-
plementary supplies, has enabled the responsive soils of California to
produce many fold under irrigation and is placing this state in a fore-
most position among the states of a nation of farms.

Even more than in the past, will the future be concerned in the*^
extension of irrigation to additional areas and the perfection of the
supply for those lands now watered, because the agricultural lands of
this state are now yielding to capacity under the conditions of dry
farming. It is therefore essential that state activities should be guided
by thoughts for the orderly and economical development of its water
resources, so that all the needs of civilization for water may be supplied
while the predominant use for agriculture may expand to the full limit
of its wealth-producing powers. In this report, the Department of
Public Works and its consultants have endeavored to compile and
present information on the water resources of California that will
enable your honorable bodj' to guide the state 's destiny with confidence
and wisdom.

The data amassed, the comparisons, the computations and the deduc-
tions involved in preparing this report, are so voluminous that they are
printed in four separate volumes. Appendix "A," ''Flow in California
Streams," in seventy-six pages of text, two hundred and forty-four
pages of tables, and in one hundred and eighty-five maps and
diagrams, describes the location, the volume, the source, and the vari-
ability of occurrence of the state's waters, and the capacities of storage
works required for their utilization. Appendix "B," "Irrigation
Requirements of California Lands," in seventy-six pages of text, one
hundred and fifteen pages of tables and seven maps and diagrams,
gives a digest of all information obtainable on the past use of water
for irrigation, and presents an analysis of the future requirements of all

"'The California State Department of Agriculture estimates the average value of
farm products per acre for the four ranking states in 1922, was, in order of their
total production: Texas, $27.50; Iowa, |21 ; Illinois, ?20 ; and California, $59.50.

]8 WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

of California's arable lands. Appendix ',' C, ' ' "Utilization of the Water
Resources of California," presents a general preliminary plan for
obtaining the maximum use from the state's waters and the control
of floods. Appendix "D," "Relation of Settlement to Irrigation
Development," discusses colonization problems of irrigation projects.
All this information, basic for a full conception of the potential value
of the state's water resources, its greatest possession, is briefly sum-
marized in the chapters of this report.

A general preliminarj^ plan for achieving the greatest service from
these waters, is presented as requested by the legislative enactment pro-
viding for these investigations. This plan outlines a scheme of coor-
dinated development whereby a maximum accomplishment may ulti-
mately be obtained whose physical works for storing water would cost
but slightly more than half as much as similar attainment under an
uncoordinated plan. The canals for transporting this water to the
regions of use are, many of them, very long and obtain water from
several sources, pass through numerous communities, and could be made
possible only through organization of large sections of the state. With-
out such canals much of the state's waters will go unused. Only then,
through united endeavors, almost statewide in extent, can the maximum
service be obtained from the state's waters.

The reservoirs involved in the maximum development of the state's
waters are some 260 in number. These and twice as many more were
examined by field parties in these investigations, and a selection made
of a third of all the possible sites reported on. Time did not alloAv,
neither did the preliminary investigation warrant, a detailed examina-
tion of dam sites. Before it is finally known that the selected sites are
feasible, borings and exploration trenches must be made. The canals
outlined on the map of the comprehensive plan, largely pass through
territory of which adequate maps do not exist. Many surveys must
be made before it may be ascertained that these canaLs are feasible and
that they are in the most economical location. It is therefore recom-
mended to your honorahle body that fu7ids he- appropriated to pursue
the study of the compu'eliensive plan in greater detail than has been
possible for this report.

It is also desired to call to your attention the value of records of the
waters flowing in California streams. Because of the sporadic way in
which the waters pass down the stream channels, reliable estimates of
future expectancies can only be made from uninterrupted records of
many years' duration. The inventory of the state's waters presented
in this report has been based on an estimated fiftj'-year mean flow.
This was accomplished \)y expanding records of measured run-off
through comparison with precipitation records and, on many streams,
the entire estimate of run-off was obtained by comparison. It is urgent
that provision be made for the continuance of stream gaging records at
least as extensive as in the past, and some increase be made in appro-
priations for this work if possible. The construction of all the great
hydraulic works on which the future wealth of this state depends,
must be designed in accord with these records of stream flow. It is
important that they be continuous and on all the streams.

Lastly, the desirability of stimulating the rate of rural settlement
in California has been pointed out in this report. This subject is
placed before you as one worthy of your attention.

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 19

CHAPTER II.

CALIFORNIA.

Califoruia, second in area, but first among the states of the Union in
value of natural resources, lies between the Great Basin of the North
American continent and the Pacific Ocean. Confined on the north by
Oregon and on the south by Mexico, it constitutes three-fifths of the
western boundary of the United States. The six hundred and fifty
miles of its meridional length extends to over nine hundred miles of
seashore as the coast line pursues a diagonal and more tortuous course
in delineating the headlands and coastal indentations of the Pacific
littoral.

Within the two hundred miles of California's average width, there
are 23,000,000 acres of agricultural lands disposed in parcels of various
sizes and separated by mountains that occupy much of the intervening
space. These agricultural areas are the flat and rolling lands of the
state that have soils, disposed in appreciable areas of regular surface
conformation, suitable for the production of harvestable crops. The
grains, fruits, berries, grapes, vegetables and other farm produce for
which California is famed, are grown on these lands. They are located
on the valley floors, in the foothills and on the plateaus of the state.
Included in the agricultural areas, are lands at present deficient in
natural moisture, but more or less conveniently situated for the ultimate
acquisition of an accessory water supply. Slightly over one-half of
these agricultural areas were farmed in 1920.

The non-agricultural regions of California, the mountains, are, for
the most part, precipitous, rocky or soilless. Occupying three-fifths
the area of the state, these upland regions are spacious collectors of
precipitation that fill the stream channels with water, without which
much of the state's arable lands could never reveal their powers of
production because of deficient soil-moisture. Although they are
mostly non-tillable, nevertheless the mountainous regions have supplied
the alluvial earth through glacial action, weathering or erosion, that
their streams have conveyed to lower levels and deposited there to be-
come the fertile, productive soils of the agricultural areas.

California's mountains are so disposed that their greater part is
comprised within two ranges. These diverge in their southerly course
at Mount Shasta within forty miles of the Oregon line, and leave be-
tween their bases, the long flat valley that averages a quarter the
breadth of the state and half its length. Girdling this valley in their
southward course, these two mountain chains proceed in long sweeping
curves to a convergence at Tehachapi Pass, three-quarters the way down
the state from the north boundary. The encircling line of crests of
these two ranges enclose within a rock Avail, two-thirds of California's
agricultural lands. This wall is cleft to valley-floor level in but one

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

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O
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WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 21

place. Through this cutting, the interior drainage issues, flowing
westwardly to mingle with the waters of the Pacific Ocean.

The mountains to the east of this Great Central Valley, the Sierra
Nevada Range, extend for two-thirds the length of the state between
Mount Shasta on the north and Tehachapi Pass on the south and their
crests are the highest of California's mountains. Serrated and pre-
cipitous, their altitudes increase from north to south and culminate in
Mount Whitney, 14,500 feet high, the highest peak in the United States
excluding Alaska. Between the two extremities of this range, many
peaks rise to heights greater than SOOO feet above the sea and eleven
peaks pierce the clouds to more than 14,000 feet. In the northerly
c|uarter of this range is Lassen, the culminating peak of its vicinity,
10,580 feet high and North America's only active volcano.

The westerly of the two mountain chains encircling the Great Central
Valley, the Coast Eange, after separating at Mount Shasta from the
mass of mountains in the northern part of the state, parallels the
margin of the Pacific Ocean and takes a somewhat narrower path in its
southerly course, than does the Sierra Nevada Range. The Coast jMoun-
tains do not attain the elevations of the Sierra Nevadas, neither are
they so diverse of surface or massive in structure. Their highest peaks
are less than 9000 feet in elevation and those above 5000 feet are but
few in number.

Southward from the convergence of these two ranges at Tehachapi
Pass and on to the Mexican Border, California's mountains continue
as a single chain. Their crests are less continuous and their main axis
is less easily discernible than from the Pass nortliAvard. A few
dominating peaks rise to heights of more than 10,000 feet, but their
general altitude is intermediate in elevation between those of the Coast
Range and Sierra Nevada Mountains.

This mountain range divides two very diverse regions. To the west,
the Pacific slope, the agricultural lands of which extend from the ocean's
margin well up to the mountain flanks, is an intensively developed and
highly productive area of moderate climate fluctuation; while to the
east lies an undeveloped expanse, almost rainless, with climatic
extremes, and largely unproductive through lack of an accessory water
supply. However, there are extensive productive areas in Imperial,
Palo Verde and Coachella valley's which have acquired irrigation sup-
plies and are realizing on the great fertility of their arid soils. In
this expanse of flat lands and mountains is Salton Sink, an inland sea,
the surface of which is more than 250 feet below ocean level.

On the Pacific slope of this dividing range in the southern quarter
of the state, in its broad valleys and adjacent to the seashore, is spread •
the bulk of California's agricultural lands that lie west of the state's
mountains, in all, one-sixth of their total area. These lands are located
mostly along the streams near their ocean outlets. Northward from
Santa Barbara Channel they are scattered rather meagerly along the
Pacific margin, for their continuity is interrupted by extensive stretches
of precipitous shore line that rises abruptly from the water's edge.

To the east of Southern California's dividing range south of the
Tehachapi Pass, one-tenth of the state's arable lands lie between their
crests and the state's eastern border. Northerly from these lands and
along the eastern border of the state, another tenth of the agricultural

4 — :i5712

WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA.

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 23

lands are located in scattered parcels in the elevated valleys and pla-
teaus east of the crests of California's mountains. These are mostly
situated at elevations of from 4000 to 5000 feet or more above sea
level.

The extreme range in altitude of California's variegated surface is
from two hundred and seventy-five feet below sea level in Death Val-
ley, to fourteen thousand five hundred feet above, attaining this eleva-
tion at Mount Whitney, but seventy-five miles distant from the lowest
depression. The greater part of the fiat lands, or about one-fifth of
the total area of the state, lies between the elevation of the ocean's
edge and five hundred feet above. These flat lands comprise the gently
sloping ocean littoral, an extensive mountain-girdled valley known as
the Sacramento-San Joaquin, and the almost rainless area in the south-
eastern corner of the state. These regions, 33,000 square miles in
extent, include the bulk of California's agricultural area.

Higher in elevation than these flat lands, are the slopes lying between
the plain-like areas and the base of the mountains. These are the
rolling foothills and the more elevated valleys, lands that are transi-
tional between the plains and the highland regions. Located between
500 and 2500 feet above sea level, they comprise about one-third the
area of the state. One-quarter of all the agricultural land lies in
this transitional region, and only the scattered parcels in high moun-
tain valleys and that on the plateau in northeastern California, lie
above it.

Higher than 2500 feet in elevation lie the mountains proper. For
a large part they are a rugged and precipitous region of steep accliv-
ities, of rocky extrusions and serrated ridges, and of deep canyons
and rock-walled gorges, that comprise nearly half the area of the
state, but interspersed at intervals throughout this highland region are
mountain valleys and meadows, attractive in their richness and scenic
beauty. The mountain and foothill regions, together, are over triple
the area of the agricultural lands. In receiving greater precipitation,
the mountain regions shed large volumes of water into the streams
and rivers and are the source of nearly all of the state's waters.

24 WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

CHAPTER III.

CLIMATE.

The California year is distinctive from that in most other states of the
Union, in having but two well-defined seasons, summer and winter.
This occurs because the transitional periods, spring and autumn,
are brief and devoid of special features other than that they are inter-
mediate between the more clearly defined seasons of summer and win-
ter. The summer, or growing period, is long, warm and without heavy
rains; the winter is the dormant period, or interval of retarded growth
in the annual cycle of plant life, and normally is short, cool, and at
times stormy. The greater portion of the waters precipitated upon the
lands of California fall during this season of winter.

The covert of encircling mountains and the proximity of an ocean
that borders the state with nine hundred miles of coast line, so modifies
California's climate that only moderate seasonal fluctuations of tem-
perature occur over most of its area. Any great extremes of heat and
cold that do transpire are confined principally to the high mountain
or arid areas. On the low lands generally, the mean monthly temper-
atures show departures from the average for the entire year, markedly
less than similarly compared heat measurements for the adjoining
states or those located eastward and included in the same latitude.

California is exempt from hurricanes and tornadoes, and though
the mountainous regions experience days of intense cold, blizzards
are unknown over the valley areas. Favored of nature through
immunity from devastating tempest, rigorous cold, and enervating
heat, California's climate is heralded the world over.

The outstanding features of the state's climatic regime are the rains
of winter and the sunshine of summer. During the winter months,
the state is swept by moisture-laden winds that traverse large areas in
their journey from one locality to another ; while in the summer or dry
season, similar winds may blow, but they are rainless and serve only to
modify the mounting temperatures that ensue from continuous sun-
shine. This distinct division of the year into a short season of inter-
mittent drenching rains and a longer season of warmth and sunshine,
determines that, more and more, in the years to come, this peculiarity
of climate will influence the activities of man in this state. As greater
numbers of people elect to live within its borders, water will be needed
in increasing amounts for every activity, and all of California's waters
originate in the precipitation concentrated in a few months of the year.

Of greatest economic importance therefore, among the climatic phe-
nomena, are the moisture-carrying winds that visit the state at annually
recurrent intervals. In blowing over the land areas, these winds pre-
cipitate varying amounts of water along the way as they are cooled,
and deflected or diverted by local topography. The shelter of knolls,
of hills or mountains, or of ridges or spurs, may lessen the amounts
reaching leeward areas, while increased quantities may fall on more

Plate I

25712 Facing p, 24.

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA, 25

exposed locations. The greater cooling of the air upon moving up
slopes and arriving at higher elevations, usually inceases the precipita-
tion in the mountainous regions over that on lower lands.

The annual quantity of moisture released from the atmosphere to fall
upon the several parts of the state, is as variant as the rugged topog-
raphy. ^^^ In general, precipitation increases in depth from south to
north, being least in the southeastern corner of California where it is
nearly zero, and greatest in the North Pacific region contiguous to the
Oregon line where the mean annual rainfall attains a depth of one
hundred inches or more. The mountains generally receive more than
the valleys between them. The greater portion of the flat lands have a
mean depth of precipitation of less than twenty inches annually and
one-third of their area has less than ten inches. Depths of more than
twenty inches are mostly confined to the mountainous regions which on
their more elevated portions receive from thirty-five to one hundred
inches, or more. In the highest mountain regions, precipitation occurs
largely as snow ; on those of lesser altitude both snow and rain fall, but
the mantle of snow on the earth is of short duration; while the areas
lying closer to the ocean's level, seldom experience a fall of snow but
receive all precipitation as rain. The mild climate of this lower portion
of the state extends, therefore, to nearly all its flat-lands, to the gently
sloping ocean littoral, to the extensive mountain-girdled valley con-
taining three-fifths of all the agricultural lands, and to the rolling
foothills and detrital-filled valleys transitional to the highland regions — -
in all about one-half the area of the state.

To depict the features of rain, temperature and frost in California's
agricultural areas, Plate I has been prepared, "Illustrative Climatology
on Agricultural Lands." For convenience, the tillable lands of the
state have been segregated into sixteen divisions or sections, the bound-
aries of which are shown on Plate III, "Map of Agricultural Areas and
Duty of Water Sections." A station of the United States Weather
Bureau has been selected in each one of these sections to illustrate its
climatic features, and the mean precipitation and temperature for each
month of the year, together with the frost-free periods for each one of
these stations is graphically delineated on Plate I.

The top section of this plate shows, by means of colored columns
drawn upwardly from a common base line, the mean monthly precipita-
tion that has occurred at the Weather Bureau Station that is named at
the foot of the bar. At the extremity of each equally-spaced cross-line
on the sheet, at the left margin, are numerals which express values of
mean monthly precipitation in inches of depth. The colored columns in
intercepting these cross-drawn lines, indicate by their height, the
amount of mean monthly precipitation.

On the middle sectioja of the Plate I, the mean temperatures that
have prevailed during each month of the year at the stations named
above them, are represented by similarly colored columns that also
project upward from a common base line. These show the values of
mean monthly temperatures by their intercepts on cross-drawn lines
that are numbered with temperature values at the left margin.

"'See Isohyetose Map of California contained in Api>endix "B" to this report, for
complete delineation of precipitation over tlie state.

WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA. 25

exposed locations. The greater cooling of the air upon moving up
slopes and arriving at higher elevations, usually inceases the precipita-
tion in the mountainous regions over that on lower lands.

To depict the features of rain, temperature and frost in California's
agricultural areas, Plate I has been prepared, ' ' Illustrative Climatology
on Agricultural Lands." For convenience, the tillable lands of the
state have been segregated into sixteen divisions or sections, the bound-
aries of which are shown on Plate III, ' ' Map of Agricultural Areas and
Duty of Water Sections." A station of the United States Weather
Bureau has been selected in each one of these sections to illustrate its
climatic features, and the mean precipitation and temperature for each
month of the year, together with the frost-free periods for each one of
these stations is graphically delineated on Plate I.

"'See Isohyetose Map of California contained In Appendix "B" to this report, for
complete delineation of precipitation over the state.

26 WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

The lower section of the plate, designated "Frost Free Period," has
transverse bars which progress partially across the paper. In so doing,
their length exemplifies time. The space between the left and right hand
margins represents the full twelve months of the year. Vertical
lines divide this space into equal units of time and the monthly
intervals are accentuated by heavier drawn lines. Spreading across the
sheet and crossing these vertical lines, the sections of the bars in solid
color show the duration of the period at each of the sixteen Weather
Bureau stations, within which frost has never occurred. Extensions
of the bars, hatched with colored shading lines, show by the distance
between their extreme ends, the average duration of the frost-free period
for the years of record. The bars are similarly colored to the columns
of temperature and precipitation and are named at the left margin
opposite their ends.

Plate I illustrates in a pictorial way, the climatic characteristics that
prevail over California's agricultural lands. The precipitation section
of this graph shows that almost without exception, the rainfall in
amounts to be of much value to agriculture, is confined to the months
of November, December, January, February and March; while the
temperature section shows that the period favorable to the growth of
plants and vegetation, is from March to November, inclusive. Except
for March and November, the rains in California occur during the
time of the year in which most plants are dormant and for seven warm
months of the long growing season, the rains on the agricultural lands
are light. Thus for a period during each twelve months, California is
favored with precipitation-releasing winds, and once a year at coincid-
ing times, the mountain ranges are clothed in snow, foothill eminences
and slopes are drenched with rain, and valleys and plains are wetted by
the same spacious storms; while through the remainder of the annual
cycle, sunshine and warmth are dominant and precipitation is small
in amount.

WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA. 27

CHAPTER IV.

THE STATE'S WATERS.

The moisture-bearing winds that traverse California during the
winter season precipitate three hundred billion tons of water annually
upon the surface of the state. Most of this falls as rain or snow upon
the mountain areas. This precipitation: as rain, strikes the surface of
their slopes, oft* which portions run toward lower elevations; as snow,
it mantles the earth's surface or collects in wind-blown drifts to await
warmer temperature for conversion to liquid water, that may likewise
pursue a downhill course toward the ocean.

These moving waters, ever .journeying to lower elevations, concen-
trate in the ravines and gullies toward which the surfaces slope. They
follow the steepest gradients and the most deeply cut depressions and,
continually enhanced in volume by like accumulations, restlessly pursue
their downward course until finallj^ they become engulfed in the earth's
vast raservoir of waters — the ocean. Falling on the drainage areas as
precipitation, concentrating on the land surface as run-off, coursing
down the water-channels as stream flow, these waters reach the ocean
as drainage; and so by returning to the storehouse of waters from
which they were first vaporized and carried to the mountainous area
by the moisture-bearing winds, they complete a circuit of travel.

The same storms that drench the uplands or clothe them in snow,
precipitate lesser amounts on the lower flat lands, and this almost
entirely as rain. Lacking the surface inclination to put the water in
motion, the earth coverings of these lowland areas largely absorb the
rains falling upon them or, detained in pools or puddles or in the
saturated top soil, they are later evaporated back to the atmosphere.
Only during extremelj^ heavy downpours of infrequent occurrence do
the flat lands contribute run-off to the stream channels.

California's Avater-produeing area is the mountains. Influenced by
the topography, elevation, and exposure of the divers localities, the
storms traversing the state deposit varying quantities of water on their
diverse surfaces. In each area, however, only a portion of the waters
cast from the clouds ever reach the stream channels ; the rest is dissi-
pated through evaporation. This division of the waters starts imme-
diately with their precipitation from the rain clouds and continues
throughout the entire water movement. Moisture is evaporated from
the falling particles of rain or snow, from the gathering waters on
their catchment areas, from the snow fields, from wetted soil areas,
and from the flowing streams. Water is also vaporized from the vege-
tation that grows on the mountain slopes. Much of the moisture that
Avets the earth's surface is absorbed by the root systems of vegetation,
so that where trees, bushes and undergrowth are dense, large volumes
of water are vaporized through transpiration from plant-surfaces. So
evaporation is persistently in progress, and, effectively and without
respite, reduces the volumes of water precipitated upon the earth's sur-

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

A STREAM IN THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS.

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 29

face. The fraction of these waters finally becoming stream flow in each
season may be less than one-fourth or more than three-fourths of the
total precipitation, according to the amounts falling, the contingencies
of the season's weather, and the circumstances of topography and
geology on the catchment areas.

Except as it falls upon frozen or nonabsorbent surfaces, precipita-
tion upon striking the earth must first moisten its top-covering, and it
is only after thi^ has become saturated that waters gather on the sur-
face to journey down the slopes of the catchment areas. While col-
lecting in puddles and pools or moving down the slopes in streamlets,
some of this run-off trickles into seams and cracks of the mountain's
rocky structure, while other ciuantities are absorbed by pervious soil-
coverings. This moisture advances by the attractions of gravity and
capillarity and. filling the pores and interstices of the earth's crust,
penetrates to great depths. Although usually only a small portion of
the total, these percolating waters are especially valuable to man in
their reappearance at lower elevations as perennial springs to moisten
meadow lands or to increase the waning summer flow of brooks and
streams. These tardy waters, in penetrating the subsurface regions and
pursuing a dilatory underground course, wet the beds of the stream
channels the year round and furnish nearly all of the dry season
stream flow, and are the principal waters available Avhen the great
volume of winter run-off has subsided. Their total amount, however,
is small, for three-fourths of the run-off from California's mountains
concentrates in the stream channels, hurries down the water courses
and passes by the low-lying agricultural lauds \^"ithin forty-five days
after its precipitation upon the earth's surface.

Follo^wing precipitation so closely, the state's waters appear in the
stream channels in fluctuating flows having a striking similarity to the
periodic occurrence of precipitation. Plate II. "Characteristics of
Run-off from California ^lountains, " presents the hydrographs of five
streams, each typical of a separate section of the state. These hydro-
graphs show the run-off, month by month, for the greatest year and
for the least, as well as the mean monthly flow of all the years of
record. For convenience of comparison, the monthly run-off is plotted
in per cent of the annual mean. These hydroeraphs show how the bulk
of California's waters run off their mountain catchment areas during
the winter months, and how only meager quantities flow in the streams
during the middle and late sunmier. The great variation between the
rim-off of the maximum and minimum years shows the wide limits
between which seasonal run-oft" fluctuates, and how, in the smallest
season, the usual scanty summer flow is much reduced and this much
earlier in the season than in other years.

This investigation has studied the features of flow in all the streams
of the state, ^^' the amounts of their waters, and their variability of
production. All discoverable data have been assembled and analyzed
and, although actual measurements of flow are available but for a
limited number of years on the major streams, through comparison
of these data, quantities have been ascertained for eveiy stream. For
these purposes the minor streams were arranged in groups and these
groups, together with the major streams, total one hundred and forty
in number. The location of each one of these streams or groups of

'•'See Appendix "A," "Flow in California Streams."

30 WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA.

minor streams is shown on the map of California, Plate IV, "Prelimi-
nary Comprehensive Plan for Maximum Development of California's
Water Resources." Each basin bears a number on this map which
refers to a table at the top of the sheet. This table gives the name of
the stream draining the basin or the main stream in the group of small
basins.

An audit of all these waters is presented in Table I, "Water
Resources of California," in which is a complete inventory of the state's
waters. In listing the flow at the head of the main body of agricultural
land on each stream, the waters in this table are practically all that are
available, both surface and underground, for use on the flat lands of the
state for the subterranean waters of the flat lands largely receive their
supply by percolation from the stream channels crossing them or from
percolation of diverted waters poured out upon their land surfaces.

The first two columns of Table I contain the names of the streams
or groups of minor streams and their reference numbers. Through
these reference numbers, information that is too voluminous to incorpo-
rate in this summary tabulation may be conveniently traced in the
diagrams and tablas of Appendix "A" to this report. Spread out in
forty columns to the right of these first two panels are values which
characterize the amounts of water in each stream and its variability
of flow.

Of these columns, the third contains the areas of the drainage basins,
while in the fourth to the twelfth are values of their run-oft' expressed
in a variety of units. Included among these entries are the quantities
of wator running off their collecting areas in an average season, and
in the seasons of greatest and least run-off. These quantities affixed to
each stream definitely locate all the state's waters. The mean seasonal
quantities express the average amounts in which they may be expected
to appear and constitute a statement of practically all existing waters,
while the values for the extreme seasons show the limits between which
the flow of successive seasons may varj^

While the average annual water production of all these streams is
72,500,000 acre-feet, this invoice of California's waters shows that the
combined maximum yield is two and three-quarters times this amount.
and that the combination of all streams for the least seasons is but three-
eighths as much as the average annual amount. The total run-off in
successive seasons, then, fluctuates between limits, one seven times the
other, and the value of any one season lies at random between them.

In addition to changing from year to year, all the streams of the
state have a fluctuating daily flow. Inclusions have been made in
columns 13 to 18, and 35 to 42, of Table I, to define the extremes
between which the daily flows are accustomed to range. Columns 13
to 18 give values to the run-off during the months of July and August.
These two midsummer months are times of the year of nearly the least
flow, and in which water is of much value agriculturally. The quan-
tities include the entire month's run-off expressed in acre-feet, and
when divided by sixty afford approximate values of the average daily
flow during the low water periods in cubic feet per second. Con-
trasting them, are the values of flood flows in columns 35 to 42. These
entries are of special import in not only indicating the upper limits
of variability in stream flow, but also in indicating the maximum

Plate II

110
100-

90-
80-
70

30-

o
5 20

SACRAMENTO RIVER

1904
VEAP OF MAXIMUM RUNOFF

MEAN RUNOFF

lllhi.,-,ii

1898

YEAR OF MINIMUM RUNOFF

u. 2 < 2

< to O Z Q

State Department of Public Works

DIVISION OF ENGINEERING AND IRRIGATION

California Water Resources Investigation

chapter 889.. I9il STATUTES

25712 Facing p. 30.

110-
100-
90-
80-
70-

60-

u.
u.
O

_l
<

< 30-

Li.

S 10-

Li.

t n

PUTAH CREEK
1909

VEAR OF MAXIMUM RUNOFF

L- 1

z
a
i30-

s 20-

lOJ
0^

MEAN RUNOFF

20-
10-

1912
YEAR OF MINIMUM RUNOFF

aiaj™Q™33 30U0 aj

D50-

S40-

J 30

o
2 20-

10-

0-
20-

10-

TUOLUMNE RIVER

1907

YEAR OF MAXIMUM RUNOFF

MEAN RUNOFF

1898

YEAROF MINIMUM RUNOFF

5 < 5

< U) O Z Q

110-

100-

90-

SANTA YNEZ RIVER

80-

1914

YEAROF MAXIMUM RUNOFF

70-

.60-
u.
O -

^50-

ho-

5 30-

K20-

u -

Sio-

z
li.

|o-l

2: -

BBBw»— —

^30-

1-
Z

^20- H

MEAN RUNOFF

20-

1912
YEAROF MINIMUM RUNOFF

10-

-ll.-

"ii;2<2^^<cooz

CHARACTERISTICS OF RUNOFF

FROM

CALIFORNIA MOUNTAINS

WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA. 31

volumes of water which flood protection works may have to withstand.
Comparisons of these flood values with the low water flows of July and
August disclose a surprisingly great range in the rate of flow in
California's streams.

As an average over the whole state, the greatest daily flow exceeds
five hundred times the least. In taking values between these wide
limits on every day of the successive years, the greater flows exceed
the lesser ones in all degrees of magnitude, but the very large ones are
the most infrequent in occurrence. To give perspective to the occur-
ring frequency of exceedingly great flows, the values that may be
surpassed within intervals of twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five, and one
hundred years, are tabulated in columns 35 to 42. These greatest
values of mean daily flow constitute the floods of California's streams.
It is to be observed in general, that once in twenty-five years, the extraor-
dinary values of daily flow swell at least forty fold the average
volume in their channels ; and that once in a hundred years, even these
may be exceeded by flows that are one-quarter larger.

So large are the volumes of water that pass down the state's water-
ways during these great floods that the rate, which is only exceeded on
an average of four times a century, would send a plethora of waters
into the ocean within four days, whose aggregate is equivalent to
the entire production of every drainage basin in the state for their
seasons of least flow. During but one of these days, the total flow
would be ample to supply an urban population of seventy millions of
people with domestic water for a year, or to irrigate four million acres
of agricultural land through an entire season, or, still, to generate
one hundred thousand horsepower continuously for twelve months
when dropping through a height of one hundred feet. Nevertheless,
these volumes of water are largely useless to man because of their
extremely infrequent appearance in the stream channels. The waters
of lesser floods, however, may be caught by storage works constructed
in the mountainous regions and be detained for later release to supple-
ment the weaning natural flow in the streams. By such detention of
the flood waters for subsequent use, the erratic run-off may be equalized
and made available to man at times convenient to his special purposes.

The greatest fractions of the mean seasonal flow which may be con-
strained to man's service through retention in storage reservoirs, are
set forth for all the streams, in column 20 of Table I, and in column
21 are found the storage capacities required to do this. The yields
from lesser amounts of storage are given in columns 23 to 34. The
maximum yield possible from the entire water-producing area of the
state is 58,300,000 acre-feet annually, or 80 per cent of the mean
seasonal run-off. To secure this maximum yield would require a total
capacity in storage works of 184,900,000 acre-feet. This volume is
slightly greater than three times the annual equalized yield. Such
large proportional amounts of storage are not needed if smaller frac-
tions only of the mean seasonal flow are equalized. Capacity for stor-
age of twice the net annual yield, will develop 70 per cent of the
mean annual run-off from the state's drainage areas, and when this
capacity is .just equal to the annual yield in volume, it will develop
40 per cent of the mean seasonal run-off.

WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA. 31

As an average over the whole state, the greatest daily flow exceeds
five hundred times the least. In taking values between these wide
limits on every day of the successive years, the greater flows exceed
the lesser ones in all degrees of magnitude, but the very large ones are
the most infrequent in occurrence. To give perspective to the occur-
ring frequency of exceedingly great flows, the values that may be
surpassed within intervals of twenty-flve, fifty, seventy-five, and one
hundred years, are tabulated in columns 35 to 42. These greatest
values of mean daily flow constitute the floods of California's streams.
It is to be observed in general, that once in twenty-five years, the extraor-
dinary values of daily flow swell at least forty fold the average
volume in their channels ; and that once in a hundred years, even these
may be exceeded by flows that are one-quarter larger.

So large are the volumes of water that pass down the state's water-
ways during these great floods that the rate, which is only exceeded on
an average of four times a century, would send a plethora of waters
into the ocean within four days, whose aggregate is equivalent to
the entire production of every drainage basin in the state for their
seasons of least flow. During but one of these days, the total flow
would be ample to supply an urban population of seventy millions of
people with domestic water for a year, or to irrigate four million acres
of agricultural land through an entire season, or, still, to generate
one hundred thousand horsepower continuously for twelve months
when dropping through a height of one hundred feet. Nevertheless,
these volumes of water are largely useless to man because of their
extremely infrequent appearance in the stream channels. The waters
of lesser floods, however, may be caught by storage works constructed
in the mountainous regions and be detained for later release to supple-
ment the waning natural flow in the streams. By such detention of
the flood waters for subsequent use, the erratic run-off may be equalized
and made available to man at times convenient to his special purposes.

The greatest fractions of the mean seasonal flow which may be con-
strained to man's service through retention in storage reservoirs, are
set forth for all the streams, in column 20 of Table I, and in column
21 are found the storage capacities required to do this. The yields
from lesser amounts of storage are given in columns 23 to 34. The
maximum yield possible from the entire water-producing area of the
state is 58,300,000 acre-feet annually, or 80 per cent of the mean
seasonal run-off. To secure this maximum yield would require a total
capacity in storage works of 184,900,000 acre-feet. This volume is
slightly greater than three times the annual equalized yield. Such
large proportional amounts of storage are not needed if smaller frac-
tions only of the mean seasonal flow are equalized. Capacity for stor-
age of twice the net annual yield, will develop 70 per cent of the
mean annual run-off from the state's drainage areas, and when this
capacity is just equal to the annual yield in volume, it will develop
40 per cent of the mean seasonal run-off.

32 WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA.

All these hydrographic quantities of Table 1, while having charac-
teristics which qualify the state's waters as a whole, vary considerably
for the separate drainage basins. Nevertheless, adjacent basins are suf-
ficiently alike to render distinction to whole regions by reason of their
special values. These regional values, in departing from the ones for
the entire state, are still only indicative of the predominating charac-
teristics of large areas. Individual basins within the regions may have
features widely different from those predominating over them.

The six large topographic divisions of the state have such predom-
inant regional characteristics. Of these, the Sacramento Drainage
Basin is the largest. It comprises not only all the area lying between
the Coast Range and Sierra Nevada Mountains as far south as Suisun
Bay, but also the drainage area of Pit River, to the east of the moun-
tains and in the northeastern corner of the state. This large basin
contains one-fourth of tjie state's water-producing area, and, with the
exception of the North Pacific Coast region, it produces more than
any other of the six divisions and one-third of all California's waters.

The San Joaquin Drainage Basin is second largest of the six topo-
graphical divisions, but produces only one-sixth of the waters. This
basin comprises the entire area between the Coast Range and Sierra
Nevada IMountains, southerly from Suisun Bay to Tehachapi Pass.

The third largest division is the North Pacific Coast region, which
includes all the streams draining in the Pacific Ocean northward from
San Francisco Bay. It contains only one-fifth of the water-producing
area, but its streams contain over one-third of all the waters of the
state. This is a greater yield than in any other of the divisions. For
equal area it produces one-third more water than the Sacramento Basin
and over twice that of the San Joaquin. This region contains the most
productive drainage basin in the state, the Smith River. Although
its collecting area is only 627 square miles in extent, the mean annual
run-off is nearly three and one-half million acre-feet.

The region that drains into the Pacific Ocean, southward from San
Francisco Bay, is called the South Pacific Basin, and for its size is the
region of smallest water yield. Although containing one-sixth of the
drainage area, but one-twentieth of the state's waters run off its slopes.

Next in size is the region of the Great Basin, which comprises the
areas easterly from California's principal mountain system, and whose
waters do not reach the ocean. One-tenth of the water-producing area
of the state is in this region but it yields only one-twentieth of the
waters: its increment in total is about equal to that of the South
Pacific region.

The smallest of the six topographic divisions is the area adjacent to
San Francisco Bay, exclusive of the Sacramento and San Joaquin
rivers. This locality contributes only 1 per cent of the total waters
of the state.

There is a great difference between these six regions in the manner
in which their waters run off the collecting areas. Generally the regions
of least productivity have the greatest variability in run-off and
demand the largest capacities in storage works to equalize their vari-
able stream flow. The South Pacific, the least productive of the six
_ state regions, requires almost three times the storage capacity necessary
to obtain the same relative effects in equalized stream flow, as the North
Pacific region, the most productive of the six state regions.

TABLE 1. WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

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UN FHANCISCO BAY BASINS.
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201,3(10
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1,103,800

3M.7W
lt2,4W
606,tWO
310,000
200,400

70,000
11,960
383,300
70.400

NeljicWor4Dp.rc.

SlonlF capBFily miuiml

117,940

165,320
3,071.600

<62:»da

143.100

X860:S10
370,370
143,350

3,113,400

70,760
1.001,040

1,840.230
105,680

1,007,090
Z2,S«U
K»:350

13,&I0

l,m,780
20,300

322,000

32,!iSO
1,113,670
M,010
108,500
321,900

38,880
23i40a

168,730

46.100
ITS,S00
368,970

41,320

10,810
5,000
3,900

38,210

18,000

37,020
8,^0

32,010
8,800
37,400

549.030
882.070
334.150

73.900
301,850

37,320
2.O80
37.080

33,520
3,800
40,630

3,330
5,120
IhOOO

1 8.300

0,760

29,iS0

453. 00
823. 20

a, 40

630, 00
. 3, 90

430,730

473,800

0,740

8,720
136,600

13,870
300,640

IJ 24,050
1J8I,18D

45,530
H0.70U
176,030

4,064.500
578.700
179.300

2,641,780
99,700

U3e,3ao

34,aS0
300,360

277,500

48,100
391,000
310,900

53,400
13,650
8.250
»,S80
47,300

17 ,740
44,720
23,500
1 ,870

303,540

23,500
380,200
33,850

1B9.000
342.180
60,070

34.150
3,800
33.850

449,050
48,600
»1,000

17,800
57,600
39.350
34,000

2.800
40.050
11.000
34JS0

787,740
1,303.430
493,270

143,070
253,080
45.680
in.MO

I.4S8.030

34,390
305.350

54,7,«l
170.400
499,500

12,040
14,720
3,780

73.790
30,970
126,720
4g.K3a

24.870
33,310
30,880
189.080

NdlyicMofBOrerwDlof
Kuoaiu mo-oR,

176,940
547,980
6,967,400
694.440
318,010

3,170,100

30,460

1,009,140

43,800

56,320
351,600
363,030

5.3ID

335.600

4.800

77.550
101,930
425,380

471,8(0

1,598,330
G,I66,9S0
868,050
329,730

74,470
I8.6«0

37,890
633,000
583,770
151,920
693.900

38,330
35.010
61.500

1,043.720

1941530

145.6(0

741,230

TTOwM

Kton^ capacity requind

1,943,310

i,ii3,»(a

54,170

U0,3I0

6.950,300
310,160
350,830

3.698.4U
139,580

1. 856 ,8a)
34.790
238,750

531,230
- 14,480

1,430.830
47^310

5,334,310

3,13T.4«0
1B9.3»I

141,000
370,430
809,250

5,070,360
403,770

2,917.860
78,530
635,150

1,084,560

u.iio

oldmnacT

Hom fur 24 boui
in maioiludf er
tlian Ubulalol v

ElpWlod OCC UTfTBC* o( ODM

I Tit 24 boun Diua)

100.500
31.KW
9,300

fvrtlDU

HUAfVIEUll

oldmufi

50,400
48LI0O
50.400

13.000
64,100
180.000

146,500
0,010
11.T00

110.000

"19.600

11.100
4.170

1).4IH

'"suoo

5,«60

2,640
3,H0

8iwt for 34 boun equal
in ciuf ailudt or cmlct
tbu IkbuUlcd niat.

17M0
43,200

5.070
11.300

305.000
i63,6o6

11,000

'iiao'

I4.ID0

19,900

12.010
10,660

la 160 -nan of timt"
flovi F» 24 boun ciual
in macmtaile or paUr
than labuUtal TtTuc.

125.400
45.000

10,300

160,000

9.no

33.800

1.450

43.100
1.460

13,100

io',3io

IIJOO

19.400

SACRAMENTO BASIN,
pjmjlecitt Rim (Uppn) abon Pll Ritw.

•flMkbooe Cratk Gt™p

ChwOnek

Canmaood Owk ,
laHnnKDla Rinr t| Bid Glue

'ntdBukCndtareop,'.
SuBfOmk.

OiikQHk

PtHakOwk .

SAN JOAQUIN aASIN.
"Ornliata Creek Oroop

•YokDli]Cciid.Gto»B

Kambllirw . "^

'UadiibCrwkCicoijD,., .

KwRlnr

DtrOutk

SMjOMuinlljmllJppir) ,.

CoUaaaood Oeck

rrWDO Riiv

•Oaulton Cmk Group

Ctomhilb RiTCT

'Dulrliniin OwtGnjup .,

•Qxrn r„.,l,'

U«u rrrr k

■Ourn* Ctt»k Group

MtMmt Rit»r . ,.

rgolumng Hinr . . .

'Wildcit Cmk Croup

StaniilBW Itiw

UUtjohB Cr«t

•MirWliOraikClOTp.... ., ,,

CiU.c™.Rim

MnkEluBuic (titer . ,

*% I Id Oak Group

OvuDms HiTtr

Tot4li and emm Tdc SU Jctq^ B^
S»N FRANCISCO BAY BASINS.

■Ml tjiaUnCrftckOroup

aw l-tiio ftt-k

naa Lnndio Crt«k ...

*ChniDonl Crack Group.

ak» Loreua Cnek

Alamnla Cmk

•MiarioB Crwk Group

PouleiciA Ct«ek

UvDlaRJRf

0»il»Jup» lUnr,

*Lw Galia Owk Group , ,

9aa »ueaaiuU 0«k

"Sui ^t^tfo Crwk Group

TuUU *flj imia tor Su Ffucwo Bay

NORTH PACinC BASINS.
Sniilh Kiirr
Kkmilti Hiirr
»bttti lUtci
Scull R,ni
Stbooa Kint

_ _'»bIo Ciwt
Su IfBodni Crrrt

Sid Li»i(uoCn:«i
AIudbIi CikI;

iiiBC™lGfuuj

Sui FriKi»]iuIo Cwk

NOFTTH PACIFIC BASINS,

- Ri.tr

•Giolili Hirer Gtouv

*Siaj™ Cr«t CJroup
•BoTmu Ciwi Orwijr

« KorU f^&c &*Bat

auU Vcibil Cmt
a»n LuB Rtj Itiiw
" ta Ma/^nts River
It iiciula itivtt Tnhulvia

ita AiB Rim Tribuuria

1 Cabntl RiTw Tntrulvia .

■La Ar«Els Itinr TnbuUrici . .

■KUibu Ri™ OroMp

■&sl> Clan River tribuLuis . .

•Jika Oiwii Urwp. .
&DU Ym Rintr .

*Sbn Lud Obtf^ Crrrl Grcnip
■StlitiM Rov Tribvtana . ...

•fuwo niv« Tribuluia

■Snqud Owk Group

'I^aadcniCniikGroap.

ToUbudn

u(iirSDalbi>H)SaSMiH

GREAT BUI
Tulc Itlu Ctnuy
■Go* IaIu Uruup . .

•Coabcttd Ukr> Buln

•Surpmt Villry Orogp . .
■Middint FbiuOrvup

-Sciwh! Cmli Group .
■E^fle UU Gruip
'HoACT L*if Gf^Tup
'Uk( Tibw Bsu
TiMckH Rivet

MdolK Modon Group

wGralBuiB .
MurorSuU .

»^6

».«oo

UODD

S.OTJ

K).i<n
n.ooo

70,»W)

iis.soa

18,900
II.IW

1S,7S0

a,<BO

«,670

i,(ie.«xi

lll.WO

ia.«oo

S9(i.eoo

I^.IDO

3J«7,S(I0

201,700
SSLMO

3,K9
3,173

I,3U

i7S.no

110.400
272.300

S,2M
1,470
3,4tl0

ias,5oa

1M.600
41.400

ie.5Da

11,440
3,470

7,390
13,9W

144,700
13,300
8.000

l.i:iI,5W
339,760
730,740

I.UW,7»U

13.400
SJ,00O

01,400

121.100
69.200
KSMO

ntao

207,100

121.700
Ml MO
!7a.Sil0
270 MO
l»),10U

720,S0O
5S3,40O

307,000

T&i!wo

£99.001}

J.0O7>0(l
139.400

3.U0

700

10,600

99,WI

I2J2O0

2,900
9,500

7.700
1,700
2.90U

3.300
41200

271,100
32,200
&,40U
M,MW

392,700

i».3oa
HMO'

1.117,00
1.119.100
I.U9,IOO

276.000

H8.no

1.070,000

510.600
711 OCO
231.300
407,7<XI

33/WO
13,6'Xi

32.IS0
48,140

ioi.ua

241.930
340.H0
l!tS,tKI

U.;60.100

S.SIS.MO
7.SO3.S10
791.100
I.IM.MO

1,253,110
2.2M,I00
6.Sie,39D

141.900
132.O0O
213.910
140.360

l,3a].4S0
1,391.190
07.010
10S.44a
902:660

U24,0S0
IJU.2S0

48.520
110,700
ITfl.020

1,770.080

473!oau

1,416.000

00,800

1,167,740
101.490
113.860

1,(79.400
TB.4MI

4:11.210
5U.1»
IH.WO
330.980
H6.U0

103,030
191,280

t90!89a
1,1:13,280

M,C80
49.860
14,910

41,030
91,290
10,400

110,080
12.8.S0
1.190
33.090
t4.UQ

39,400
132,310
101,400

113,000
lSA.filO
111,910

111,340

139,900
33,440

30,280

14,190

12,700
10,440

70.800

)p,i<8a

r7,iM

101,390
90,01U
18.400

11, sw

S8,W0

i>i.s3a
asisoo

113.600
18.160

317.600

IBJOO
(3.200
0,010
K),9iO

:8.120

a:ffi

73.150
tl.160

69,080
384.790
111,920

31,570
1,1)9, teo

sa,800

va.48a
ao,i2o
»,ooo

i7,480
18,810

&7,4iO

34.000

8,600
9,450
12,300

13,800
3,900
40,050
11,000

118,700
591,250
3,020,000

105,800
124,850
708,300

139,10)
130,050
01.060

169.080
35,760

803,580
579.130
3,603.200

231.060
526.910
1.728,250

SS.870
76.310

20.950

334,050

1.635,230
395,900
268,700

iiaa

41,450
58,300

06,110
116,130

18,800
4S.500
195,400
180.500
1U.O0O

430,040
313,100
359:260

87,600

(ilioo

50.000
66.150
07.830

16,600
173,<H0

119,240
7i:830
93,010

lolioo

19,690
23,010
25 080
157:120

USJW

6:™

67,720
371800

3110

48,090
13,200

9,013.710

J,04a,€10
145,560

311,990

133,920

577,110
197,280
197,940
113,580

827,750
6,013.100
138,470

039,390
1.174,770

331.860

3,310

10.630
112:100

31,180

150.400

169,900
303,900

401.550
4*5.760

90,110
85:400
88.180
87,380
10,300

10,320
211.020
104,560
134.020

79,700

166,860
68;»20

4 1,720

98.300

u:^

155,320

17.050

14,100
25,070

,2.381,810
3.SB7.4M
160.S2O
391,770
870,480

7I1,4»)

013,710
271. ira
5M.7eO
901,910

92,110

70,730
25,920

354,200
iO,MO

1.143,310

1.802.170

90.530
121,940
68^550

35,500

9,300
27,300

40,300
91,470
100,810
11,010

15.600
16.750

13.130
1S,U»0

93,300
110,900
13,210

(7.1B0

o.wa
H,6ia

1.771

11,500
3.03)

131, AM

42.500
M,I20

18.370
77,090

*Mt DitbiD cnok Qraii^ ::;::;; .

San PaUa Cmk . .
Su UudtQ Cratk

*Clu«iual Owk Gruup
Sui Lornuo Crri>k
Aluncdi Cnil

'MiODDii Onli r,t..i,i,

PauUacin Cn<k

Carols River

Gnulklupc Ritrr

■Lm G»l« Cmk Group

9iii Fr»nciigL.,io Or— k ...
•Sp Milfo Ovk Grmip ....
f "•-!- md naua tor S»a F>uicaoo Bi

NORTH PACinC BASINS.

Riiw.

KkEOalh itirtr

Silmoa Rjnr

TKnilr Kiiu
Hed«oodCTOk
Mid Kiw.
Edltinr ..
■" Cretk.

10.470
15,730

16,370

UoiptUiCmlE
ISiliiiotiCmkr.rciip,..
"BoUnM Onk Graup, . .

TolakudtM

■ rocMorthricifieBi

SOUTH PACinC BASINS.

SMKp|[oIti.ef....

SMtik YmIh] Cmk

Eu Luii Ki^y Riw
&a)aMinonUHin»:'"

*StDJu>

Riiw TribaU

nuo

lB,i66

^l> \Ba Hirer Tnlutvia
"Su Gibrict Oinr TnbuUnM

Iff ,?'«''" f*"™ Ttibgl»r«l

•.*Wibul{)»erOroop ...
'SuuClMRim'njbiittriM

Voaliui Hirer

•Jilinn Cnik Qroup

SmU Ynci Riis. . , , . ,

SuAnlonioCwdi

tMU Muia Rinr.

*Sm tub (itun Crttk Croap . . .

*Sdiiai Rira tVibuUiu*

•Puijo Hirer TWbiiUrita .

•Siiutl Owk Group

•P«aJua CWk Gronp

ToUb tnJ nuooi loc Soutb PfHt Bi

GREAT BASIN.
•Tile UXe Group
■GwvUke Group

'B»Dif Uka Group. ....

*Uka1Ua(B«M

Tr*ckMitint...

Wat Fork OtnooRiow..
Rati Fork CknaaRJiir,..
WalVFtlkuRlra

Eut Wiiker llinr. . . ..
■Urao Uka Grovp ....

■AioU Madova Group. . .
*OnaRiirs(Droa) ...

'Ubop Onk Omop

•OnM lAk> Qn«]>

MojinItil«

■Alldops Villoy Group . . .
Wlitcnltf RiTW. .

•OTaEAMS GBOUPED IN ONE ENTRY IM TABLE.

re mileikddilionL EMT*bla49,

17. Cbvra Cnck. Stillnltr Cnck.

30. Ajb Cntk Bar Crak.

U. BackboDt Cr«k, Rmk Cntk. Olur Cnck.

17 MiQ Cnck. D«r Cittk. Anltlopc Cnik. Bit CUro Cr«k. Litllt CtiHo Cieck. S)-aaon HoSow, Sbnp
HoUn, Griub BoDo*. Mud Cmk. Hock Cnck, Pioe Crack, Ziaimnbed Crack Cwntl Ctetk, RilUoukt Croak. 9li«ct
Oaak. Bniah Creek. Rio do U* BrmaioL

4a Bulla Cnck. Utllo Dnr Cmk. Char Crnk. Gold Rua Crnk. Cbimlrn Rjiine, C«l Ouyon.

60, North Hoocut Crttk. South Hoocul Crak ffjTDUO Cnek, WysnduUr Cmk, Dry Creek.
51. CoDD Cmk Antdoic Crnk. Auburn R*%-iat.

M, RanliCr(*k,Niinb Fork Red BiDk Cnck. Sstrtli Fork Red Bank Creit
57, Elder CVerk. Tbotna* Crock. Ria Cmk.

50. BwEbrizht Cmk WUIo* CnA. Ldcu Crak Buelcn Cmk, Funti Crnk. Stout Corral Crack. &i>d Crirk.
Frtabnlo Cndc Salt Cnck. epnnt Cratk. C«nin. Cratk.

61. LiUlaPuiiiclic Cnck. iMQiaSaB.'lrllvliC Cmk, LaaBaoinCrtKk,i^iiLuBCretk.aoDaro Crock Q<iinlo
Clwk, MuaUu C^ack. Gaiua Crrrk. Crow Croct Uroiliinba Crwk. Ullle iWadi Creek, SdaJa Crwk. Puerlo Crtrk.
lD(rvB Cmk. HoapiUl Crak. Duron Airs Crack. Mouolaio Uouic Oreik. Builo Crock, Kallou Cruk. Mtnb Cmk.
Looc Tree Crock. Eoiid Crork, Dry Creek. Dm Creek.

64. Domeopu CneL Mirliaa Creek, Gall Creek Canliu Crick, Antyo HdiiId. Amno Cinrvo.

66 Wtltlaai Cmt JnaliUa Creek. Japaiu Creak. Blltemter Creek. Danl nirr (>Kk. Modia Agu, Cbico
Manioea Cratk. Sail Cnck. BiUrr Cnck. &nlia(o Cmk. Livec^ Cieek. Ika Eimtdio Crack. Pinto Cretk. Tecuia
Cncfc. Qnpenae Creak, Pailoha Creek. Tuna Crack, EJ hio Cnck, Tajon Cn< SmD\ca Creak. Cwou CrcEk. Guu

CrackjATona) Creek. CaUoowood Caojrst. Fruidaeu Cratk. Pukwood Creak. Bu«u VUta Cnck. Billemlcf Creek,

90. Wlitafiinr. P<»o Cmk. R»4 Gulch.

72. YokoU Creek. Learii CnxbHoiac Crisk.

T4. Ucnekila deck. RtltlMnake Creek. Stoke* Creek. Sud Creek. Wvtvke Credc Groty Cre«k.

80. Dry Creek. DaullOD Cmk.

82. DuUbmiu Creek. Dadmani Croak.

84, OweuB Cieck, Milca Cnxk.

M. Bunii Cnek, Black Raeol Creak, Fahraoa Creek.

89, WildalCraek. Dry Cmk.

02, Mulclla Cmk, Bar Creek, Rock Creels Bii Sprint Creek, PcuhyaCrtck.

OS Dr, Creek. n^lowCmtBotlcrCreet *•>-"**■ -^

97. Konfo Creak. GbUIrm Creek. Sao Anlonio Creek. Adobe Cmk. Lyneb Cmk. Htuio Creek. Toliy Crwk.

OS U'oill Vallry, Acua Calicata, Qookn Crc«k. attnit Cmk, .Sunt Canyon Creek. Sonoma Cmck. donama

W). Conn Crmk Rector Canyon, Soda Creek .Millikao Oeek. Earco Creek. Tulway Cnek. Suaool Creek, [ako
Cliabat S)ilrin. N«lh Bnncb Napa Cmk, South Braneb Nipa Creek. Dry Cmk, Sulpliur Snrinn.

100, &1U110 Creek, Uallii Cmk, L<xlte-i>od Creek. Gmn Valley Crock. Sulphur Spriup Crcii

101. Kirker Creek Ml, Diablo Creek, Walnut Creek. Redao Occk. Fioolc Creek.

107. hruaion Cnek, A[ui CUIcoLo Cnck, Ami Pri* Cree^ Torogu Cmk. Scott Cmk. Oalcnt Cnict .inoyo
do loa Coebei, Berryeau Creek. Dry CrecL Silni Cmk.

111. lAaUatiB Cmk. San ToinuCre«k; Campbell Cmk. Calaboioi Cmk. Steniu Creek. IVmuDente Cmk,
113. IiUi Crock. SiD BruQD Creek. San Malw Creek, loutl Creek. BeUasDl Cmk, Tu'cu Creek, CordiUmi

125. Uul Cmk. Wade Creek, Ten Mils Cmk, Noyo Ririr. Bit Rinr, Albion Creek.

127, DoDshDe Creek. Elk Creek, Alder Creek, Bnub Creel, Ouoia River. Gualila River,

130, WBlkcr Creek. San ADlonJa Creek, ^luion Creek.

131. Bolioaa Creek. InteruD* Cieek, Olcma CrecL
136. Ebn Jacinto Hirer, Indian Creek. Foppelt Creek, PoUro Creek, Bsutiato Oeek. Cului Valley Cmk.

" ~ ' "' Mill Crock. Sand Cmk, Cil/ Creek Plunio Crock, Stnwbcrry Croak. Walsrman Canyon,
" Creek. Lylle Cioek. in A - - -

jTCmitljii Chilton "cinyon.

13V, Pacoinu Cnck. Tuiuofk Cmk. Arroyo fno. LllUe Tujunci Canyon.

110. Dumo Crock. Ramgra Creek. Solallee Creek, CaUcClai Creek. Sycimoro CroJc, Arroyo Soquil. Trani
Caoyaa, Miilibu River. Topanfa Crirk, Ruilio Crock).

141. Sanig, Paulo Creek Bspo Creek, Pini Creek, (^talc Creek. Hin FronoUauita Cmk. Douiiuut Creek.

141 Hincon Creek. San Antonio Cmk. Jolama Cmk. Qxida CmL

147. Uranda Creek, &d Luii Oblini Cmk. DiaUo Creek. CeOD Creek. lalay Crack, ftn UtmordD Cmk, Mu
Cnck, Torn C^etk. VlQa Creek, Sasla Itcia Craek. Su Simeon Creak. Arrays if U Crui, Btt 8ur Creak, Ultle :

Creek. C^naiJ Itiior, San Canajo River, Corral de Rolr* Creek, Bnuiolan Creek, Sterner Craek, PenoinclonOek, Son
Lukito, Davi) Canyon, Wild Chrrry Caiiyoa, Oitbls Crayon. Uvtard Canvoa, Cioir Bar tWon. Pecho Creek. Willow
Creek, Old Cmk. CuyaMB Creek. Pico Creek. Ultla P^eo Cmk. Biem Creek. Arroyo Boodo, Amyo de loa Chioi*
Joabui Creek, Salmon Crt.fc Viili Cnet Alder Crwt WUlow Creek, PrertUtt Cmt, Wild CalUe Creek. Mill Cnck,
Polo Colorado Ca^vn, Doud Creek, Wild Cat CrMk Oianite CooyoD, Milpaio Creek. Sobcnnea Cnek.

118. Toro Creek. Pine Canyon. Limcfciln Craek. Alial Craek, Quail Creek, fman't Crock. Johnafln anyoD.
Arroyo Stco, Relli Cnek, Shirttad Cmk. Ckalono Creek. &n Culoa Canyon, Aqua Gnnde Cinyoa, Monroe ^Oyoo.
ThomiHon Canyon. Branaletter Canyon. Pino CanyoB, Cherry Canyon, Kant Canyon, Seven Well Oonyon. Folia ^wod,
EepinoiB Canyon, Uroadbunt Canyon, Barrel Can)vn, Sao Loreoio Creek. Snetwatei Canyon, Wild Hoih Oknyuo,
Uanilton Canyon, Iaiii Valley Oeck. Pins Valley Creek, Redwood Canyon, Lyneb Canyon. SariODl Canyon, ^linii
River, &n AdIouId Cnck. Nacimiuilo Rinf, Son Uarooa Cmk. Hucrhuero Creek. EilroUa Creek, Vineyanl CaoyOO,
Stone l^!aoyon.

liortteadero Cmk. U BnB Cmk, Oodfiik Creek. Little Arthur Creek. Vni Creek. Llaeu Cmk. Pacheeo
Cmk. Arroyo de loa Yllnnii, .Irroyo doi Flchaea. Saalt Ana Crock, Tm Finis Creek. Sao Benito Cmk. Binj Creek.
Sin Juan Creek.

160. San Vieeole CroV, Liddell Crmk. Rapid Cnek. Lofuna Creek. Coja Creak. Baldwin Creek. Mcder Cmk.
Arroyo de lea Friiotm.Wli.le II suae Cmk. CucodaCmk. Omn Oab Cmk. Aao Nuovo Cmt Finny Croak, Qaio*
Crest WadJcIl Crrek, Soult Creek. S»n Loranio Cmk, a-iuol Cmk..Apto> Creek.

151. rilaroiOB Cmk. Pu;iniiu Creek. Trinilai Crock. Son Gre«oria Croclc Fompoaio Cn«k. FeMadaro Clock,
Lobltea Greet Freuebman'a CreeL Deniditoo Creek. Sen Yicanla Creek. San Pedro Creek.

151 Bulla Crack, Aulelepo Creek, ColLonwDod Cmk. Loel Binr.

Dry Cmk. Coltoawood Qvk, Osl Cmk Raider Creek, Eadt OrMk. Bam Cmk.
ISO. Hed R ' " ."..-- " . - . _ -^ ,.

117. Smoke ,

158. Pine Creek.

160, Suaan River. Baiter Crtok. Lonj Valioy Cmk. „ , „ .^ . , , ~,.

160, Mtiff Creek. Ward Cmk. Blackwood Creek. Madden Creek. MsKlDDoy Cnek. Gcoeril Creak. Lonely Gnteh,

Umw Truckoe Hirer, Taylor Cmk.

166. Mill Creek. '"liL-l* C.rj.yon. Leevi.

167. Chvdaipi (■-,■.■ ' ••-*■--..- r-
Piute Creek, Sirot. <

191 Uwem H ■

190 Pino Cro
Fmnun Cntk. SL.-.
Creek. Hod MouoUt, ■
■ ■ ■ cCrett Pl

ic Cnek, P»rta» Crtck. Ruib Cmk. Walker Csoyoo.

-'■•• Marble Cmt, Cold«ler Canyon. Lone Tm Creek ifUner Creek.

-luu-nLo Canyon. .UeUea Canjiin. Black Oayoo.

■■ n Crwk. ^^eC;« C»oyon. Birth Creek. B»b« Cmk. Rawaon Oek
!■.; Pine Cmk. Liiil. Mn* Cmk. Binh Creek, War Cmk Tiaemaha
. ..Jilg Cmk. Dit-inon Cnck. Sawmill Cmk. TbbaulCrecl. Oak CVeck.

'Ho^^clij CrljA&a.rii'cmk'u^ Creek. Hofhack Crect Lone Pine Creek. Tnlll. Ctwk. DleU Crwk.
Rlchor Crrek. Carrol Creek. Cutlonmxd Cmk. Alb Creek. Braley Cmk. CorthaCD Creek. Ulaooba Creek. Walktf
Creek. Summit Cmk, Hajne Creek, Hotbaek Cmk.

173 Amartaa Creek. LilUi Reek deck. BiK Rock Cmk.

ISTi: Fki-liiB V. XI.

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 33

Of the basins of intermediate water productivity, the Sacramento
and San Joaquin are about equal in relative storage requirements.
Although the streams of the San Joaquin drainage have a much greater
range in variation of annual run-off than those of the Sacramento, the
bulk of the San Joaquin waters run off later in the season than those
of the Sacramento, and so, in general, storage works are about equally
effective in each basin. These two basins require slightly less storage
capacity for equal relative results to that required by the North Pacific
region, for the North Pacific region has the smaller summer flow in its
streams. However, the relative storage requirements in these three
regions are nearly alike.

The San Francisco Bay region, because of its smaller fluctuation
in annual run-off than the South Pacific, and greater than the Sacra-
mento or San Joaquin, falls intermediate in effectiveness of storage
on its streams, between the South Pacific region and the three great-
est water producing basins of the state, in which storage capacity, on
the whole, is nearly equally effective. Almost twice as much capacity
in storage works is necessary in the San Francisco Bay region to gain
equal relative results in equalizing its stream flow as in either of the
Sacramento or San Joaquin basins.

The relative amounts of storage required to equalize stream flow,
largely pertain to the range in variation between years of maximum
and minimum run-off and to the apportionment of the annual run-
off between the winter and summer months. The North Pacific region
has the smallest variation in annual run-off, and there the maximum'
is only five times that of the minimum season. The maximum year in
the Sacramento Basin is six times the least, while in all the other
regions the variation is much larger than in these two. In the San
Joaciuin it is fifteen times the least, in the San Francisco Bay region
it is seventy times the least, and in the South Pacific the year of max-
imum run-off is one hundred times the least year.

While the San Francisco Bay region has the smallest portion of
its waters wetting the stream channels during the summer months, the
Great Basin drainage, east of the Sierras and southern California moun-
tains, is distinguished by having the largest apportionment of summer
flow of any of the six regions. The streams of the San Joaquin Basin
are next in order and those of the Sacramento not far behind. The
North Pacific region has an intermediate apportionment in the sum-
mer months between that of the San Joaquin and that of the South
Pacific region.

Similar comparisons may be made between any of the individual
drainage basins in the state by referring to Table I in the proper
columns. The flow in all streams during the largest, the smallest,
and the average season, as well as during the midsummer months, is
there. Also the storage capacity required to equalize their variant
flows and the size of extreme floods are enumerated. So, comprised
within Table I, is a complete inventorj^ of all the waters of the state,
which includes their locations, their quantities and their variabilities.
The valuer entered in the table are averages for the past half century
and should be indicative of future expectancies, so that this table pre-
sents in full the water resources of the State of California with their
characterizations.

34 WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA.

CHAPTER V.

UTILIZATION OF THE STATE'S WATERS.

Only one-half of the wide expanse of California contributes much to
the waters of its streams. The other half, lower in altitude and more
even of surface, is favorably disposed for occupancy by man, and its
populated sections need water in order that their industrial expansion
may continue and their communal civilization progress steadily onward.
The production of food, the generation of power, and the supply of
water for domestic use, in the drier half of the state, are largely depend-
ent upon the waters of the streams which have their source in the more
elevated regions. The farmer relies upon the streams during the
warm, dry summers for supplementary moisture to mature his crops
and upon their hydro-electric energy to pump his irrigation waters.
The electric energy, generated by the waters of the streams as they
descend the mountains' slopes, furnishes power and illumination to the
industrial centers, and light and heat and means of operating many
conveniences, to the entire social state. But most of all, the cities,
towns, and villages, the pleasures and comforts of their congregated
peoples, require these waters in abundance for drinking and household
purposes. The expansion of all these benefits to include larger popula-
tions, demands increased supplies of water for the future with uninter-
rupted service in purity and plenty, at all times of the year, and in all
successive years alike.

The vital importance of water in the economic development of Cali-
fornia is succinctly shown in the history of the state 's production. By
1920, with but three per cent of all the people in the entire United
States residing wdthin California's borders, this state, eighteenth in the
area of land farmed, was fifth in position among the states of the Union
in value of farm crops; and while in the eighth position in value of
manufactures, was second in the installed capacity of water wheels for
the hydro-generation of electric current. Since 1920, this state has
advanced from fifth to fourth^ ^* among the states of the Union in
value of agricultural products.

The advance to so favorable a comparison in agricultural output with
the other forty-seven states of the Union, has been made without any
increase in the total area in improved farms. In fact, thirty-five years
have elapsed since the aggregate area in improved farms in California
has increased. Although there are twenty-three million acres of land
susceptible of agriculture within the state's borders, the enlargement
of the area tilled ceased when but half of the total had been brought
under cultivation. As a result of the unprofitable farming conditions
obtaining on the remaining millions of acres, the area under cultivation
did not further enlarge ; the experience of the practical farmer limited
the total area cultivated to but half the agricultural lands. Some

"'Statistics of California State Department of Agriculture shoW that this state was
exceeded in value of agricultural products by Texas, Iowa and Illinois.

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA, 35

additional areas having inadequate natural moisture have since been
added to the total area of improved farms by developing accessory
water supplies, but the abandonment of other areas previously farmed
has compensated in their summation so that the total acreage in im-
proved farms has remained practically unchanged for thirty-five years.

This limit to the area in improved farms was reached in the year
1885, Prior to this year, the tilled area had expanded in leaps and
bounds from the great impetus to farming enterprises that followed
the world wide movement to this state after the discovery of gold at the
midway point of the last century. This enlargement of the farmed
area continued at a rapid rate for a third of a century, then slacken-
ing, it ceased about 1885,

With less than 12,000,000 acres cultivated, all of the state's agricul-
tural area with sufficient natural moisture to mature a profitable crop
had been brought into use. Since 1885, the state has had no additional
area that could be profitably utilized for agriculture in its natural con-
dition, so that in response to the continuing favorable market for agri-
cultural products, a more intensive farming of the land already under
cultivation has been in progress. All through these thirty-five years,
the demand for products of California's agriculturists has never
ceased to increase at an accelerated rate, California, favorably sit-
uated, its fertile agricultural soils producing to capacity under condi-
tions of dry farming, required only that additional water be applied
to these lands to multipl.v their yield. The practical farmer, answer-
ing to the ever-enlarging market for his products, increased the yield
of many acres by supplementing the soil's natural moisture with water
applied through irrigation. In this way the state has continued,
through the last thirty-five years, to respond to the constantly increas-
ing demand for its farm products, and in this way the potent possibil-
ities of California's farm lands are being invoked to a yield greater in
value than in any other state of the Union.

The utility of the state's waters in augmenting the yield of its agri-
cultural lands and the demands of the future, may best be ascertained
through an investigation of the use of water in the past. The quan-
tity of accessory water needed for gro\^^ng crops to an harvestable
maturity, may best be derived from the results of experience and prac-
tice. California's lands, .deficient in natural moisture during the grow-
ing season of agricultural plants, have received varying quantities of
water. The amounts applied on the sundry tracts in the divers locali-
ties, differ widely with all the circumstances and conditions affecting
the use of water. The application to different fields has varied greatly
even for like crops, for not only do the quantities of water used vary
with the incentive for their economic application, but the amounts that
are dissipated in the process of irrigation change greatly with contin-
gent circumstances, and even the actual quantity necessary for absorp-
tion by the root systems of the plants, is conditional.

These circumstances and conditions neces.sitating the application of
more or less accessory water, are so vast in number, changing with
every variation in soil, crop, and preparation for spreading water, that
on small tracts of land, the effect of one may predominate, but on
greater areas they tend to neutralize in effect. For this reason the
average use of water on very large areas approaches like figures, while
the use on small tracts within these large areas, may take wide numer-

36 WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

ical departure from the general average. The larger the areas com-
pared, usually the closer is the agreement of numerical values in the
records of use. From the average use of water on large areas, suffic-
iently great to suppress the predominance of effects peculiar to small
parcels, natural divisions of the state, sixteen in number, have been
evolved, and called duty of water sections. These sections comprise
within their boundaries, lands of approximately like geographic posi-
tion, similar surface conformation, of analogous economic environment,
aud equal climate, and so form convenient segregations for the dis-
closure of the irrigation requirements of California's agricultural lands.

Delineated on Plate III, "Map of Agriculture Areas and Duty of
Water Sections," the boundaries of these sections show as red lines
following natural dividing conformations of the land surface. The
agricultural lands show as light green areas within the delimiting red
lines. Letters within circles, interspersed throughout the green areas,
indicate the location of individual irrigation systems or of divers
tracts of land for which data on the actual use of water or on proposed
uses, have been collected by these investigations. A searching inquiry
of the use of water has been made and water measurements have been
assembled appljnng to an area that equals more than half the lands
irrigated in the entire state during 1919. These records are the sum-
mation of the labors of a great many engineers and hydrographers
that cover the major portion of the last two decades. These extensive
data are included with pertinent material in Appendix "B" to this
report and the letters within the circles on the map, are attached to
the data on the plates and in the tables of this appendix, so that the
approximate geographic situation of the lands to which the data apply
may be traced.

That the water requirements for each of the several sections of the
state might be derived from this great assemblage of information, an
examination of the circumstances and a close scrutiny of the condi-
tions were made, surrounding the use of water in each section. All
information on the types and fertility of soils, the crops grown, the
climate, the water supply, the surface conformation of the land, and
all other subjects related to irrigation requirements, was reviewed
and compared with the measured and proposed uses of water. Prac-
tical working quantities required of accessory water supplies in each
section, were so evolved and recorded in "Table 2, "Agricultural Area
and Net Duty of Water in the Sixteen Sections of California." The
total area of agricultural land in each section is also recorded in this
table and numbers. are given to each section that show their location on
the map, Plate III.

These practical working quantities in Table 2 that set forth the
general water needs of the agricultural areas in each section, are
expressed as the amount of water required on a unit area of cropped
land and are named the "Duty of Water." Originally an expression
for the area of land that a measure of water would irrigate when
flowing continuously through the irrigation season, custom has inverted
the first meaning and more conveniently utilizes the term "Duty of
Water" to name the quantity of irrigation water required to furnish
throughout one season, an adequate supplementary supply to the soil
moisture on a unit area of land. This quantity is usually expressed
as feet-depth on the land, meaning the depth that the total amount of
water required each year for one acre, would cover its surface if it

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

TABLE 2. AGRICULTURAL AREAS AND NET DUTY OF

WATER

in sixteen sections of California, shown on Plate III

Section
number.

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

10
11
12
13
14
15
16

Description of section.

Los Angeles area, Ventura to Redlands

San Diego area. Mexican boundary to San Jacinto and Yucaipa

Imperial, Coaohella an4 Palo Verde valleys

Antelope Valley and Mojave River areas

Inyo-Kern, Owens and Mono valleys

Sierra foothills and rolling plains east and south of San Joaquin Valley floor

San Joaquin Valley floor

Western slope of southern San Joaquin Valley

Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo areas

Salinas and contiguous valleys

Santa Clara and adjacent valley areas

Delta lands of San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys

Sacramento Valley floor

Sierra foothills, and rolling plains east and west of Sacramento Valley floor.

North coast area

Northeastern mountain-valley and plateau areas

Total

Agricultural
area.

Net duty
of water.

Acres.

Feet depth
on land.

1,310,000

1.75

84.000

1.25

1,299,000

3.00

1,107,000

2.00

657,000

2.50 '

1,800,000

1.75

5,468,000

2.00

971,000

1.75

410,000

1.50

296,000

1.75

530,000

1.50

453,000

1.50

2,694,000

2.25

2,305,000

1.50

624,000

1.25

1,598,000

1.75

22.506.000

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

TABLE 2. AGRICULTURAL AREAS AND NET DUTY OF

WATER

in sixteen sections of California, shown on Plate III

Section
number.

Description of section.

Los Angeles area, Ventura to Redlands

San Diego area. Mexican boundary to San Jacinto and Yucaipa

Imperial, Coachella an(j Palo Verde valleys

Antelope Valley and Mojave River areas

Inyo-Kern, Owens and Mono valleys

Sierra foothills and rolling plains east and south of San Joaquin Valley floor

San Joaquin Valley floor

Western slope of southern San Joaquin Valley

Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo areas

Salinas and contiguous valleys

Santa Clara and adjacent valley areas

Delta lands of San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys

Sacramento Valley floor

Sierra foothills, and rolling plains east and west of Sacramento Valley floor .

North coast area

Northeastern mountain-valley and plateau areas

Total

Agricultural
area.

Net duty
of water.

Acres.

Feet depth
on land.

1,310,000

1.75

84.000

1.25

1,299,000

3.00

1,107,000

2.00

657,000

2.50 '

1,800,000

1.75

5,468,000

2.00

971,000

1.75

410,000

1.50

296,000

1.75

530,000

1.50

453,000

1,50

2,694,000

2.25

2,305,000

1.50

624,000

1.25

1,598,000

1.75

22.506.000

38 WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

were all accumulated and confined above that acre. Conventional
use, however, has resulted in dropping the unit of area, the acre;
and of time, the year; and although not expressed, these are now
implicitly contained in the phrase "Duty of Water."

Qualifying terms are in common use, such as "Net" and "Gross."
"Net Duty" is the quantity of water measured at the point nearest
to its entry and spreading out upon the cropped land. It thus con-
tains the water required for plant growth, together with the spreading
or application losses and the losses contingent to storage in the soils
prior to absorption by the roots of plants.' The "Gross Duty" is this
same quantity of water in lake or flowing stream, reservoir or place of
storage, together with the conveyance losses and waste over spillways
incident to its flow through canals or conduits from the first point of
diversion at its natural source, to its point of entry on to the cropped
soil. "Net Duty" of water is best adapted to considerations of the
requirements of accessory water supplies and in comparing the needs
of different localities. "Gross Duty" is a subject for consideration
in canal and conduit design and in initial diversion quantities.

The application of waters to large areas in the quantities tabu-
lated at "Net Duty of Water" in Table 2, provide adequate moisture
for their intensive cultivation ; but in estimating the total water
requirements in any locality, portions of the entire area will not need
Avater. Contingent to an intensively developing agricultural com-
munity, the rural and urban dwellings, routes of communication and
transportation, industries, and improvements, occupy an increasingly
large portion of the total area. As the small farm holdings become
greater in number, the land is more vigorously cultivated and the
production per acre is enhanced ; the farm buildings needed for this
great activity occupy a larger proportion of the cultivatable area. The
total value of improvements, the wealth created and the income derived
from agriculture vastly increases, but the farmed area would tend to
diminish except for the cultivation of new areas previously unprofitable
to farm. The inclusion of new areas among the tilled lands, however, is
limited, for after the entire area is l>rought into use, no additions can
be made without destroying improvements which themselves are essen-
tial for the tilling of the soil, and also, there are always some lands
naturally unfit for cultivation, such as rocky and alkali spots, high
knolls and stream beds. These will never be irrigated. Further, in
each season a portion of the total area will remain fallow, other por-
tions Avill be planted but not watered and irrigation water will not be
required for either. So, in closely settled irrigated communities, the
sum total of the unirrigated lands may be a considerable part of the
total area. The studies made in these investigations, indicate that
the part of the gross area ultimately requiring agricultural water, is
from sixty to ninety per cent iii the various sections of the state.

Of all the waters in use for the various purposes of civilization, that
employed in agriculture is predominant. In the year 1920, with three
and one-half millions of people in California and one-quarter of its
arable lands under irrigation, about one-fourth of all waters that can
ultimately be made available through storage within the borders of the
state, were in use for domestic and industrial supply, irrigation, power
generation and mining. The domestic and industrial use was about four
per cent of the total, while much of the Avaters used for generating
electric power and in mining, being on elevated lands, was employed a
second time at lower levels in irrigating the state's dry soils.

WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA. 39

CHAPTER VI.

COMPREHENSIVE PLAN FOR ACHIEVING THE MAXIMinVE
SERVICE FROM THE WATERS OF THE STATE.

Plans for converting the waters of California to their greatest service
in this generation and for all posterity, must give precedence among the
many uses for water, to those purposes which are indispensable to man's
continued existence. "Water for drinking and household use takes
priority over that for growing food-stuffs, while water for growing
food-stuffs is primary to that for industrial purposes. "Were there
abundant water for all needs, cognizance of its relative importance in
domestic, agricultural and industrial service, could be disregarded. In
California, however, where the waters in the streams are replenished by
rains that largely occur in a few months of the year, and seasons of
meager or bountiful rainfall succeed each other in all variations of
sequence, there would be deficiencies of water for present needs during
every season, were it not for impounding M'orks already constructed.
Only through the construction of still greater and more elaborate works
to equalize the erratic stream tlow and to transport waters to localities
of urgent need, can California continue to enhance its wealth and
increase the numbers of its people at the prevailing rate which for the
past decade has exceeded that of all other states of the Union but two.^^'
The combined increase of population in these two states, however, was
only one-third that in California.

A comprehensive plan must primarily insure a full supply of water
for drinking and household purposes. But since the present needs for
domestic and industrial water supplies are only a twenty-fifth the
amount required for irrigation of the agricultural lands now using
water, the principle constructive features of a plan for obtaining maxi-
mum use of the state's waters, must revolve about its distribution for
the greatly preponderant use in agriculture. Further, the magnified
urban communities of the future must largely encroach upon lands
now classed as agricultural, for these farm areas comprise all the lands
that are suitable for residence, except those about the state's seaports.
Because of their harbors, commerce and strategic locations, the seaports
will expand over adjacent lands now excluded from the agricultural
areas on account of being scatteringly settled fringes to population
centers or on account of being too rough of surface or steep of slope.
But metropolitan areas in all other parts of the state will undoubtedly
arise upon the flatter lands classed in this report as agricultural. As
these are relinquished for city development, the total consumption of
water in any district for both domestic and irrigation supplies will not
increase very much, since cities of fairly mature growth use water about

"'U. S. Census — 1920. Population of Arizona increased 63.5 per cent, Montana 46
per cent, while California increased its numbers 44 per cent during the preceding
d' cade.

40 WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

equal to that required for irrigating crops on the same area. Conse-
quently any comprehensive plan for supplying water to all parts of the
state in amounts suited to its future needs for urhan and agricultural
development, will have accomplished both purposes when all the present
lands, classed as agricultural, are provided with an adequate- allotment
of water to irrigate their surface, and additional allowances are made
for the dense urban development that will occur about the state's
seaports.

Of other uses for water, though subservient to the primary demands
of the household and for growing food-stuffs, that of generating hydro-
electric power to light and heat the homes in rural and urban communi-
ties, to operate factories, railroads and car lines, to illuminate the
streets of cities and to"RTis. as well as to pump and deliver water for the
domestic and agricultural use, undoubtedly ranks close to the employ-
ment for agricultural purposes. It is through these agencies that
accessories to raising food-stuffs are supplied, that farm produces are
prepared for consumption, and the necessities and conveniences of
civilization are conveyed to all alike, so that a comprehensive plan to
obtain the maximum use of the state's waters must dispose of these
waters in such a way that a full measure of hydro-electric energy may
also be generated.

The agricultural lands of the state, situated on the lower levels, are
favorably located to receive the flowing waters of the streams after they
have exhausted their inherent energy in tumbling down the steep moun-
tain slopes. Three-fifths of the agricultural area of the state is less than
five hundred feet in elevation, and seven-eighths of it is less than
twenty-five hundred feet in elevation, while the mountainous water-
producing region ascends to heights as great as ten thousand feet above
the twenty-five hundred foot level. This spacious region, a steep and
rugged country that spreads over half the state, yields practically all of
California's waters. These drain into the stream channels and flow
past the bulk of the lower-situated agricultural lands in their descent
toward the ocean. Thus, the region that abounds in the sheer declivities
and swift flowing streams, most essential for the generation of hydro-
electric energy, lies above seven-eighths of California's agricultural
lands and above those areas that will be mostly occupied by urban
development. If the diversions of domestic and agricultural waters
from the streams are generally confined to points below the twenty -five
hundred foot contour, the areas most favorable for power development
one-half the total surface of the state, with its waters nearly all of the
state's suppl}^, remain intact for the unimpaired generation of electric
energy and these waters may then be re-used on the lower levels for
domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes. Therefore a compre-
hensive plan to serve the maximum area of agricultural land with irriga-
tion water, that makes its diversions of water below the twenty-five
hundred foot elevation and that provides additional waters for the
growing urban communities about the seaports that are not spreading
over agricultural lands, is the constructive measure that will enable
the greatest use to be made of California's water resources, and such a
plan would give the greatest service to the primary needs of man and
provide domestic and irrigation waters in their largest amounts, without

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 41

particularly abridging the use of waters for the industries and the
generation of electric power.

While the entire amount of California's waters for an average year
would submerge the twenty-three million acres of tillable land in this
state to a depth of three and a quarter feet if evenly spread over and
confined above them and the necessary application to the soil is but
two feet in depth annually as a statewide average, still the disparity
in location of these agricultural lands with respect to the sources of
abundant water supply, presents insurmountable obstacles to the utiliza-
tion of a considerable part of these w^aters on the lands that need them
most urgently.

In northwestern California lies the area most productive in water
of all regions in the state, the North Pacific Coast region. From the
evergreen slopes of its timbered mountains, more than one-third of
all the state's waters drain off into the ocean, passing on their couree,
only two per cent of the agricultural lands of the state. This immense
volume of water, enough to cover the arable lands of the entire state
to an average depth of one foot ever}^ year, joins the ocean deep without
opportunity of infusing harvest-maturing moisture into those portions
of California's soils that are too dry for maximum production without
accessory supplies. The oceanward slopes of the Coast Range are
separated by more than one hundred miles from the nearest large body
of farming land that is deficient in local waters. In attaining heights
in an unbroken barrier of from four to nine thousand feet, the Coast
Range IMountains effectively block the transportation of the waters
from their western slopes to the extensive area of agricultural lands
lying to the east and south. Only in projects of great magnitude can
portions of these waters be captured and delivered for use on the lands
that need them.

Diagonally across the state from this great waterproducing basin
of the North Pacific Coast, lies a region in the southeastern corner of
California, one-fifth the entire area of the state, mountainous for a
large part, but containing at least four million acres of flat lands of
which the geography is only partly recorded because of the extreme
aridity and uninviting aspect of its parched expanse. Some of the flat
lands that skirt the edges of this moistureless solitude, have been
fortunate in securing waters for their dry soils. These have responded
to irrigation, and their great fertility has brought forth bountiful
harvests to repay the pioneer. There were 546,000 acres of this region
so irrigated in 1920. However, an area of 2,400,000 acres of the flat
lands have been listed as agricultural, for water may ultimately be
obtained for considerable areas in this region. Thus in one comer of
California, one-third of its water resources are dissipated into the
ocean with but small possibility of use, while in the opposite comer of
the state, over six hundred miles distant, considerable areas of poten-
tially fertile soils await the import of plant-nurturing waters to awaken
their powers of production.

Intermediate in geographic position between these extreme regions,
lies the Great Central Valley containing three-fifths of all the agricul-
tural lands of the state. The northerly part of this area, the Sacra-
mento Valley, contains five and one-half million acres of agricultural
lands and enough water courses through the streams traversing it, to

42 WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

submerge these lands on an average four and one-half feet in annual
depth ; while its southerly part, the San Joaquin Valley, contains eight
and one-quarter million acres of arable land, but only enough water
flows in its stream to cover them a foot and a third in average depth
if spread evenly over them each year. To the west and south of these
lands and disposed along the coast from San Francisco to the Mexican
boundary, is the South Pacific Coast region, which contains a tillable
area of over three million acres, but its streams on an average, yield
only water enough to cover these lands a little more than one foot in
depth annually. Other agricultural lands, about a half million acres in
the San Francisco Bay Region and four and one-half million acres
easterly from the Sierra Nevada and the mountain range extending
southerly from Tehachapi Pass, have water in adjacent streams that
will cover them annually to less than an average depth of one and a
quarter feet, excepting those areas that can receive water from the
Colorado River. Areas that are irrigable from the Colorado River
may obtain amounts more than double this. To evolve tvorks hy which
ivatcrs may he transported to overcome this wieven geographic distribu-
tion of California's ivaters, so that, as 7iearly as possible, all these
diversely situated bodies of agricultural lands may be served with their
needed ivaters at the least expense, is the mai^i problem to be solved in
unfolding the comprehensive plan.

However, other most important coiLsiderations intervene in pre-
paring plans. In addition to the seventy-three milljon acre-feet of
California's waters being located in geographic positions adverse for
use on much of the agricultural lands, these waters course down their
stream channels in capriciously erratic rates of flow and three-fourths
of them reach the lower levels at a season of the year during which
they are of little use for irrigation, because the same storms that pre-
cipitate the run-off on the mountain collecting areas, usually wet the
lower agricultural lands as well. Thus works must be provided to
detain large volumes of flood waters on their catchment areas and hold
them in reserve for supplementing the diminishing summer flow of the
streams at the time needed for irrigation. In holding waters in storage
for later use, evaporation is continually active on their surfaces and the
stored vohunes are constantly depleted through loss to the atmosphere.
It is revealed by these investigations that, even with unlimited storage
capacity available on every stream, not more than eighty per cent of
the state's waters can be brought into use as uniform floAv; that, with
maximum equalization of stream flow, one-fifth of all the waters would
be lost by evaporation while being detained in reservoirs until the
time arrives for their use. Thus the four great basins deficient in
waters for their agricultural lands, the San Joaquin Valley, the South
Pacific Coast Basin, and the regions of San Francisco Bay and of the
Great Basin drainage, within w^hose confines lie two-thirds of all the
agricultural lands of the state, would have their already inadequate
waters, if developed in their entirety, reduced one-fifth in volume by
losses of evaporation.

To further complicate the problem, the waters of some streams, in
their flow being less erratic, can be more easily equalized to uniform
discharge than in others. To minimize the cost of the works, those
streams must be most heavily drawn upon for water that require the
least storage capacity to equalize their flow and upon whose drainage

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 43

areas cheap reservoir sites may l)e found. Tlie capacities of storage
re(iiiired to yield the maximuin amount of uniform flow for irrigation
use varies widely on the different streams. On the streams of least
requirements, the maximum development may be obtained with a
storage capacity whose volume is less than the annual yield of uniform
flow, while on the streams of greatest requirements, a storage capacity
fifteen times as large as the annual equalized flow is necessary to obtain
the maximum yield. In general, the greatest storage requirements are
on streams in the regions of least water production, so that the most
effective use of the state's Avaters may be accomplished only through
a superlatively scientific plan.

That the highest attainments of science could be introduced in the
preparation of a comprehensive plan, the investigations have assembled
masses of data and completed intricate analyses concerning the location,
the quantities and the variability of occurrence of the waters of the
state. This digest of information has been all-inclusive, and is pre-
sented in full in Appendix "A" to this report. It is summarized in
Table 1, "Water Resources of California." This audit of California's
waters results in the first complete inventory of the waters of an entire
state that has ever been assembled.

In addition, data on twelve hundred and seventy reservoir sites have
been examined and preliminary estimates of the reservoir capacity and
of the water yield were made on nearly eight hundred of these. The
field parties of the department made reconnoissance surveys of one
hundred and seA^enty-six reservoir sites and searched three thousand
five hundred miles of stream bed for other possible locations. Further,
that the amounts of water needed for irrigated agriculture might be
ascertained, data were gathered on the quantities of water used on over
two million acres of irrigated lands in the state, or more than half the
total area irrigated in 1920. These records of water use extend over
an average of four years. They are presented in Appendix "B" to
this report.

An analysis of all this data discloses that four-fiftlis of all the agri-
cultural lands of the state may be watered. Additional investigation
would probabh' result in finding means of irrigating still larger areas,
but the water would be very costly. The 18,000,000 acres which it is
found possible to water is an expanse greater than the entire area in
all the western states irrigated in 1919. and three times as large as the
area under water in California in the same year.

To accomplish the irrigation of this large area will require the con-
struction of reservoirs having an aggregate capacity of 50,000,000 acre
feet, and many miles of large canals to transport water from its source
to the regions of need for it. Because of the inclusion of the maximum
area in the estimates of cost, the average price per acre for accomplish-
ing the irrigation of the 18,000,000 acres is greater than most projects
that are now under construction, but additional areas to those watered
at the present time can only be irrigated at greater costs, for they are
the residual lands as the more favorable areas for constructive enter-
prises are selected.

Quoting from the 1919 report to the Smithsonian Institution on irri-
gation in the western states, "The great bulk of the land west of the
hundredth meridian which is not too high, cold, or rocky for agricul-
ture, is arid. Of this arid portion, over 15,000,000 acres have been

44 WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

placed under irrigation by private or public enterprise, and in carry-
ing out this work, of course, the most favorable opportunities for such
irrigation have been developed. It will still be possible to add many
million acres to the irrigated area and perhaps to double the area now
irrigated, but this must generally be done at a high cost, as the cheap
opportunities have been long since exhausted. There are remaining,
however, many areas which can be irrigated within feasible costs aad
will develop values far in excess of the necessary expenditures." These
investigations show that it is possible to complete the irrigation of
18,000,000 acres in California alone. This would add 12,000,000 acres
to the area under water in the western United States.

In preparing a general plan for this attainment, the complexly
involved rights and claims to I'iglits for the use of water in this state
were not considered, but rather a i)lan was devised which comprehends
the state as a virgin territory with its waters and soils unsegregated
in private ownership. However, inclusion was made of all constructed
works, so that the plan does not coutain proposals for discarding monu-
ments of attainment of this or preceding generations. The plan would
use all existant reservoirs, main canals and distribution ditches. Waters
from new sources would be turned into the systems now in use on their
arrival in that locality.

In the estimates of cost, entries were included for expenditures made
in building all existing works except distribution canals, so that the
total cost estimated is for a complete, system of storage works and main
canals giving uniform service to all lands irrespective of their present
stage of development. It was found to be impossible in a general layout
to separate the service and costs between areas now under water and
those yet to be irrigated, because large areas, now classed as irrigated
lands, have supplies that are deficient during the latter part of summer
and many projects are short of water during the entire season in
years of subnormal stream flow. To make this segregation would require
a detail design of the plan in each locality, a work of great magnitude
for so large an area as 18,000,000 acras. Therefore the cost estimates
here given are the average cost per acre to develop a first-class water
supply for all irrigable lands, whether they are now watered or not.
They include all costs of construction and of rights of way, for storing
waters and transporting them into the regions of use, but do not include
the cost of constructing distributing canals or of operating the works,
or the costs of acquiring water-rights, of litigation over claims to water-
rights, or of damage suits. Neither have credit allowances for power
that might be developed at or in the vicinity of the many dams for
storing water been deducted in the cost estimates.

The average cost of storage worlcs necessary to develop a full supply
for the entire 18,000,000 acres, through all seasons without shortage,
is twenty-five dollars per acre-foot of water developed, while the cost
to the laud for adequate amounts would be forty-five dollars per acre.
The cost of canals with appurtenant structures to transport this water
to the regions of use would average thirty-five dollars per acre. The
total average cost per acre to deliver a first-class supply to the region
of use is, therefore, eighty dollars. These costs vary greatly in the
different localities.

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 45

To effect the watering of so large an area at these costs, it is neces-
sary over the bulk of California's lands to adopt a coordinated scheme
of development and distribution of water, that comprise very large
areas in interrelated works. To store the waters at the cheapest loca-
tions of abundant supply and transport them long distances to the
localities of use requires inter-service works of great dimensions. Areas
greater than are now under irrigation may be watered without coordi-
nated development and distribution, but a limit is being approached
whereby united endeavors almost statewide in extent will be necessary
to secure greater service from the state's waters at reasonable costs.

The plan herein set forth requires complete coordination of the dis-
tribution of water over large areas, as well as in the construction of the
works. This is necessary in order to utilize the inexpensive storage
sites to the greatest advantage. Dam sites of low cost often have lim-
ited catchment areas draining into their reservoirs that do not yield
enough water to warrant the construction of high dams when the
draft on them is uniform. But under the coordinated scheme of oper-
ation of the comprehensive plan, these dams may be erected to their
full height and the cheap storage capacity thus created, utilized to the
same advantages as the capacities behind other more expensive dams.

To secure this advantage requires that the draft on all reservoirs be
pooled so that in apportioning the total draft between the reservoirs
in each season, the largest amounts may be taken from the reservoirs
that are filling the quickest. In this way, the draft may be appor-
tioned to small reservoirs situated on large drainage areas so as to
empty them more than once a season and thus use excess water that
otherwise would flow over their spillways; similarly, reservoirs with
watersheds of small yield may be left to fill with accumulating waters
during the seasons of plenteous run-off and ma}' be drawn on only dur-
ing the drier seasons.

In so apportioning the draft, exactly the same results are attained
in irrigating the land as by the customs in present use whereby the
waters from each reservoir become attached to a particular tract of land
and the reservoir is drawn on regularly each year at its maximum rate
of yield. Under this prevailing system of individual reservoir-draft it
would be useless to build dams to greater heights than is required to
equalize the flow of their tributary drainage area for a uniform draft,
because no greater yield would be obtained with the higher dams.
But when their waters are utilized for over year storage only, for hold-
ing over the surplus of wet seasons to dispense it for use in the dry
ones that may come several years later, these cheap reservoirs answer
just as well as the more expensive ones with larger drainage areas. In
either case the same amount of water must be held in storage some-
where for the same length of time, but a great advantage in cost is
gained over the customary system of individual reservoir-draft, by
the selection of the cheapest sites for storing this water under the sys-
tem of pooled draft. The scheme of pooled draft of the comprehensive
plan, allots the total draft to the various reservoirs so that the greatest
efficiency is attained in operating the works. To obtain equal yield
to that of the customary system of individual draft on reservoirs, the
coordinated scheme of pooling the draft contained in the comprehensive
plan, would result in an average construction cost of storage works only
slight!}' more than half that of the individual reservoir-draft system.

46 WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

The preliminary comprehensive plan outlined in this report will
accomplish the irrigation of the maximum area of the state's agricul-
tural lands at the least cost, as well as provide waters for the primary
use of domestic supply and leave the great mountainous area above the
twenty-five hundred foot contour free for the generation of hydro-elec-
tric energy, except for the irrigation of the beautiful mountain valleys,
that dot these regions and the table lands in northeastern California.
Their total area, however, is only one-eighth of all the tillable soil. On
the other hand, much power can be generated below the twent^'-five
hundred foot level and above the irrigation diversions, especially at the
high dams of many of the storage reservoirs. This plan, then, outlines
a scheme that will obtain the maximum service from the waters of the
state and provide for all users in order of their importance to man's
continued existence.

In this plan the source of supply has been selected as close to the
needy land as possible, the least expensive storage sites have been
selected, and the canals have been routed over the least obstructed paths
and a scherae of coordinated use of reservoirs has been included that
makes it possible to attain the most efficient service in their operation.
The main features of the plan are delineated on the map of California
Plate IV, "Preliminary Comprehensive Plan for Maximum Develop-
ment of California's Water Resources."

Because of the physical limits which the mountain ranges and great
distances in California place on the transportation of water, bounds
are placed on the areas that naturally group together to their mutual
advantage quite like the bounds of the great drainage basins of the
state. The plan will therefore be described by ma.jor drainage groups.

SAN FRANCISCO BAY DRAINAGE.

Half the waters of the state in their natural course drain into San
Francisco Bay. From the Pit River, which rises in the extreme north-
east corner of the state, to the Kern, three-fourths the length of the
state towards its southern extremity, these waters gather into the Sacra-
mento and San Joaquin rivers to join with smaller streams that empty
directly into San Francisco Bay, in issuing through the Golden Gate
into the Pacific Ocean. Within these drainage basins are 14,800,000
acres of lands suitable for agriculture. The comprehensive plan pro-
vides for irrigating all but two and one-half per cent of this entire area.
Only 4,260,000 acres are now irrigated in these regions.

Ninety-five per cent of the 14,800.000 arable acres in these basins lies
in one large continuous body of land on the floor and skirting the edges
of the Great Central Valley. Sloping from elevations of five hundred
feet above sea-level at the extreme northerly and southerly ends, these
lands are barely higher than the sea in the central parts. With an
extreme length of five hundred miles, the economic conveyance of the
surplus waters of the north half of this valley to the southerly areas
that are lacking in water, demands that the plan be adapted to the nat-
ural topographic and hydrographic features of the area.

Since seven-eighths of all the waters of these regions drain off the
Sierra Nevada Mountains, there is ample for spreading on the easterly
side of the valley. In the Sacramento Valley, the east side lands would
be served almost entirely by gravity diversions from adjacent streams

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WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. -47

and the main canals would be short, but southerly from the American
River, a series of five long canals would be necessary in order to com-
pletely irrigate the areas eastward from the valley trough. These
canals generally would be on the valley floor and serve to transfer
Avaters southerly as they cross the distributing canals now in use. Byni
this means all of the east side of the San Joaquin Valley may be servedj
by gravit3^

The westerly side of the Great Central Valley is deficient in local
waters, particularly in the San Joaquin where their average annual
amount is only 250,000 acre-feet. Their full amount, however, would
be distributed by gravity to the higher lands on the edge of the valley
floor. In the Sacramento A'alley, three canals, each some sixty miles in
length, would divert from the main channel of the Sacramento River
and spread water to the south and west, but a very considerable area
would be served by pumping diversions with comparatively short main
canals leading to adjacent lands. jMany of these are already con-
structed. Some areas to the w^est of the gravity canals would also be
served by pumping from these mains. The pumping lifts would gen-
erally be less than fifty feet.

The west side of the San Joaquin Valley would be served by one
grand canal two hundred miles long. This would follow the flat lands
of smooth surface and have nine pumping plants at intervals along
its course to raise the water against the natural grade of the valley
floor. The greatest lift of the water flowing in this canal to its extreme
southern end, would be 400 feet. There would be 650,000 acres served
out of the grand canal by gravity, but the other 1,380,000 acres that
could take their supply from this canal, require that the water be lifted
by pumping for distribution over the land surface. The total pump-
ing lift would be high for most of these lands. About 600,000 acres
only would have a total pumping lift of less than three hundred feet,
1,100,000 acres between three and six hundred feet, and 350,000 acres
a lift of more than six hundred feet if they are to be watered.

As great as these pumping lifts would be, this plan of distributing
the water is much less costly than one of gravity conveyance. To
import water to this area by gravity, would require a canal of large
dimensions, tortuously following a grade contour on steep mountain
hillsides and winding in and out around every rocky spur and into each
receding ravine. The total length attained in its devious route would
double or treble the air line distance of five hundred miles between the
source of supply in the Sacramento River and the extreme southerly
lands to be watered. The cost of constructing crossings for a gravity
canal at the innumerable drainage channels that it would intercept,
alone would probabl,y exceed the total cost of all the works of the com-
prehensive plan.

In the comprehensive plan, the excess waters of the Sacramento
drainage basin would be collected in the main river channels and, by
means of a dam across Carquinez Straits below the mouth of both
the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, this water would be diverted
into the lower San Joaquin River from which the grand canal would
take its water. Thus the cost of conduit would be obviated for the full
length of the Sacramento Valley. The grand canal would follow the
smooth valley floor and its excavation would be the cheapest type of

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. -47

and the main canals would be short, but southerly from the American
River, a series of five long canals would be necessary in order to com-
pletely irrigate the areas eastward from the valley trough. These
canals generally would be on the valley floor and serve to transfer
waters southerly as the}" cross the distributing canals now in use. By]!
this means all of the east side of the San Joaquin Valley may be servedj
by gravity.

The westerly side of the Great Central Valley is deficient in local
waters, particularly in the San Joaquin where their average annual
amount is only 250,000 acre-feet. Their full amount, however, would
be distributed by gravity to the higher lands on the edge of the valley
floor. In the Sacramento Valley, three canals, each some sixty miles in
length, would divert from the main channel of the Sacramento River
and spread water to the south and west, but a very considerable area
would be served by pumping diversions with comparatively short main
canals leading to adjacent lands. Many of these are already con-
structed. Some areas to the west of the gravity canals would also be
served by pumping from these mains. The pumping lifts would gen-
erally be less than fifty feet.

As great as these pumping lifts would be, this plan of distributing
the water is much less costly than one of gravity conveyance. To
•' import water to this area by gravity, would recjuire a canal of large
dimensions, tortuously following a grade contour on steep mountain
hillsides and winding in and out around every rocky spur and into each
receding ravine. The total length attained in its devious route would
double or treble the air line distance of five hundred miles between the
source of supply in the Sacramento River and the extreme southerly
lands to be watered. The cost of constructing crossings for a gravity
canal at the innumerable drainage channels that it would intercept,
alone would probabl}' exceed the total cost of all the works of the com-
prehensive plan.

In the comprehensive plan, the excess waters of the Sacramento
drainage basin would be collected in the main river channels and, by
means of a dam across Carquinez Straits below the mouth of both
the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, this water would be diverted
into the lower San Joaquin River from which the grand canal would
take its water. Thus the cost of conduit would be obviated for the full
length of the Sacramento Valley. The grand canal would follow the
smooth vallej' floor and its excavation would be the cheapest type of

48 WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

earth work. It is so designed that by utilizing the storage capacity of
Tulare Lake, the pumping plants along its course may operate eleven
months in the year, resulting in a considerable reduction in size of
canal and of pumps. The waters pumped during the winter months
would be stored in Tulare Lake for use the following summer. No
flood menace would be involved in filling the Lake during the winter
with the comprehensive plan in operation, for the complete develop-
ment of both the Kings and Kern rivers would absorb in their reser-
voirs, the flood flows that occasionally fill this lake.

In general, there is opportunity to generate ample electricity for
the pumping required in the comprehensive plan, at the dams of
storage reservoirs distant less than one hundred miles from the pump-
ing stations. The total cost of these generating works would be very
much less than the difference in cost between the canals and pumping
plants of the comprehensive plan, and any gravity system that might
be devised.

The dam across Carquinez Straits would have many other advantages
in addition to diverting the Sacramento waters into the lower San
Joaquin River. During seasons of small stream flow, there is a ten-
dency for the salt water of San Francisco Bay to work up into the
network of channels that divide the rich delta lands at the mouth of the
two rivers, into many islands. The dam below the mouth of these two
rivers would prevent any damage to these fertile soils that might result
from such occurences. Further, this dam would maintain Suisun Bay
in fresh water and make it possible to profitably reclaim all the tidal
flats along its margin, and bring unlimited quantities of fresh water to
the manufacturing centers arising along the bay shore from Benicia
and Port Costa easterly to Antioch. It would provide a low level
crossing for railroads and highways whose traffic now crosses Carquinez
Straits on ferries. By constructing locks of adequate dimensions, this
barrier would offer no obstruction to navigation. It can be designed
to afford ample water way for floods of the Sacramento and San Joa-
quin rivers so that flood heights on the lower river will not be increased
over those of the past.

The practicability of locating and constructing such a dam below
the mouth of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, has been investi-
gated as far as could be without exploration borings at the various
possible sites for its location. It was concluded that a dam in this
vicinity is feasible but that extended studies of all possible sites should
be pursued before a selection is made.

This dam would be of added value in creating a large fresh water
reservoir in Suisun Bay and the delta regions that would have a stor-
age capacity of 500,000 acre feet between the present levels of high and
low tide. Supplies of fresh water might be pumped from here for
consumption, after filtration, in the metropolitan areas of San Fran-
cisco Bay, as well as for agricultural use to supplement the local sup-
plies of the bay region. Thus water might be brought close into the
bay region without cost of conduit from the distant sources. These
investigations show that waters of the Trinity River and the three
forks of the Eel River in the North Pacific Coast region, might be
diverted into the Sacramento River drainage through tunnels under
the Coast Range Mountains, not prohibitive in expense if their waters

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 49

are developed in large quantities. With these diversions effected,
there would be plenty of water, in the Great Central A^alley drainage
area, to supply all its future needs as well as the requirements for all
purposes about the San Francisco Bay region.

The diversion for agricultural use from Suisun Bay would be by a
canal leading southward through Tgnacio Valley. The water would
be elevated in successive lifts into the Livermore Valley. A pumping
head of slightly more than four hundred feet would be necessary to
lift the water into Livermore Valley and additional pumping would
be required to distribute the water over all of its arable lands. A
tunnel through the hills separating Livermore Valley from San Fran-
cisco Bay would take this water into the Santa Clara Valley at an eleva-
tion sufficiently high to permit gravity distribution to practically all
lands of this valley not irrigable from the waters of local streams.

The agricultural areas of the bay region to the north, would be
irrigated from diversions from the Eel and Russian rivers. "Water
would be carried in a gravity canal almost one hundred miles in
length into the Sonoma and Napa valleys to supplement their local
supplies.

Several hundred thousand acres of agricultural lands within the
Sacramento drainage area, are isolated from the main body of its
lands by the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Pit River, in the north-
eastern corner of the state, drains part of a great plateau region to the
east of the Sierra Nevadas on the edge of the Great Basin of North
America, and cuts through these mountains for a distance of sixty
miles in a deep rock gorge to .ioin the waters of the Sacramento River
before they emerge into the Great Central Valley. The agricultural
areas of the Pit River lie in several parcels along its upper reaches
and vary in elevation from 3000 to 5000 feet above sea-level. The
comprehensive plan provides for irrigating 263,300 acres of these
areas by gravity diversions from the Pit River or its tributaries.
Seventeen reser%'oirs of varying capacity will be required to equalize
the stream flow for these diversions.

PACIFIC COAST DRAINAGE BASINS— SAN FRANCISCO TO SANTA

BARBARA CHANNEL.

Comprised within five larger valleys and several smaller ones, 890,000
acres of tillable lands lie along the Pacific Coast between San Francisco
Bay and Santa Barbara Channel. Of these 135,000 acres are under
irrigation at the present time. The water supply in the streams tra-
versing these valleys is enough to cover their agricultural lands to a
depth of two feet in an averace year, but the flow is so flashy that with
unlimited storage, only two-thirds of their waters could be suitably
equalized for irrigation use. Nevertheless, three-fifths of the total area
can be irrigated under the comprehensive plan. In this plan the waters
would be diverted from the streams in each valley and carried to the
lands in gravity canals. The costly tunnels through the mountainous
regions separating these valleys largely prohibit the importation of any
small surplus waters that may occur in adjacent regions, so that the
agricultural lands of each valley would be largely irrigated by inde-
pendent systems.

50 WATER RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA.

PACIFIC COAST DRAINAGE BASINS— SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL TO

MEXICAN BORDER.

Southward from Santa Barbara Channel skirting the coast and on
the Pacific slope of the Southern California mountains, lie 2,300,000
acres of fertile soils. These lie in the valleys of streams draining into
the Pacific Ocean that are less separated by mountains than the valleys
northward from the Santa Barbara Channel and form an almost con-
tinuous body of agricultural land. Although several large streams
traverse portions of this area, the total waters are hardly sufficient to
cover the arable lands to half a foot in depth in the average year. Their
flow is erratic and would require much storage capacity for their com-
plete development for irrigation use. Reservoir sites are few in number
and dams expensive. However, it is found that the water supply can
be perfected on a large part of the 759,000 acres now irrigated and
perhaps 250,000 additional acres be brought under water.

Under the comprehensive plan, surface reservoirs would be con-
structed and largely used for the temporary detention of the waters in
the streams that they might be released in a more or less uniform flow
for spreading over gravel beds. Excepting in the southern areas of this
region, there are coarse alluvial fills that have a large water-holding
capacity and easily yield their contained waters to wells sunk into their
depths. Waters spread on the gravel beds of these valley fills would be
absorbed to join the subterranean waters of these basins. Severed from
contact wdth the atmosphere, these waters would be held in storage in
the porous substrata without loss by evaporation and would be available
as needed through pumping from wells. By combining surface and
underground storage in a coordinated plan, the maximum service will
be attained from these waters, even a greater service than could be
obtained from storage in surface reservoirs, for with complete develop-
ment by surface storage, about one-third of all the water would be lost
by evaporation. Without some surface storage, however, to partially
equalize the flow, large volumes of flood water would rush off into the
ocean too quickly for absorption by the gravels in the stream beds or
diversion to artificial spreading grounds. The artificial spreading of
water is being practiced with success in some of the basins by diverting
the clear waters that follow the first turbid flood flows. These spreading
operations can be much extended by the use of surface storage works to
partially equalize the flood flows and the employment of additional
spreading areas.

These investigations have mapped the location of the absorptive
basins in this territory and collected much data on the surface and
underground waters. ^^' Considerable amounts of water spread on the
surface of these basins in irrigation, are known to sink to join the
ground waters and increase the available supply for other areas. The
total quantity of water in this region is so limited, however, that there
cannot be any great increase in the areas watered unless means are
discovered of maturing crops with smaller applications of water than
are now customary. It is possible as water increases in value, that much
may be accomplished in reducing losses by evaporation while applying
the waters to the soils but at greater expense than is justifiable at the
present time.

"'See Appendix "C" to this report, Bulletin No. 7, State Department of Public
Works, for maps of absorptive areas and underground water contours.

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 51

GREAT BASIN DRAIN AGE— SOUTH OF LAKE TAHOE.

More than 3,000,000 acres of excellent agricultural lands lie in the
south half of the state eastward from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and
the range extending southerly from Tehachapi Pass. These are situated
in several parcels varying in elevation from below sea-level to 5000 feet
or more above. The local waters are small in amount, for of all the
waters collected by the mountains that separate these areas from the
rest of the state, only ten per cent run off their easterly slopes. But a
small part of the entire area could be irrigated if it were not for the
Colorado River bringing waters from drainage areas outside the state to
within reach of 939,000 acres of these lands in the extreme southeastern
corner of the state. There are now 500,000 acres irrigated from the
natural flow of the Colorado River in this region, but the area can be
almost doubled by the construction of storage works for saving over
flood waters. These Avaters would be diverted in the plan, by gravity
canals, that serve the greatest possible area.

The local streams in the northerly part of this region are much more
productive than in the south. The adjacent agricultural lands are at
elevations greater than 5000 feet. The comprehensive plan would carry
most of these waters southerly in a canal two hundred and eighty miles
long to areas 4000 feet or less in elevation. The waters of local streams
are sufficient to irrigate 430,000 acres, and in all, 1,369,000 acres can be
irrigated in these regions.

GREAT BASIN DRAI NAGE— NORTH OF LAKE TAHOE,

Eastward from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and northward from
Lake Tahoe, there are 667,000 acres of tillable lands situated in moun-
tain valleys and on the plateau region of northeastern California that
drain easterly toward the Great Basin of North America. These vary
from 4000 feet to 5000 feet or more in elevation and occur in parcels
of many sizes. There are now 82,500 acres under irrigation in this
region and the comprehensive plan would increase this area by 48,000
additional acres. Storage reservoirs would regulate the stream flow,
and the diversions would generally be near the lands to be watered.
Short gravity canals would lead the water to the regions of use.

NORTH PACIFIC COAST DRAINAGE.

About half of the agricultural areas of the Pacific Coast drainage
lie adjacent to Mount Shasta on the northern and western sides.
Situated at elevations of from 2o00 to 4000 feet, these lands would take
their waters from adjacent streams, principally the Klamath or its
tributaries, and convey them by gravity to the regions of use. The
other arable lands of the Pacific Coast drainage basins lie in lower
levels. Mostly less than 500 feet above the sea, these lands lie in the
valleys or on the detrital flats along the lower reaches of the streams.
Gravity conveyance of the waters requires one canal over seventy
miles in length and two more than twenty miles long. In all 699,200
acres can be irrigated under the comprehensive plan. Only 87,300
acres are now served with water out of a total area of 786,000 acres of
agricultural lands in this region.

52 WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

CHAPTER VII.

SETTLEMENT.

The four millions of people within the confines of California in
nineteen hundred and twenty-three markedly distinguish this state
from the wild and uninhabited mountains, the unsettled valleys and
vacant plains of one hundred year.s ago. Transfigured through years
of toil, the state's lands are now of immense wealth and the source of
a great income in foodstuffs and minerals, while in the cities and towns
are a multitude of industries that enhance the value of the natural
products. Each succeeding generation contributes to these accumu-
lated works that transform the fruits of the valley soils and the min-
erals and waters of the mountains into means of sustaining greater
numbers of people in prosperity and contentment. But the value of
these resources and the value of these works is contingent upon their
service to people. Neither fertile soil, crop-maturing waters or irriga-
tion and hydro-electric structures; nor harbors, railroads, or industrial
centers disclose their intrinsic value or seethe with industry without
man 's vitalizing energy : rather, they are lifeless encumbrances on wide-
flung landscapes unless experiencing human exploitation. So, without
man to animate and guide them, great works constructed for convert-
ing the resources of the state into life-sustaining and comfort-giving
commodities, neither increase its wealth nor add to the contentment
of its inhabitants.

Projects for transforming the immense potential wealth of the
state's waters into food or into light and warmth, must then grow in
size and capacity of output in consonance with the augumenting num-
bers of people waiting to put their product into use, or those industrial
structures, inanimate and without volition, will weather in the elements,
and, through nonuse, will deteriorate to early decay before oppor-
tunity of service arrives. Enterprises that are carriers of water for
domestic and industrial purposes or those which are to distribute its
tireless energy in electric current to population centers and rural
communities, are readily designed in size to accommodate themselves
to growing communities, and select without difficulty, small numbers
of employees to operate the works under the direction of trained and
skilled superintendents.

However, this not so with systems for carrying the waters of the
streams to the agricultural lands that these may produce to their full
capacity. On these systems, the users of the w^ater are so intimately
dependent upon the supply, their successes and failures are so wrapped
up in the cost of the waters and excellence of service, that they are as
workers in the larger enterprise of developing water for the land in
order that it may produce irrigated crops, rather than as consumers
of water furnished by the distribution system. The works, the dams,
the canals and the distribution ditches are but part of a system for

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 53

increasing the productivity of the soil and until this soil produces
with greater abundance, the water impounding and distributing works
are of no service to the people. For these reasons, private enterprises,
distributing water for agricultural use and selling it as a commodity,
have been supplanted in irrigation development, by mutual companies,
district organizations or by the governing political subdivision.^^' In no
other way have the interests of constructors of the works and users of
the water become sufficiently coordinated that success could be attained
in the enterprise as a whole.

There are now perhaps, a million or more acres^^^ in California, fertile
enough, and with water at hand, but which are failing to produce
adequately to pay for all the costs including improvements on the land.
Much of this is in large holdings and in new districts that have recently
been brought under irrigation and, although it will undoubtedly be
closely settled and produce to capacity within a few years, at present
these lands are lacking in numbers of tillers of the soil to respond to
the propitious agricultural environment of this state. At the same
time, while these vast areas are but partially productive, eager workers
and potential farm owners, anxious to prove their worth, but without
money to make a start; skilled university-trained agriculturalists,
capable of directing agricultural effort and anxious to exercise their
training and accumulated knowledge, are about us in numbers ample to
people and intensively farm these million or more acres and many
more besides, if provision were made for their occupying the land.

It is generally estimated that a settler, in addition to being an experi-
enced farmer, should have at least from two to five thousand dollars
capital to make the start under existing conditions with reasonable
expectancy of ultimate success ; the success so necessary for maintain-
ing the credit of irrigation enterprises. This ready money is required
to level the land, to build a house, a barn, fences; to purchase a plow
and harrow, a mower, rake and seed; to procure a horse, and cow, as
well as to plant the first crop and sustain the settler until the first
harvest is sold. Two thousand to five thousand dollars, often the sav-
ings of a life-time, is not possessed by a large number of people experi-
enced in farming, and who are desirous of undertaking the intensive
cultivation of an irrigated farm. These requirements so limit the
number of prospective occupants for California's agricultural lands
that the rate of settlement '-^^ on the great irrigation projects already
constructed is not as rapid as might be desired. In order to enlarge the
number of people who may become settlers by reducing the initial cash
outlay required, provisions are being made by some colonization enter-
prises, through which land may be purchased with small payments that
extend over longer periods of time than have heretofore been granted.

Although the million or more acres of land in California now failing
to put its water supply to use represents a partially idle value in land
and works of perhaps $200,000,000, the future is more concerned with

^In 1920, less than 10 per cent of the Irrigated area of the whole United States was
served by commercial enterprises, U. S. Census Report.

=U. S. Census Report states that there were 1,675,426 acres which were not irrigated
in 1920 but which the works were capable of irrigating. (Some of this is probably
land that never will be irrigated.)

<^'U. S. Census, 1920, reports 533,981 acres of irrigated land available for settlement
by owners' statements. The Real Instate Commissioner of California, after a canvass
of the state, estimates that there are now 950,000 acres available for settlement of
which 80 per cent is under irrigation.

54 WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

increasing the rate of settlement than the present. The lands that are
yet to receive irrigation waters are lands that have been left after the
more easily developed projects have been completed, and the cost of
water for them will be at an enhanced rate per acre over that which has
prevailed in the past. These residual lands are equally fertile, but are
usually situated more distant from the source of supply. Some are
tracts more uneven of surface and so require eleborate systems of
canals to carry the waters to the place of pouring out upon the soil.
Others have to acquire water rights before a supply may be obtained,
and all of them will have to construct storage works to hold over win-
ter flood-waters for summer use and the run-off of wet seasons for times
of drouth. The cost of these projects will be large in comparison with
the ones undertaken in the beginning of irrigated agriculture when
projects were small and the works simple.

Future enterprises also must organize in increasingly large units,
for there will be many more problems presented for solution than here-
tofore, and these must be surmounted in order to consummate ulti-
mate success. Practically all the summer flow of California's streams is
now diverted for irrigation use and the lands which can be watered by
constructing short canals have been put under irrigation ; but only one-
quarter of the state's lands that need accessory moisture for greatest
productivity can be watered by projects already constructed. Even
now, huge combinations of hundreds of thousands of acres have been
found necessary that lands situated remote from stream channels or
source of supply may be improved. By building many miles of canals
and huge reservoirs to augment the summer flow with saved-over flood
waters from winter, these projects are preparing to carry water to the
lands that, through intensive farming, they may be made to yield har-
vests commensurate with the favorable climate and fertile soils of Cal-
ifornia. The united eft'orts of whole communities is proving to be nec-
essary to bring water to the needy lands which would otherwise remain
dry and unproductive or whose yield would only be realized during
seasons of copious rains. So that to bring water to the land, large
projects with their immense construction programs are proving neces-
sary even at this time, and their size and complication will grow with
the future.

The successful culmination of extensive and costl.y enterprises not
alone necessitates that sound plans be adopted for the construction of
the works, not alone that they may be erected in an efficient man-
ner, not alone that they bring water to fertile soil at the time and
in the quantity needed, but also that the land be quickly occupied
by the large number of tillers of the soil, which irrigated agriculture
demands to nurture and harvest the increased yield. The fruition of
effort, the repayment of borrowed capital in interest and principal, and
the production of wealth to the community involve thousands of oper-
ators in these large enterprises, each farming from twenty to forty
acres of irrigated lands. The running of the waters through the con-
stracted ditches or even on to the plowed fields does not make the land
produce. The yielding of harvests is just as necessary for the success-
ful project as to secure adequate sums of borrowed money with which
to build the works. The very essence of utility of these works is the
interested and tireless efforts of the farm operators that strive with

WATER RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 55

and overcome the man}' annoyances incident to maturing crops on the
land.

But are there sufficient numbers of people possessing the experience
and skill, the capital and desire, to animate these works and quickly
bring the lands to fruitful harvests under the requirements of existent
conditions of land sales and farm credits'; The holders of large proper-
ties for several years past have been searching for them and many still
believe that they may be found, but their only partly rewarded efforts
are indicative that perhaps they are not to be immediately found in the
numbers desired.

As the years succeed themselves, the markets for California's farm
products are ever widening. Kefrigerator cars, fast express trains, and
the cold storage of ocean transport are carrying California's fruits and
foods for display in markets undreamed of a few years ago, and the
demand for these is increasing at an accelerated rate. With propitious
climate and soils, this state is attaining ranking position, a precursor to
all the states of the Union in value of agricultural and horticultural
products yielded by their lands, and an analysis of the reports of the
United States census indicates that there will be a market for Cali-
fornia's products in 1940, but seventeen years hence, three-fold greater
than in the year 1920. The multiplying population of this state also
demands food in greater and even greater amounts, for the state is
growing fast. During the decade that closed with 1920, California
experienced an enlargement in the numbers of people inhabiting its
farms and cities, of forty-four per cent of the aggregate of 1910.

These investigations show that there is land and water ample for
production commensurate with this enlarging demand for California's
agricultural products, and the past success in financing irrigation con-
struction demonstrates that money will be at hand to erect the works
and fashion the canals, but the greatest success can only be attained
through effecting a system of colonizing the land that will iasten the
influx of settlers and secure a multiplicity of tillers of the soil without
dela}-^, so that long periods of stagnation between their construction and
time of use may not bring embarrassment to the enterprises. The large
units in which future development must be organized will make it
increasingly desirable to accelerate the rate of rural settlement of this
state.

Two examples of well coordinated and systematized colonization may
be seen at Durham in Butte County, and at Delhi in Merced County,
the two state land settlement projects.^^^ However, these two colonies
are but a demonstration of possibilities in stimulating rural settlement
for their combined area is only 13,920 acres. A statewide stimulus to
the occupancy of farm lands would greatly increase the naturally
expeditious growth of California's irrigated communities, insure a full
measure of production to meet all demands, and assist California in
seizing and holding agricultural and horticultural supremacy among
the states of this nation.

<»For description of these projects see "Report of Division of Land Settlement," a
subdivision of tlie Department of Public "Works of the State of California, the report
being Part V of the first biennial report of that department, dated Septeabfir 1, 1922.

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