The Central valley project

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Valley
Project

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From the collection of the

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San Francisco, California
2006

ERRATA

P. 35, 1. i, for "6 per cent" read "60 per cent."

P. 71, 1. 1 1, for "700" read "70,000."

P. 1 08, 1. 26, for "75-kilowatt" read "75,ooo-kilowatt."

P. 123, 1. i; p. 137, 1. 34; and p. 138, 1. 3, for "560" read "602."

P. 135, picture legend, for "Boulder Dam (upper view)" read "Stony
Gorge Dam (upper view)"; and for "Stony Gorge Dam (lower)"
read "Boulder Dam (lower)."

P. 139, 1. 5, for "as" read "at."

THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

The
CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

Compiled by
WORKERS OF THE WRITERS' PROGRAM

of the
WORK PROJECT ADMINISTRATION

in Northern California

Sponsored by
CALIFORNIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

CALIFORNIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

SACRAMENTO
1942

CALIFORNIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Official Sponsor of
Northern California Writers' Program

FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY
JOHN M. CARMODY, Administrator

WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION

HOWARD O. HUNTER, Commissioner

FLORENCE KERR, Assistant Commissioner

WILLIAM R. LAWSON, Administrator for Northern California

COPYRIGHT 1942 BY THE CALIFORNIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

FOREWORD

The story of the Central Valley Project is of the deepest
interest to Calif ornians. In order that the children of the state
may have firsthand information about an undertaking that so
profoundly affects the welfare of every citizen, this publication,
The Central Valley Project, has been prepared by the Northern
California Writers* Program of the Work Projects Administra-
tion. The manuscript was verified by the Bureau of Recla-
mation, United States Department of the Interior, the agency
which is responsible for the construction of the Central Valley
Project.

Helen Heffernan, Chief, Division of Elementary Educa-
tion, has represented the State Department of Education which
has acted as sponsor for the Northern California Writers' Project.
She has planned this entire publication.

The enterprise that has resulted in this publication is par-
ticularly noteworthy at a time when all thinking citizens are
directing their attention toward every form of co-operation that
will weld our efforts into a dynamic unity. Four independent
agencies, the United States Bureau of Reclamation, the Work
Projects Administration, the University of California, and the
California State Department of Education, have utilized the
techniques of co-operation to produce this bulletin. This bul-
letin has great informational value, and furthermore its use in
the schools will provide for the children of California an out-
standing example of the service of government to the citizens of
a democracy.

Superintendent of Public Instruction

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
HAROLD L. ICKES, Secretary

BUREAU OF RECLAMATION

JOHN C. PAGE, Commissioner

S. O. HARPER, Chief Engineer

R. S. CALLAND, Acting Supervising Engineer for Central Valley Project

The Central Valley Project is being built and
is to be operated by the United States Bureau
of Reclamation, which furnished many of the
data and all of the photographs for this book.

PREFACE

Of all California's achievements, the Central Valley
Project is likely to affect the daily lives of more people than any
other. For nearly a hundred years California's Great Valley-
heart of its rich agricultural empire— has suffered from both flood
and drought. The Central Valley Project will alleviate both
evils. It will spare this region the effects of too much water
and too little, by remaking the landscape, redistributing rivers
over the valley's whole 5oo-mile length, storing up water in the
wet regions and releasing it in the dry. The benefits will reach
millions of people.

This is the story of the Central Valley Project. It has been
written for the teachers and students of California's public
schools. In the writing of it, we have hoped that it may interest
a wider audience as well.

In the preparation of the book, we have been indebted
especially to the sponsor's representative, Helen Heffernan,
Chief of the Division of Elementary Education of the State
Department of Education, at whose suggestion it was under-
taken, for her generous advice and assistance.

For their helpful co-operation, our thanks are due R. S.
Calland, Acting Supervising Engineer; C. C. Anderson, Office
Engineer for Shasta Dam; O. G. Boden, Construction Engineer
in the Delta Division; W. A. Dexheimer, Chief Inspector for
Shasta Dam; and Phil Dickinson, Director of Information for
the Central Valley Project— all of the United States Bureau of
Reclamation. We are grateful for the assistance of Professor
E. R. Davis of the Department of Engineering Materials and
Professor M. C. Kruger of the Department of Forestry of the
University of California, and Edith Schofield, Regional Libra-
rian of the United States Forest Service. We wish also to thank
for their kind help C. Binns, General Electric Company, San
Francisco; H. G. Brann, Santa Cruz Portland Cement Com-

Vll

pany, Alameda; Donald Brown, H. J. Kaiser and Company,
Oakland; J. C. Eaglesome, California Cap Company, Oakland;
Robert C. Kennedy, East Bay Municipal Utilities District, Oak-
land; and W. G. Vincent, Pacific Gas and Electric Company,
San Francisco.

The Central Valley Project has been a joint undertaking of
the San Francisco and Oakland units of the Northern California
Writers' Program, the former supervised by Katherine Justice
and the latter by Willis Foster, under the supervision of Mar-
garet Wilkins, State Editorial Supervisor, and Paul C. Johnson,
State Research Supervisor. The writing of the first draft was
chiefly the work of Marc Bliss, Dean Beshlich, and Wellwood
Conde, aided in research by John Delgado, Charles Egan,
Howard Hoffman, and other members of both units. The final
draft was written chiefly by Wellwood Conde, Gladys Pittman,
and Amy Schechter, under the latter's direction.

WALTER MCELROY

State Supervisor, Northern California Writers Program

Vlll

CONTENTS

Page

FOREWORD v

PREFACE vii

PART I. THE GREAT VALLEY

The Threat of Drought and Flood 3

Bird's-Eye View 8

The Valley Comes Into Being 12

Sources of Water 14

The First Men 19

Steamboats on the Rivers 25

The Hydraulic Miners 32

The Era of Wheat 33

The Land Gets Water 34

Water— But Not Enough 41

State-wide Water Plan 42

PART II. How THE PROJECT WAS BUILT

Money, Men, Machines, Materials 49

Money 49

The Builders 52

Homes for the Workers 60

Mechanical Helpers 61

The Raw Materials 75

Where Shall We Build? 80

Work With a Big W 82

The Job Begins 83

The Foundation Is Ready 92

The Dam Inside and Out 104

Shasta Powerhouse 108

Rerouting Highway and Railroad 109

A Network of Canals in

Building Friant Dam 112,

PART III. THE PROJECT IN USE

Just Press a Button 117

Reservoir and Canal ". 125

Return of the River Boats 129

Conservation of Nature's Resources 130

Power from Water 138

Gains for the People M2

APPENDIX I

Outline for a Unit of Work 14?

APPENDIX II

Source Material x^3

ix

PART I
THE GREAT VALLEY

MT. SHASTA — These snowy slopes supply water for Central
Valley farms and cities.

THE THREAT OF DROUGHT AND FLOOD

Ninety years ago, canvas-covered wagon trains crawling
slowly westward lurched clumsily to the top of the high moun-
tain wall that separates the scraggy sagebrush acres of Nevada
from the green pastures of the western foothills of the Sierra
Nevada. At the feet of the eager Argonauts lay cool, dark for-
ests, mountain meadows, and beyond, the rounded hills that
tumble down in dwindling cadence to the flat, brown floor of
the valley of the San Joaquin. It was sere and uninviting, a vast
expanse of desert, with strips of green showing only along the
streams and rivers; and the people pushed across it, hurrying to
the seacoast or rushing northward to the mines.

Gold was the magnet that drew these thousands over the
dusty trails across the continent. Gold dust, gold nuggets, gold
bars. But there was gold as well in the rich black earth churned
up by the creaking wagon wheels. Many a canny farmer picked
up a handful of the soil, crumbled it, and gazed speculatively at
the wide, smooth valley. "Good growing ground— if it gets
water!"

So they settled along the creeks and rivers. They built
their homes. They planted grain and fruit trees and vineyards
and they tapped the streams and dug long ditches to water their
thirsty crops. As the valley filled with farmers, they drew away
from the watercourses; and gaunt windmills dotted the valley
floor, drawing up the water that greened the fields and made the
once-dry desert an agricultural empire.

But in this paradise there was always a faint anxiety, like a
spiral cloud on the far horizon— "if it gets water!" In 1864,
during the winter season when heavy rains usually soaked into
the parched earth, farmers and cattlemen scanned bright skies
for signs of showers. Then it was 1866— the third dry year.

THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

November, December, January, and February passed, and
almost every day the sun rose over the drying earth. Virtually
no snow fell in the mountains, and streams and river beds showed
cracked, scaly cakes of dirt. The grass dried up. Livestock
grew thinner and weaker as the animals cropped the hillsides to
the bare earth and lowed for water. Still very little rain came,
and the carcasses of thousands of cattle strewed the bare plain.
The farmers scratched faintly at the hard-packed ground with
their plows and seeded the shallow furrows. The nights were
clear, the days were hot and dry, and almost nothing grew.

This was the great drought of 1 864-66— the most destruc-
tive in California history— when winter downpours were
strangely lacking, when no spring freshets from melting moun-
tain snows came down to the river. The whole great, fertile
valley was without water.

The farmers remembered those days of terror. The decade-
long search for water began. Canals and ditches threaded the
farm lands. Wells were bored to the underground reservoirs,
seepage from rains and streams and water channels, far beneath
the surface.

The years passed.

Swift streams, tributaries of the San Joaquin that once filled
ditches in the cultivated lands, were growing smaller as their
flow was used by more farmers over wider, drier acres. In the
southern part of the valley, wells gave out and expensive
machinery reached as much as three hundred feet into the earth
to find water for the miles of orchards, vineyards, and the truck,
forage, cereal, and cotton crops. At the northern reaches of the
San Joaquin, where sediment from uncontrolled winter floods
and debris from long-forgotten mining claims had clogged the
channel and raised the river bed within its protective levees
higher than the delta lands through which it flows, the current
slowed. Salt water from Suisun Bay crept up the river, fouling
wells and killing crops.

In parts of the valley, farmers whose grandfathers had
watered the sunburned desert and made a garden watched their

THE GREAT VALLEY

vineyards gray and droop for lack of moisture. Orange and
lemon groves, where fruit once hung heavy on blue-green
branches like gilt globes on a Christmas tree, turned dusty
brown. Machinery to raise water from that sinking under-
ground water level costs money. With meager crops, the
farmers didn't have it.

Some of them cut their planted acreage in half, hopeful
that the water would irrigate that much of a crop. They
chopped the dry and dying orchards into firewood, and weeds
and thistles sprouted in the rows between the stumps.

Now the valley floor is spotted with abandoned farms.
Willows droop inert over the banks of an irrigation ditch whose
water has shrunk to a muddy trickle. Here paint scales from an
empty farmhouse. Jimson weeds grow in the walks and lean
boldly against the deserted threshold. Lizards bask in the sun-
light at the concrete base of the waterless well, and cows munch
the straggly grass in a dried-out alfalfa field.

In the southern San Joaquin Valley, 400,000 acres of the
richest farmland in the state is threatened by this diminishing
supply of water. Surveys have shown that there is a local water
supply available for only half that acreage. Unless relief is soon
forthcoming, 200,000 acres will again be desert. But the land
is still black and rich. In the words of the first settlers, it is
still "good growing ground— if it gets water!"

Conversely, in the Sacramento Valley to the north, for gen-
erations, floods that wrashed out crops, ruined homes, and swept
through towns and villages have been the curse of farmers.

Streams crisscross their valley. Under gentle, winter
showers they fill irrigation ditches, inundate the rice lands, store
water in the reservoirs beneath the earth. Down the center of
the valley for 350 miles flows the Sacramento, greatest of Cali-
fornia's rivers.

Sometimes, when spring snows melting in the mountains
or heavy winter rains fill the channels of the creeks and rivers
that find outlet in the Sacramento, that normally peaceful giant

6 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

strains at confining banks and levees. It grows stronger and
more vicious as brush- and silt-laden waters pour into its rushing
torrent. It gnaws greedily at dikes, bites great chunks out of
man-made barricades, and with a roar like a prehistoric monster
crashes through its barriers to devastate the countryside.

It is spring, 1940. In the mountains, high above the
timber line, melting snows are swelling streams. Threatening,
overcast skies suddenly let loose their burden of moisture over
the valley.

Rain falls in sheets, hour after hour, day after day, without
ceasing. In the Sacramento River rampant water laps at the
levee tops. Farmers and townspeople in the lowlands pack pos-
sessions, with fear-filled faces. Mounted ranchers round up
cattle, driving, beating them towards the foothills. Guards patrol
the levees and watch the rising waters with anxious eyes.

The river sucks at the earth barrier.

Boys from CCC camps bolster the weakening dikes with
sand-filled sacks. Farmers with their tractors and their scrapers
work feverishly to raise the walls and fill crevasses.

By radio, by telephone, up and down the valley, crackle
warnings to more isolated farms.

"The river is rising! Leave immediately for higher
ground!"

Cars and wagons loaded with women and children, pets,
and furniture, hurry down the slippery highways.

Like a maddened animal the swirling, muddy torrent rips
out bridges, uproots trees, licks hungrily at the sandbag rein-
forcements. Here and there a tiny wave breaks over the embank-
ment. A trickle through a gopher hole grows wider. The levee
crumbles. A racing current floods an orchard, inundates a farm,
rushes down the main street of the valley town. Water plays
with motorcars, marooned, deserted, on the roadways.

At the Modoc County Hospital white-clad surgeons racing
against time finish operations. Nurses quiet frightened patients.

Still the rain comes down.

THE GREAT VALLEY

The river presses on the dikes around a city.

A muffled roar!— dynamite!

Above the threatened town, workers blast the levees.

A wave of wild water rising to a 2o-foot crest rushes over
cultivated fields. It cracks against and topples an evacuated
farmhouse. It tears down poles and fences, gouges holes in con-
crete roads, and finally, spending its fury, flattens itself into a
shallow inland sea.

Airplanes search for signs of life over the watery wastelands.
Power craft and Coast Guard surf boats from San Francisco-
trucked into the flooded areas— cruise over drowned fields and
submerged highways looking for families trapped by the dirty
water. Dead pigs, cows, barnyard fowl, and wild game float by.

A levee worker, his wife and children, overtaken in their
car by the muddy tide, hail rescuers from the branches of a drag-
gled oak tree. Beneath them all night long the river has been
thrusting up its yellow fingers. Ten feet of water eddies around
the sturdy trunk.

The rain has stopped. The sun comes out, and slowly the
rivers crawl back to their ravaged channels.

The Red Cross and the state agencies begin their work of
salvage. The storm has left 200,000 acres of flooded farm land.
Rocks and boulders litter orchards. Black, rich earth is washed
away. Seed stocks are ruined. There will be no spring crops
for thousands of farmers. Wells and springs are choked with
filth and rubbish; drinking water is polluted.

In the mountains, slides block roads and railroad tracks.
Trestles are undermined, trains have to be rerouted. Telephone
and power lines are down. Hundreds of families return to their
homes to dig out muck and silt and repair damage.

The danger is past, but more than fifteen million dollars is
the cost to the state of this one flood in the Sacramento River
Valley.

So the farmer in the northern portion of this 5oo-mile-long
valley is deluged with water, while his brother in the south
watches his crops dry and die for lack of it.

THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

It is misplaced rain! "Too much in the wrong places, or
too little in the right places, and never in the right season.'*
Several million acres of valley land have suffered from extremes
in moisture since long before its recorded history. Ancient
Indian legends tell of a year of drought when not a drop of water
fell in the sun-baked valley. They tell, too, of a year when the
rains came down and the valley was a mammoth, rock-rimmed
lake that stretched from the Sierra Nevada to the Coast Range.

The clamor of the farmers for water or for the regulation
of it is being answered. The United States Government is
building two major dams. Shasta Dam on the north will catch
and hold those raging winter torrents. Friant Dam, in the south,
will imprison the San Joaquin. Miles of canals and channels
leading from the dams through the valleys as far south as
Bakersfield will bring water to those thirsty acres where wells
are drying and the water table is dropping daily to dangerously
low levels.

Technical and difficult the problem seems— a challenge to
the elements, a regulation of the seasons. And it is just that.
The best description of the engineering feat that will distribute
water now flooding the Sacramento Valley to the acres now turn-
ing to desert in the San Joaquin was given by a workman on the
Shasta Dam. Asked what he was doing, he looked up from his
pneumatic drill and answered, "Mister, I'm moving the rain!"

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

If the Sierra Nevada Mountains form the backbone of Cali-
fornia, the great Central Valley is its living heart, a writer has
said.

Farming, on an immense scale never before known, is the
key industry of California. Everyone knows how very impor-
tant the huge motion-picture industry in Hollywood is; but the
fruits and vegetables and cotton and hay grown in California
bring in more money than the motion pictures every year, and
much more than oil and gold together. Just this one state pro-

THE GREAT VALLEY

duces half of all the country's fresh fruit, almost all of its dried
fruit, a third of its truck crops, and a third of its canned fruits and
vegetables.

More airplanes are made in California than anywhere else
in the country; other manufacturing industries are growing
steadily; but farming is still the center of California's life.
Refrigerator cars wait on special sidings on the great ranches to
rush peaches and plums and grapes packed and handled as care-
fully as rare fragile china to cities across the continent or to San
Francisco and Los Angeles for transshipment to far lands. The
greatest part of all the cargoes of the swift ocean liners and grimy
salt-caked freighters that come to anchor in California harbors,
in peacetime, is produce from her inland valleys. Miles of
shiny new cans are manufactured each year for fruit and vege-
table canneries; lumber mills turn out millions of feet of boards
for crates and boxes; paper mills make cardboard cartons; and
San Francisco's big job-printing industry prints immense num-
bers of labels for cans.

If farm crops fail, if once fertile acres dry up into desert
land for lack of water, shipping and railroad and truck transpor-
tation and many great industries with their tens of thousands of
workmen and the banks that finance industry all suffer the
effects.

California has many farming areas besides the great Cen-
tral Valley— the vine-covered foothills; Salinas Valley, called the
Valley of Green Gold because of its vast million-dollar green
lettuce fields; Santa Clara Valley with the massed blossoms of
its fruit orchards; the region south of the rocky barrier of the
Tehachapi where the great citrus industry of the state centers;
the rich irrigated acres reclaimed from the burning desert in the
Imperial and Coachella valleys far down toward the Mexican
border.

But the great Central Valley, stretching 500 miles vast and
level down the center of the state like a giant's dance floor, walled
in by high mountains, slashed by California's two biggest
streams, is the greatest of them all. From an area larger than

10 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

all England, its groves and orchards, fields and farms and vine-
yards pour out their products on the markets of the world. It
produces more than all the other farming regions in California
put together. Three-quarters of all the world's supply of grapes
and raisins and dried fruits and a quarter of all the vegetables
that all the families and restaurants use in the United States
come from the Great Valley.

More than a million people live in the valley. There are
over 40,000 farms and ranches, among them a number of the
largest in the world, and the barbed wire fencing them in is
enough to encircle the country completely. Eighty-three cities
and towns and villages line the broad highways unrolling like
endless ribbons north and south and dot the network of roads
crisscrossing the valley. You can travel through the valley all
day and see nothing but an unbounded plain stretching on all
sides to the horizon. But actually it is completely surrounded by
lofty mountains except for the one break in the craggy wall where
the San Joaquin River, flowing north, and the Sacramento River,
flowing south, meet at the western barrier of the valley and join
waters above San Francisco Bay as they sweep through to the
Pacific Ocean beyond.

At the head of the valley, far to the north near the Oregon
line, Mount Shasta, lofty and crowned with year-round snow,
rises in solitary grandeur from the dark green forest at its base.
On the east side the slopes of the wild Sierra Nevada hem in the
valley. On the west the Coast Range turns bold gray cliffs to the
tireless battering of huge Pacific breakers and on the valley side
descends more gently in rolling brush-covered foothills to the
plain.

The Great Valley is really two valleys— the valley of the
Sacramento River to the north, the valley of the San Joaquin
River to the south. The two river basins come together in the
marshy delta region where the two streams, joining on their
way to the sea, cut up the land into hundreds of islands with fat,
black peat soil where rice grows under water as in China and
most of the country's asparagus and celery is raised.

THE GREAT VALLEY 1 1

The San Joaquin Valley, by far the larger, contains about
two-thirds of the Great Valley's 1 0,000,000 acres of agricultural
land— land that is now being farmed or that could be farmed
with proper irrigation and improvement; the Sacramento Valley
contains about one-third. The areas that actually have been
brought under irrigation, including those parts which are today
in danger of becoming desert land again, amount to three million
acres, divided between the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys
in about the same proportion of two-thirds and one-third.

The bulk of the farm land that needs water to go on pro-
ducing crops every year thus lies south, in the San Joaquin Val-
ley. From this condition comes the difficult problem that has
faced California's farmers for years : the bulk of the water avail-
able for irrigating these crops lies north, in the Sacramento
Valley. The situation has been described by a leading engineer
of the United States Bureau of Reclamation, which is handling
the immense job of solving the Great Valley's water problem
through construction of the Central Valley Project, as demand-
ing the greatest water-conservation plan since time began.

He put the problem in the engineer's sharp, clear way that
is easy to remember: "In the Central Valley, two-thirds of the
water runs off in the Sacramento, and one-third in the San Joa-
quin, while some two-thirds of the irrigation demands are in the
San Joaquin Valley as against one-third in the Sacramento Val-
ley. That immediately calls for readjustment."

In other words, there is enough water to keep the fields
green and the orchards blooming, but it is distributed in a topsy-
turvy manner. The water problem has also another very impor-
tant phase: the timing of the waterflow. By far the larger part
of the yearly water supply becomes available in winter and spring
months when the demand is lightest, and only a small part in
the hot searing summer when the need is desperate.

It is important to understand the background of the great
struggle for water in the Central Valley, heroic and exciting as
any motion picture ever produced. A part of that background is

12 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

the geological history of the valley, the story of how the valley
and the mountain barriers surrounding it and the rivers that
water it were formed far back at the dawn of the world, long
before man appeared upon the earth.

THE VALLEY COMES INTO BEING

Millions of years ago, so many millions that scientists can
not agree on just how many, most of the land that is now Cali-
fornia was under the sea. Even the Sierra Nevada was covered
with brackish salt water. Of all the California mountains, only
the Klamath peaks, higher and more rugged than they are today,
had been pushed above the sea by terrific movements and explo-
sions below the earth's crust.

More millions of years passed. A gigantic struggle was
taking place beneath the surface of the earth and the sea. Huge
masses of rock pushed and strained against one another as they
cooled from their molten liquid state until, finally, the Sierra
Nevada rose above the water. The floor of the Pacific Ocean
sank, and another mass of rock, the Coast Range, pushed out
of the ocean. Between the two mountain ranges, the land was
forced down and the great Central Valley was formed.

For centuries the valley was flooded with sea water that
flowed in through gaps in the slowly rising Coast Range until
most of the gaps were closed.

During all this time the surface of the valley was changing.
Water vapor drawn from the sea and cleansed of its salt and
other impurities was formed into clouds and blown against
mountain ranges. Rain fell from the clouds, washing so much
of the earth surface from the mountains down into the valley
that a thick carpet of rich alluvial soil was gradually laid down
over the valley floor. Recent borings deep down into the soil of
the great Central Valley have shown that so much earth has been
washed into the center of the valley since the days when it was
first being formed that a hole dug down to the original bedrock
could hold sixty of the highest buildings in California, one on
top of another, without the top one showing above the ground.

THE GREAT VALLEY 1 3

As the mountains rose, great changes were made in them.
The original masses of rock were twisted and wrenched apart,
and between the fissures flowed molten rock from below the
earth's crust. This rock cooled to form gold-bearing quartz and
other rock forms.

In the summer, heat swelled the surface rocks. Cold rains
fell, shrinking the rocks so fast that they cracked, just as a hot
glass will crack if cold water is poured into it too quickly. In the
winter, rain froze in the cracks and the ice swelled them wider
until pieces of rock were broken off. Torrents of rain washed
them down toward the valley, rubbing them together and chang-
ing them to the gravel and fine soil that raised the valley's floor.

At first the rivers formed by the rain emptied into a chain
of lakes in the lowest part of the valley. In time, trees, sweet
grasses, and flowers began to grow along the borders of the lakes
and rivers, nourished by the rich soil and the fresh water.

Mastodons, the huge ancestors of the modern elephant,
giant wolves, and fierce saber- tooth tigers roamed the valley
plains where only sea animals and reptiles had lived before.

Always the rivers rushed down the sides of the Sierra
Nevada and the Klamath and Coast ranges, filling the lakes with
silt and gravel until most of them could no longer hold any water.
Immense glaciers, slow-moving bodies of thick ice and snow, cov-
ered the Sierra, scraping great gouges and chunks out of the face
of the rock. When the glaciers melted, new torrents of water
with their burden of earth rushed down toward sea level across
the valley.

After the lakes were filled, the water found its outlet in two
great river channels. One of them, the Sacramento, ran in a
general southerly direction, fed by east-flowing streams of the
Coast Range, the rivers of the Klamath Range, and the west-
ward-draining waters of the Sierra. From the south came the
San Joaquin River to meet the Sacramento and flow with it to
meet the ocean in Suisun Bay.

All this time, while the rivers were being formed, life was
changing in the valley. Smaller and swifter animals, more like

14 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

the ones we know today, were developing because of the need
to escape or to hide from their enemies. These smaller animals,
too, were better able to live because they needed less food.

Still the surface of the valley kept rising. And each spring,
when the melting snows in the mountains added water to the
winter rains, the rivers were flooded and their load of soil spread
out over the valley floor, building up the rich acres of the great
Central Valley which was to become one of the most fertile grow-
ing areas in the world. Some years the entire valley was flooded,
with only the Sutter Buttes remaining above the water. The
Sutter Buttes are those strange, sharply pointed hills like vol-
canos that appear to the north of Marysville today— the only hills
rising out of the whole great flat stretch of the Sacramento Valley.

Below the drainage basin of the San Joaquin River, shorter
rivers spread their entire loads of soil out from the mountain
gorges in the shapes of fans with their narrow ends pointed
toward the mountains. One of these alluvial fans, formed by
the Kern River, stretches clear across the southern end of the
valley. The Kings River, unable to find an outlet to the sea,
poured its waters into the Tulare Lake basin.

This short account of how the valley was formed will make
it easier to understand where the valley's water supply comes
from and how it is distributed— all a part of the problem of con-
trolling and directing the state's water resources that the Central
Valley Project will help to solve.

SOURCES OF WATER

Almost all the water of the Great Valley comes from the
Sierra Nevada. The greatest sources are the Sacramento, San
Joaquin, Kings, and Kern rivers.

The Sacramento is fed by a number of mountain streams
and rivers, some of them rising far to the north in the Trinity
and Warner mountains. Among its tributary streams are the
Pit, the Fall, and the McCloud, the Feather and the Yuba, the
Bear and the American rivers. About 21,000 square miles are

WATER IS LIFE— The valley's most
important resource, water, originates
largely in the snow banks of the high
Sierra (above), cascades down the
mountains in rushing streams (right),
and flows on toward the sea in broad
rivers (below) that are used for navi-
gation, irrigation, and many other
purposes.

RELIEF MAP OF CALIFORNIA-
The great Central Valley is clearly
shown in the interior of California/
bounded on the west by the Coast
Ranges/ and on the east by the Sierra
Nevada. The valley's rivers are like a
system of arteries, the main streams of
which are the Sacramento in the
north and the San Joaquin in the
south, running together in the middle
or delta area of the valley and issuing
out through San Francisco Bay to the
Pacific Ocean.

THE GREAT VALLEY 17

drained by these streams and their branches, flowing south and
west. The Sacramento itself flows southward about 320 miles.

The San Joaquin, flowing south, then southwest, and then
north to empty into Suisun Bay near the mouth of the Sacra-
mento, is some five miles longer. It rises among the Sierra
Nevada peaks that wall the central part of the state, where its
main tributaries— the Fresno, Merced, Tuolumne, Stanislaus,
Calaveras, and Mokelumne rivers— also have their sources. It
drains a total area of 14,000 square miles.

The Kings and the Kern rivers both spring from glacial
lakes high among lofty slopes of the southern Sierra, draining
4,100 square miles of watershed. They flow south and west,
the Kings emptying into Tulare Lake and the Kern into a reser-
voir located at the former site of the Buena Vista Lake.

Every year a huge volume of water falls in the form of rain
or snow on the mountain chains which form the Central Val-
ley's watersheds. And yet every year hundreds of valley farms
suffer for lack of water.

What is the explanation?

The wet winter winds that rush across California carry
along with them the water that falls in the form of snow and rain.
Each year these powerful servants of nature bear three hundred
billion tons of water across the state on their mighty shoulders.
Sweeping along, the storm winds hurl the myriad droplets sus-
pended in the air against the mountain slopes. Heavy rains run-
ning off as soon as they fall bring the swift and violent winter
floods that scourge the Sacramento and sometimes the San Joa-
quin Valley. The water that falls as snow lies quiet for awhile,
blanketing the higher slopes and peaks, or piles up in great drifts
in the mountain gullies. The spring floods come when the
snows on the lower slopes of the Sierra melt, reaching their peak
in May and June; still later, the snow melts on the highest crags
where the temperature is colder.

Thousands of runlets and rills and streams and mountain
brooks flow down the mountainsides, uniting into raging tor-

1 8 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

rents that surge and roar through high-walled canyons and
tumble in wild, white foam over rocky rapids and waterfalls.

The pace of the rushing streams slows as they near the level
valleys. Stream joins with stream to form the valley's two great
rivers. Onward they flow across the plains, joining as they reach
Suisun Bay, and on through Carquinez Strait and San Francisco
Bay till they reach the ocean. And here the waters return to the
source from which they came.

In springtime the Sierra Nevada is actually an incredibly
huge storehouse of water in the form of snow. Enough water is
stored there, according to the calculations of scientists, to cover
all the 1 0,000,000 acres of irrigable land in the Central Valley to
a depth of four feet, enough to turn the whole valley into a fer-
tile paradise. But today valley lands benefit by only a small
fraction of this great water reservoir. By far the larger part never
reaches the valley farm lands at all, but rushes unused headlong
to the ocean within ninety days after it has fallen.

The Central Valley Project will undertake to bridle these
torrents and lead them into the broad acres down in the southern
valley that drought is changing from a brilliant crazy quilt of
many-colored patches of garden, orchard, and field to a dreary
waste of parched and dusty earth.

In the summer, moisture in every form evaporates at a rapid
rate in the hot, dry valley. The smaller streams disappear alto-
gether. Even the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers dwindle to
dangerously low levels. The valley irrigation systems that
depend on these rivers for their supply run out of water. In the
delta area their weakened flow causes another extremely serious
condition to develop.

Here the streamflow is no longer powerful enough to form
an effective fresh-water barrier to the salt water sweeping in
from the ocean. Salt water backs up from Suisun Bay, into
which the rivers pour toward the ocean, and enters the delta
channels and ditches. The results are disastrous to farming in
the area because salt water makes the soil unfit for crops.

THE GREAT VALLEY 19

Besides killing valuable crops the salt water hampers the
many important industries of the Contra Costa County region
along the shores of Suisun Bay. Canneries, sugar and oil refin-
eries, steel plants, and other large enterprises— in which nearly
$50,000,000 have been invested— require fresh water in large
quantities for their operations. A single plant uses more than
a million gallons a day. Some factories even have been forced
to send barges as far as 25 miles upstream, beyond the area of the
creeping salt-water invasion, to bring back fresh water.

A small— but important portion of the valley water supply-
does not flow down the mountainsides and into the rivers, but
instead finds its way into underground basins beneath the valley
floor. Some of the water that falls on the earth as rain or snow
seeps into cracks and seams in rock and soil and, instead of run-
ning off, is slowly drawn downward by the constant pull of grav-
ity. The waters that follow this slow and devious course are only
a fraction of the total, but they help to increase the dry-season
flow of valley streams. More important, they feed the springs
that farmers in the drier areas tap when they sink wells to irrigate
their lands where irrigation canals and ditches are not available.

THE FIRST MEN

It is impossible to say just when man first came into the
valley. Some scientists say that it was more than fifteen thou-
sand years ago, but it may have been much longer than that.

The first California men did not make any great change in
the valley. Neither did the Indians who inhabited the valley
many centuries after them. Deer and elk and fish were plenti-
ful, and wild grapes and the acorns out of which the Indians
made flour grew close at hand. The red men lived by hunt-
ing and fishing. There was no need for them to raise crops to
satisfy their simple needs. They stayed close to the rivers and
the lakes, wearing narrow paths along the banks and paddling
over the waters in raftlike tule balsas and square-ended dugout
canoes.

20 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

The first white man to sail into a port in the territory that
now is California was the Portuguese, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo,
seeking, in the service of New Spain, a direct passage to the
fabulous riches of eastern lands.

According to the remarkable record of Cabrillo's travels,
written before he anchored in the fine land-locked harbor now
known as San Diego, in 1542, he skirted a shore line where
"mountains . . . reach the sky, and the sea beats upon them."
But winds and high seas held the little craft offshore. Cabrillo
sailed past the headlands of the Golden Gate without seeing the
passage that gave entrance to the Bay of San Francisco and the
westward-flowing channel of the Sacramento and the San
Joaquin.

By 1769 rumors reached the Spanish explorers of the
presence of Russian trappers in northern California; and fearful
that other nations would stake claims to this great new territory,
Spain speeded exploration and settlement of her western out-
post. Missions, presidios, and pueblos were established along
the coast from San Diego to San Francisco; but for many years
little effort was made to explore the territory lying on the other
side of the mountain range separating the coastal valleys from
the great central plain.

The Franciscan monks who established missions along the
coast explored the San Joaquin Valley soon after they came to
California but built no missions there because of stories of its
wild desert stretches and the warlike character of the Indians
who inhabited the interior regions. But the valley was well
known to them. The Franciscans and the government troops
guarding Spain's new possessions co-operated in sending some
twenty expeditions to find good places for building missions in
the valley and to bring back neophytes, as the Indians taken into
the missions were called.

Spanish soldiers from San Diego tired of garrison life began
deserting and making their way into the southern San Joaquin
Valley to live. Expeditions sent after them, penetrating the

THE GREAT VALLEY 21

valley, pushed forward its exploration. The first man of any
nation to leave a written report on the valley was the head of one
of these searching expeditions, Pedro Pages, comandante of
Alta California, as California was then called, who entered the
valley in 1773.

During the years that followed, many expeditions crossed
the hills into the valley. These expeditions saw and named the
lakes and streams. But until the close of the eighteenth century
few had traversed the heart of the plain even for a short distance.

Before 1805 Gabriel Moraga, Indian fighter and path-
finder, had visited and named the San Joaquin and Kings rivers,
naming the former for Saint Joachim and calling the latter
Rio de los Santos Reyes (River of the Holy King). Under
Moraga, in 1 806, twenty-five men and Padre Pedro Munoz made
an extensive exploration of the San Joaquin Valley. They
approached the plain from San Luis Creek, crossed a slough and
named it Las Mariposas for the butterflies that hovered over it,
named the Merced River Rio de Nuestra Senora de la Merced
(River of Our Lady of Mercy), and crossed the Stanislaus, Cala-
veras, and Mokelumne rivers. Up the Kings River, over to the
Kern, east to the rust-colored foothills of the Sierra Nevada rode
the party, finally leaving the valley through Tejon Pass, the deep
fissure in the Tehachapi Range.

In 1808, in the early days of Indian summer, the scout
Moraga left Mission San Jose, crossed the San Joaquin at its
junction with the Calaveras, and traced the latter stream to its
source in the Sierra. He was looking for a site for a mission in
the valley. Farther north, the Mokelumne, the Cosumnes, and
the American rivers were followed to their gorges in the moun-
tains. He camped on the lower Feather River, calling it and the
broad river which it joined farther south, the Sacramento. The
present upper Sacramento he called the Jesus Maria. Other
investigations of the tireless Moraga carried him up the Arroyo
de las Nueces (Walnut Creek), across Carquinez Strait, and
through the Russian River country.

22 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

In 1 8 1 1 occurred the first known navigation of the rivers,
when an expedition sailed from San Francisco Bay and traveled
a short distance up the San Joaquin and Sacramento.

The last Spanish exploration of the valley was made by
Luis Argiiello in 1821. He traveled up the right bank of the
Sacramento to its northern reaches, turned down the valley of
the Eel River, and followed the Coast Range to San Rafael and
San Francisco, looking for trespassing foreigners, Russian and
English.

A year later, at Monterey, the capital, the flag of Spain was
hauled down; and California became a Mexican province. With
the collapse of Spain's western empire, American and English
trappers began to trickle into the valley.

The first settlers in the territory now known as California,
the Spanish padres and soldiers and colonists, had been here
some fifty years before they turned to the development of the
Central Valley. From the time when the first mission and pre-
sidio were established at San Diego in 1769 until 1836, when
the first grant was made in the Central Valley, the Spanish had
kept to the lands lying along the Pacific. This was chiefly
because the occasional ships that touched the shore were the only
possible means they had of communicating with Mexico or
Spain or the rest of the outside world. The interior valleys were
almost unknown desert and wilderness, infested by ferocious
wild beasts and inhabited by hostile Indians who were bitter
against the intruders in their hunting grounds.

All the most desirable land had been given to missions and
the Spanish cattle ranchers by the 1830*5, and then colonizers
began to go inland. The first settler was Jose Noriega, granted
a tract of 17,712 acres near the site that Brentwood occupies
today. Despite many clashes with the Indians, others began
establishing ranches on the San Joaquin and its tributary
streams; at the same time to the north, on the present site of Sac-
ramento, the Swiss immigrant Captain John Sutter was setting
up the kingdom that was shattered a few years later when John
Marshall found gold and the gold rush began.

THE GREAT VALLEY 23

During the Spanish occupation cattle raising was the
economic mainstay of everything. The problem of water to grow
fruit or vegetables arose only in the missions, where the padres
taught the mission Indians to dig the first rough irrigation ditches
that were constructed in California. With water provided, they
made bold and successful attempts at raising olives and oranges,
figs and grapes, and other fruits from seeds and slips that they
brought with them from Mexico when they came to tame the
wild new land. But like the rancher os, they also depended
chiefly on cattle raising and the sale of tallow and hides.

After Mexico gained her freedom from Spain many more
grants were made— thirty grants in the valley in the period from
1836 to 1846; but not until the American occupation, two years
later, began the real settlement of the central plains.

The very first American on record to enter the valley was
young Jedediah Smith, famous Rocky Mountain hunter, trap-
per, and trail blazer, who opened the door to American coloniza-
tion. He was also the first man of any nationality to enter the
valley by the overland route.

The Mexican authorities objected to the presence of Smith
and his heavily armed band of sixteen other young men in their
province, but permitted them to leave unharmed. Smith led his
men out by a purposely roundabout route through the precipi-
tous and perilous Cajon Pass and into the San Joaquin Valley.
The trapper-adventurers took their time, spent months trapping
beavers and otters on the Tulare and Kern lakes (filled with
water in those days), and lived and hunted with friendly Indians
of the Kings River region. Gradually, fishing, hunting, and
trapping, they leisurely moved down the San Joaquin River.
They reached the Stanislaus River in the spring of 1821, and
they finally left California over the northern mountains. Smith
was back again by the next year, this time in the north, camping
on a tributary of the Sacramento, which the Spanish later named
Rio de los Americanos because these American trappers had
stayed there. The river kept the name— the American— and is

24 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

famous because gold was discovered along its banks near Coloma
in 1848.

Smith took detailed descriptions of the Great Valley back
to the East. More important, his glowing accounts of its unlim-
ited riches helped to bring an influx of trappers, moccasined,
buckskin-shirted, their horses decked with pelts or eagle feathers
—men as colorful as the red-shirted miners who were to succeed
them in the westward march. In four years Jedediah Smith took
back $200,000 worth of furs to his fur company's headquarters
in St. Louis.

Permanent trails brought settlers pouring into the valley,
buying, claiming, squatting on the grassy acres that became
range for thousands of sleek cattle. Among these were tight-
fisted John Marsh, who stocked his Mount Diablo rancho with
herds taken in payment for his services as a doctor, and John
Augustus Sutter, fur trader and cattleman-farmer, who built an
agricultural empire on the lush banks of the American and
Sacramento rivers.

A Boston sailor boy, Richard Henry Dana, in 1840 cruised
the coast of California in a ship whose master brought cargoes
of hides and tallow. In his Two Years Before the Mast he wrote,
of "the forests . . . the water filled with fish . . . the
plains covered with cattle; climate than which there can be no
better in all the world . . . with a soil in which corn yields
from seventy to eighty fold/'

While the emigrant movement was gaining momentum,
the first official expedition reached California under Lieutenant
Charles Wilkes of the United States Navy, who in 1841 sent a
boat party up the Sacramento River to the head of navigation.
Wilkes' observations, invaluable in the later acquisition of Cali-
fornia, ended when he cast anchor in New York on June 10,
1842, the same day that John C. Fremont and his Army engi-
neers started on an overland trip westward. With Kit Carson,
famous scout, Fremont mapped the Rocky Mountains and the
Great Basin from the Rockies to the Sierra Nevada, the territory
from New Mexico to Oregon, and the valleys of the San Joaquin

THE GREAT VALLEY

and the Sacramento. On one of his expeditions, Fremont accom-
plished the formidable feat of crossing the silent frozen waste of
the Sierra Nevada in midwinter, reaching the friendly haven of
Slitter's Fort half frozen, weak from hunger, snow-blind.

Fremont was the last of the pathfinders in California. In
1846, three years after his first visit, the territory became part of
the United States. The people living in the Central Valley
looked forward to the peaceful development of their land.

STEAMBOATS ON THE RIVERS

California's rivers— supremely important as a source of
water to irrigate its farms— also are important from the point of
view of navigation.

In the early days of the state, the Sacramento and San Joa-
quin formed the main waterways connecting San Francisco with
the gold camps and the towns and ranches in the valley. But
too much water was withdrawn from the San Joaquin for irri-
gation purposes and too many trees on the mountain slopes were
cut down by irresponsible lumbermen. These trees had held
the winter snows, allowing them to melt gradually, thus ensuring
a steady flow of water that kept the river at a level high enough
for navigation much of the year.

The upper Sacramento channel was blocked by the mil-
lions of cubic yards of dirt and rock swept down from the moun-
tains in the course of years of hydraulic mining. Regular year-
round navigation became impossible beyond the capital city.
Boats disappeared altogether from the San Joaquin River beyond
Stockton. United States Army Engineers, giving their support
to the Central Valley Project, were especially interested in the
question of improving navigation in this part of the country.
When the project is completed, the Sacramento and San Joaquin
again will form one of the greatest of the inland waterways in the
nation.

The discovery of gold in 1 848 suddenly focused attention
of the country on these rivers. A tremendous shipping boom

26 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

developed almost overnight. As news of the discovery spread,
hundreds and thousands of men from the rest of the state and
the nation swarmed into the Central Valley, and transportation
was at a premium. The editor of the California Star, just before
closing his own plant to search for gold, wrote: 'The whole
country from San Francisco to Los Angeles and from the sea-
shore to the base of the Sierra Nevada resounds to the sordid cry
of GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! ... The fields are left half-
planted, the houses half-built. Everything is neglected but the
manufacture of shovels and pickaxes and the means of transpor-
tation to Captain Sutler's Valley/' *

Prices for craft able to navigate the sharp curves and hidden
snags of the rivers skyrocketed. Steam launches sold for as
much as $35,000. Practically every boat in San Francisco
harbor, new or old, was placed on the river run. Steamers from
the Atlantic Coast touching at San Francisco went on up the
Sacramento River and even up its tributary Feather River. The
Sitka, her wheelhouse and superstructure washed away, was sold
for $i 5,000 per ton. Eager gold seekers paid from thirty-two to
fifty dollars fare to Sacramento and Stockton. The available
boats were loaded with provisions for the miners and for trading
posts mushrooming into towns and cities near the richest mines.

Passengers were sandwiched between the crates and slept
on the lumber on deck or in the holds. Those who had arrived
in San Francisco with money wore brilliant new shirts and high-
laced boots and carried shiny equipment on their backs. Some,
who had no money except for their fares, were dressed in old
clothes. On the boats bound for the mining towns were actors
and actresses, gamblers, entertainers, and confidence men.

In April, 1849, the Whicon made the trip to Sutter's
Embarcadero, proving that medium-sized sailing vessels could
ascend the Sacramento. Square-rigged ships, barks, brigs,
schooners, and tugboats quickly followed as the demand for
transportation increased. A famous captain of gold-rush days,

1 Julian Dana, The Sacramento, River of Gold. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.,
1939, PP. 117-118.

SACRAMENTO RIVER — In the winter and spring (upper view) this river has too much water/
but in the summer and fall (lower) not enough. The flow needs to be regulated, which is a
job for Shasta Dam.

UNCONTROLLED WATER— Floods often bring havoc to valley farms and towns. Shasta and
Friant dams will hold back the excess waters for beneficial use in the dry months.

THE GREAT VALLEY 29

George Coffin, has left us a vivid picture of traffic on the Sacra-
mento River in those hectic years. "Both banks are so overgrown
with huge oak and sycamore trees . . . that it is impossible for
the wind to find its way through, and there we lay ... while
the tops of the trees are dancing in a stiff breeze," * he wrote,
describing his 35-day trip up to Marysville from San Francisco.

The solution was to warp and tie— a process by which one
end of a long line was tied to a tree while the captain and crew
tugged at the other end, the captain holding the tiller between
his knees.

Navigation was not the only problem, Captain Coffin
wrote. "Now the sun is glaring, the air is suffocating, and the
mosquitoes, with fresh-sharpened stilettos, are as greedy as
sharks."2 Progress by sail was so slow that many captains must
have echoed Coffin's words : "One hundred and fifty miles of this
sort of navigation! I have undertaken a pretty . . . job, to be
sure! . . . Sun shining down in a blaze of fury, with not a
cloud to screen his scorching rays; thermometer 1 1 o degrees, not
a breath to cool our frizzling livers." 8

By the latter part of 1 849 steamships began replacing the
wind-driven vessels. The Sacramento, brought round the Horn
in sections and assembled in San Francisco, made its maiden
voyage in September. One of the largest steamers on the river
was the Senator, a 750-ton vessel sailed here from New York.
Upon its arrival the owners declined an offer of $250,000, a wise
decision according to a contemporary, who stated that "the
Senator had carried enough gold from Sacramento to San Fran-
cisco to sink her two or three times over with the weight of the
precious metal. Add to this the passage and freight money
. . . [and] it would probably take two or three similar steamers
to convey the freighted gold and . . . coin she has earned for
her owners . . ."

1 Rockwell D. Hunt and William S. Ament, Oxcart to Airplane. Los Angeles: Powell
Publishing Co., 1929, p. 352.

* Ibid., p. 355.
8 Ibid., p. 353.

* William Heath Davis, Sixty Years in California. San Francisco: A. J. Leary, 1889,
pp. 516-517.

30 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

Another popular boat was the New World, originally built
for excursion trips on the Hudson River in New York. In 1 849
the boat was about to be attached by a sheriff. Before proceed-
ings could be started, the New World was off Cape Horn
en route to the Sacramento-San Francisco run, which it once
made in five hours and forty-six minutes.

River traffic continued its phenomenal growth until rail-
roads were built and began competing and debris from hydraulic
mines was washed down to choke the channels. In 1850 the
Sacramento River fleet consisted of eighteen steamers, nineteen
brigs, and twenty-one brigan tines. By 1851 there was a sem-
blance of organized traffic, with daily service of government mail
from San Francisco. For the next ten years a number of steam-
ship companies ran boats the year round on the San Francisco-
Sacramento run.

While the city of Sacramento was the principal terminal,
river traffic was carried on to Red Bluff, 246 miles north of San
Francisco on the Sacramento, and to towns on the tributary
Feather and Bear rivers. In 1849 regular sailings were adver-
tised from Nicolaus, at the junction of the two latter streams.
The Feather was at one time navigable through Marysville as
far north as Oroville. Passage on the Bear River was possible to
Johnson's Crossing. In a single day in 1851, seven steamers
arrived in Marysville. Traffic grew to such an extent that the
Court of Sessions ordered prosecution of persons causing con-
gestion at the Marysville landing.

On the San Joaquin River, the shipping was about the
same. Stockton, originally called Tuleberg, the principal port,
became a city, albeit of tents, almost overnight. A New York
Tribune reporter in 1 849 described Stockton as "a canvas town
of 1,000 inhabitants and a port with twenty-five vessels at
anchor." 1 Another writer, in May of the same year, said:
"Stockton that I had last seen graced by Joe Buzzel's log house
with a tule roof, was now a vast linen city. The tall masts of
barques, brigs and schooners were seen high pointed in the blue

1 Bayard Taylor, Eldorado, or Adventures in the Path of Empire. New York: George P.
Putnam & Co., 1857, p. 77.

THE GREAT VALLEY 3 1

vault above, while the merry yo-hol of the sailor could be heard
as box, bale and barrel were landed on the banks of the slough."1

Following the decline of gold mining, the large increase in
settlers in the southern part of the Great Valley created a heavy,
new demand on river transportation. Barges were put into serv-
ice. In April, 1870, the steamer Tulare, towing a barge, took
upstream 200 cords of redwood posts, 6,000 feet of lumber, and
1 60 tons of flour, sugar, bacon, and agricultural implements.
The steamers and barges returned laden with wheat, sometimes
carrying as many as 9,000 sacks, each averaging 1 20 pounds.

Railroad rates were still too high for farmers in 1893. In
that year Fresno merchants were shipping goods down the San
Joaquin River to Firebaugh in the Empire City. The largest
steamer on the San Joaquin tributaries was the 4oo-ton Centen-
nial, which carried 6,000 sacks of wheat to Hill's Ferry. Still
the means of transportation were not adequate during the grain
harvest. Once when the Clara Crow, with a large barge, landed
at Crow's Landing to take on a load of grain, every grower
insisted that his load be taken. Lack of space prevented such a
course; so the captain auctioned off space for 300 tons, the suc-
cessful bid being three dollars a ton.

During the height of the grain era, in the early i88o's, a
barge was built 230 feet long, 40 feet wide, with a capacity of
1 8,000 sacks of wheat. It was navigable in 5 feet of water.

On the Merced River, steamers passed as far as Cox's Ferry
and to the old Stevenson and Turner ranches, where they loaded
wool and grain. Pioneer residents of Merced tell of seeing the
smoke of steamers working against the current.

Inland navigation again will increase in importance. Even
today the value of cargo borne by boats on the Sacramento and
San Joaquin rivers runs into big figures. In 1934, shipments of
1,183,654 tons valued at more than $35,000,000 were carried
on the Sacramento; 1,046,066 tons worth more than
$38,000,000, on the San Joaquin.

1 An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County, California. Chicago: Lewis Publishing
Company, 1890, p. 67.

THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

THE HYDRAULIC MINERS

The first comers to the rich sands of the river bars needed
only a pan, a pick and shovel, a crowbar, and running water to
mine the gold that glinted in the gravel of the clear streams.
Later, a double-bottomed box, mounted on rockers like an old-
fashioned cradle, was filled with the metal-heavy sands, and
water separated the coarse rocks from the flaky gold. This was
placer mining at its simplest. As the bars became exhausted, a
long butcher knife was used to pick the metal from the gold
veins in the near-by rocks.

Once the gold had been mined from the surface of the
ground, it became necessary for the miners to go deeper for the
precious metal. This was most easily obtained through the
method known as hydraulic mining. At first the machine used
was a rough affair of two sluice-board walls and a length of
canvas sacking. Water flowing swiftly downhill was conducted
through the device and directed against gold-bearing soil. As
time went on, this apparatus was supplanted by more efficient
equipment— lengths of iron pipe that sent powerful streams of
water against the clay and gravel banks. Millions of dollars
worth of crude gold was washed out in this way.

The water flowing through the gigantic nozzles of the
hydraulic apparatus washed the banks of the rivers and streams
farther and farther back from the bed. The lighter soils and
gravels were gouged out and washed away.

But quartz gold still seamed the cliffs, and more powerful
streams of water were used to shatter the rocks and boulders.
The rivers became clouded with the dirt, and the water from the
mines rushed on down the valley carrying a sterile load of silt
and gravel that was unfit for any growing thing.

The farm lands became a wasteland of muck. Fruit trees
began to wither, and grain died on the stalk. Farmhouses were
buried halfway to their eaves in the muddy streams. Dirt, called
"slickens" by the farmers, fouled the channels; and only
launches traveled on the upper Sacramento where steamers once

THE GREAT VALLEY 33

had hauled freight and river passengers. The beds of the rivers,
raised by the accumulated debris, could not hold the winter
floods; and every year more and more "slickens" poured into
fertile fields.

Finally, to fight the hydraulic miners, the valley men organ-
ized the Anti-Debris Association of the Sacramento Valley.
Laws passed in 1893 forbade uncontrolled hydraulic mining,
and the farm lands of the Sacramento were saved from the
moving mountains.

Much damage had been done to the valley farms by the
mining industry; but one contribution of lasting benefit is
directly traceable to the farmers' one-time foe, the hydraulic
miner. Ditches built in the fifties to conduct water to the min-
ing sites became the bases of the early foothill irrigation systems
that carried water to fields and orchards.

John Bidwell, leader of the first emigrant train overland to
California in 1841, whose miles of farms grew from a fortune
made in mining, in 1884 wrote: "Irrigation is the natural suc-
cessor to hydraulic mining and important beyond all computa-
tion. By showing that waters can be conducted anywhere,
hydraulic mining has unwittingly solved a most important fea-
ture in the problem of irrigation." *

THE ERA OF WHEAT

Even without water some men found a way for a time of
making new fortunes on the broad plains of the valley. On
lands once thought fit only for grazing, new thousands of acres
of golden wheat were being raised for the world market. This
was a crop that needed only as much water as the earth could
hold briefly in the spring, before the moisture sank deeper to the
underground wells or dried out on the surface.

With the coming of the railroad in 1870 even the barren
acres west of the San Joaquin were planted with wheat. By
1 889 California led the nation in wheat production. In the fol-

1 Sacramento Union, July 19, 1884.

34 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

lowing year a wheat-grower named Lowell Alexander Richards
was credited with the operation of the largest fanning outfit in
the world. His crew of men cut and threshed a continuous and
unbroken field of standing grain clear across the valley, from the
Sierra Nevada foothills east of Ripon to the Coast Range foot-
hills west of Westley. In 1892 the Kings of Wheat were
supreme, with less than one hundred men owning 1,600,000
acres of land in the Sacramento Valley. Wheat was a better
source of wealth than gold, because once the gold was taken from
the land it was gone, but wheat could be planted again in the
spring.

But even the golden grain could not be taken from the soil
forever. As early as 1892 the lands that had been planted to
wheat slowly were being drained of the chemicals that all plants
need for growth and were becoming poorer. That year the yield
of wheat was one-third lower, and by 1906 large-scale wheat-
growing was actually a losing venture. Large sections of the
land were being abandoned as arid wastes.

Water was needed to reclaim them. Water would permit a
number of crops to be raised in the same soil— crops that would
restore some of the precious chemicals. Irrigation was the answer.

THE LAND GETS WATER

The Spaniards first introduced irrigation into the region
now known as California a century and a half ago. The mission
padres constructed rough ditches to carry water to the gardens
and orchards they had planted in the wilderness.

During the years when cattle raising and the dry farming
of wheat and barley held first place, irrigation developed slowly.
It did not become a factor of central importance until the era of
grain had passed its peak and farmers began turning their atten-
tion to growing fruit and vegetables by intensive cultivation of
the soil.

The use of irrigation increased rapidly from that time on,
until finally in 1934, in the Great Valley alone the irrigated area

THE GREAT VALLEY 35

amounted to 2,105,757 acres— 6 per cent of the total irrigated
area of the state. The California State Engineer has estimated
that this huge expanse can be increased fourfold if irrigation is
pushed as far as possible, and that a total of about 8,356,000 acres
in the valley finally can be brought under irrigation.

Cattlemen pasturing their herds on the plains of San Joa-
quin Valley needed fresh green grass and water for their stock.
They turned the high flood waters of winter into the great
meadows through which the river flowed. The water drained
off gradually as the flood level fell. Those fortunate enough to
own land along the banks had ample grass for grazing purposes
and hay, but cattlemen holding land above flood level found
their fields left high and dry.

Bitter feuds over water developed among the cattlemen and
between the cattlemen and farmers. For many years these feuds
revolved around Henry Miller of Miller and Lux, largest land-
holder the state has ever known, who acquired between two and
three million acres and is said to have been able to drive his herds
on his own land from Oregon to the Mexican border.

Miller gained control of the land on both sides of the San
Joaquin River for a distance of 1 20 miles by buying up cheaply
great blocks of swampland in early days. He built levees along
die banks so that he could direct the river water exclusively onto
his own lands. When the terrible drought of 1 862-64 burned
up the grazing lands and cut down the number of cattle in the
state from two million to less than a half million head, Henry
Miller had hay to feed his cattle, and made enormous profits
buying up the starving cattle of less fortunate ranchers and sell-
ing the carcasses for hides and tallow.1 Miller also gained con-
trol of the area to the south where the Kern River overflowed
into a series of great swamps. He built a canal i oo feet wide
and 50 miles long to change the course of the river and divert the
water to his own land. When hundreds of settlers who needed
the water to grow their crops objected, he insisted that the water

1 Edward F. Treadwell, The Cattle King, a Dramatized Biography. New York: The
Macmillan Co., 1931, passim.

36 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

in any part of a river went with the ownership of the land along
its banks. The war for water was carried into the courts and
more than once broke out into armed struggle.

The right to use the water from any particular part of a
river in California was fixed in early days by what is known as
riparian law. The law, borrowed from England, held that the
owners of all lands bordering streams had the right to the whole
flow of the stream, "without interruption or alteration/' This
was suited to England, where rain comes regularly and plenti-
fully and where there is no irrigation problem; but some experts
believe it unsuited to the semiarid valleys of California, where
every drop of water counts and where the value of farm land
depends on the amount of water it can get. After years of dis-
putes over water rights the California courts finally decided that
the rights of the owners of river-bank or riparian lands should
be limited justly to "reasonable use" of water.

Although some of the first irrigation projects were con-
trolled by the railroads, which had received millions of acres of
land from the federal government, or by the great landowners,
in many cases the valley settlers themselves came together and
planned the construction of ditches and canals. There are
memorable tales of the heroic bands of men who worked day
after day in the glaring sunlight, cutting mile after mile of
ditches through the dry, hard earth with ordinary hand tools to
bring life-giving water to the land. It was natural that these
farmers should resent losing the results of their labor. Organ-
ized into settlers' associations, they played an important role in
the early days of the long struggle for publicly owned district
and state-wide irrigation projects.

The first irrigation canal in the San Joaquin Valley was
built in 1851 by Edward Fitzgerald Beale on El Tejon Ranch.
Another name important in the history of irrigation in the valley
is that of Moses Church, who braved the anger of the cattlemen
and organized the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company for the
purpose of constructing a canal-and-ditch system to carry water

CROPS— Typical products of the
Central Valley's irrigated farms are
grapes (above), cherries (right), and
olives (below).

%.

,, \,

; ^

DROUGHT— A deserted fruit farm is mute evidence of what happens in the Sacramento
Valley when the irrigation supply fails.

SALINITY — A salt marsh is the result when ocean water invades the delta lands.

THE GREAT VALLEY 39

from the San Joaquin River. The canal he built, known as the
Church Ditch, carried water to meadows in the district in which
Fresno is now located.

By the spring of 1872, two years after the Church Canal
was built, the diversion of the river water to this point had made
it possible for a farmer named A. Y. Easterby to cultivate 2,000
acres of wheat in the dry heart of the valley. This flourishing
wheat field, the only green spot on the burnt, brown plains
between Paradise Valley and El Tej6n Pass, caught the attention
of Leland Stanford and Mark Hopkins, who with a group
of engineers were riding through to chart the course of the rail-
road they were planning to build across the valley. It so
impressed them with the possibilities of the region that they
decided to locate a terminal and town at that point— today known
as Fresno.

The first really large irrigation project was the San Joaquin
and Kings River Canal, constructed by a group of San Francisco
financiers in 1871. This was hailed nationally as the greatest
venture of its kind since the construction of the Erie Canal in the
East. Within two years its effects began to show in an amazing
increase in the grain harvest. News of this bumper crop and the
resulting land boom reached Washington and aroused the inter-
est of the government in the possibility of irrigation in California.
Out of this interest grew California's state-wide plan for irriga-
tion. Called the Alexander Plan, it was the ancestor of the
Central Valley Project.

Already in those early years the danger of unlimited control
of water by private individuals at various points along the rivers
was clear to many ranchers. A growing demand developed for
control of irrigation by the people of the state. In 1875 the
Farmers' Grange, an organization which has done much to pro-
tect the interest of smaller ranchers, began agitation for the
passage of an irrigation bill through the California Legislature.
The bill was passed, creating the West Side Irrigation District.
A board of commissioners appointed to investigate the water
needs of the districts recommended the construction of a 190-

40 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

mile canal to Antioch, with a head gate at Tulare Lake and an
outlet at Fuller's Point, to provide water for 505,7 1 7 acres. Plans
called for this new canal to cut across the San Joaquin and Kings
River Canal, which had been taken over by Miller and Lux.
Miller and Lux obtained a writ which tied up the work for
ten years.

Shortly after 1876 the Centerville and Kingsburg Irrigation
and Ditch Company was organized. Its shares were sold to
ranchers whose lands would be served by the water. The
ranchers who bought shares were assigned certain portions of the
work of excavation and construction. Time spent by these
farmers on building the ditch was recorded, and in exchange the
Kingsburg storekeeper gave the men credit for home or farm
supplies. Both cattlemen and financiers made fun of these
twenty-four pioneers. But they completed their job. In 1879
the men who had toiled in swirling, choking clouds of dust saw
water in the ditches all the 35 miles between Centerville and
Kingsburg.

In 1887, C. C. Wright, a Modesto lawyer, introduced a
bill into the Legislature which was enacted into law on March 7
of that year. Known as the Wright Act, this was hailed as one
of the greatest steps toward a unified development of the Great
Valley. It provided that irrigation should be a public service.
Since its passage some fifty active irrigation districts have been
formed and more than six hundred dams built, including the
Don Pedro Dam serving the Modesto and Turlock districts,
Melones Dam serving the South San Joaquin and Oakdale dis-
tricts, and Exchequer Dam serving the Merced district.

Fed by a network of irrigation canals, the valley bloomed.
Over its broad acres spread a patchwork of green fields. New
crops were grown— grapes, oranges and olives, sugar beets, rice—-
where only cattle and grain had been before.

But the valley's water problem was not yet solved. For the
water supply was not yet enough to go around. Some lands had
plenty of water, but others had to be abandoned because of
dangerous aridity.

THE GREAT VALLEY 4!

WATER-BUT NOT ENOUGH

During the years 1905 to 191 1 interest in intensive farming
grew very rapidly. Small farms of seven to ten acres were culti-
vated intensively, with great amounts of water being used.
Banking syndicates pushed farming along these lines, and the
whole pattern of California agriculture changed.

Soon the demand for water exceeded the normal surface
flow, and ranchers had to find other sources. The result was
intensive pumping from wells. This was the second stage of
irrigation in California. From 1 9 1 3 to 1 929 the amount of land
irrigated by ground water pumped from deep below the surface
of the soil increased fivefold, and in 1 929 wells supplied water
to 28 per cent of the irrigated lands.

After a time, pumping cut down the water supply to such
an extent that water levels lowered alarmingly and surface water
was available only in very limited quantities. The expense of
pumping water became so great that many of the smaller ranchers
were forced into bankruptcy and lost their farms.

The power needed to raise a gallon of water, which weighs
about 8 pounds, the height of one foot costs the rancher a certain
amount of money. To raise the same gallon of water i oo feet
costs not only 100 times as much, but the rancher must pay the
increased expense of drilling additional wells and installing more
powerful machinery. Thus it can be seen that a rancher can
farm an acre of land at a profit only if he pumps water from a
reasonable depth.

By 1 933 pumping plants were almost as numerous as houses
in the southern San Joaquin Valley. It soon became plain that
the underground water deposits were being overdrawn. In the
orange belt north of Lindsay wells that had struck water at from
35 to 120 feet in 1921 had to be dug as deep as 60 to 220 feet
ten years later. In this section of the valley, where the original
bedrock is closer to the surface, some of the wells drew salt water.
By 1936 more than 20,000 acres of highly developed land had
been abandoned because of the falling water level, and water was
being overdrawn on more than 400,000 acres.

42 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

For years, far-seeing men had been fighting for conservation
of the natural resources of the valley, for control of the invaluable
water supply at its source, and for use of it in a manner that
would benefit all of the people and give them the necessary safe-
guards for the future.

STATE-WIDE WATER PLAN

The attempt to develop a water plan that would operate for
the valley as a whole— finally achieved in the Central Valley
Project— began almost a century ago. In 1850 the very first
session of the California Legislature that convened after the
Constitutional Convention of 1849 passed a law that required
the "Surveyor General to prepare plans for improvement of
navigation, providing drainage, and furnishing irrigation water/'

Two events helped to arouse interest in the question within
the next few years. In 1860 it was discovered that the effects
of hydraulic mining were hampering navigation on the Sacra-
mento at the mouth of the American River, and the next year a
heavy flood caused serious damage. The Legislature went no
further at this period, however, than to pass a bill in 1 866 pro-
viding for a survey for a canal to lead from the Sacramento River
near Colusa to Cache Slough near Rio Vista.

During the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant,
the construction of the San Joaquin and Kings River Canal drew
the attention of Congress to the importance of irrigation in its
new ocean-frontier state. In 1 873 Congress asked the Secretary
of War to investigate irrigation possibilities in the Sacramento,
San Joaquin, and Tulare valleys.

The committee of three appointed by the Secretary of War
to carry out the investigation made a report to Congress the next
year. This report was known as the Alexander Plan, after
Colonel B. S. Alexander of the Army Engineers Corps, who
headed the committee. (The first professor of geography at the
University of California, George Davidson, was also a member
of the committee.) The plan, drawn up nearly seventy years
ago when men knew much less about the make-up of the earth

THE GREAT VALLEY 43

and the habits of water than they do today, proposed the con-
struction of a number of canals in almost exactly the same loca-
tions as the canals provided for in the present Central Valley
Project. It outlined a detailed system of irrigation. In general,
the Alexander Plan is correctly described as the "first compre-
hensive water plan for the Central Valley."1

Colonel Alexander showed the great importance and
urgency of California's water problem by picturing the situation
in terms of the eastern states where people were used to having
all the water they needed. He wrote : "The subject of irrigation
is a novel one to the inhabitants of the states lying east of the
looth meridian where the harvests are so uniformly assured that
a season of five or six weeks of continuous drought during the
growing of crops would be looked upon as a national calamity
and prayers doubtless would be offered in the churches for rain.
In the East the yearly rainfall is somewhat regularly distributed
through the different months; but on the Pacific coast there are
two very marked seasons— one long, dry, and almost cloudless,
embracing parts of the spring, all of the summer, and part of the
autumn; the other season comparatively short and wet/'2

Although the plan was a good one, it would have been
impossible to carry it out at the time, even if enough money had
been available, because in those days engineers had not yet made
any detailed surveys of the region and its water resources. A
series of studies launched in 1878 by California's first State
Engineer, William Hammond Hall, was designed to unearth
the necessary facts. But the Legislature failed to realize the vital
importance of Hall's work and refused to provide the necessary
funds. The work had to be dropped. For over forty years no
other detailed survey was made. Meanwhile as time went on,
the valley's dwindling water supply became an urgent problem
demanding quick steps for its solution.

The whole question came before the citizens of the state
again in 1919, when Robert Bradford Marshall, the Chief

1 "History of the Central Valley Project." United States Department of the Interior,
Bureau of Reclamation, Sacramento, July, 1940, p. i (mimeographed).

« Walker R. Young, "Preserving the Central VaUey-A Brief Sketch of the Reclamation
Bureau's Vast Project in California," Ctvil Engineering, IX (September, 1939), 543.

CALIFORNIA'S WATER PROBLEM

LIES IN THE UNBALANCED

DISTRIBUTION OF LAND AND WATER RESOURCES

CONSIDER THESE FACTS

Of oil the water used in California, more than 90 per cent is
for the irrigation of its agricultural londs-

Of oil the water used in California for irrigation, two-thirds
is used in the Great Central Valley-

Of all the irrigated lands in California, two-thirds lie In the

Great Central Volley-
Within this Great Central Volley, a conservation problem
arises from the unequal geographical distribution of
the resources as related to the needs, because-

The Sacramento Basin has tributary watersheds producing
two-thirds of the valley's water, and-

The San Joaquin Basin has cropped lands with almost
two-thirds of the irrigation need.

PACIFIC BASIN

AREA OF BASIN. 1 1. OX

AREA Of A6. LANDS.. 1. 9 X
WATER RCSOURCES.37.6X

SACRAMENTO BASIN

IT IS THIS SITUATION THAT THE

CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT IS

DESIGNED TO BALANCE

SAN FRANCISCO BAY BASIN

AREA Or BASIN

AREA Or A6. LANDS. Z.6X

WATER RESOURCES. I.ZX

CENTRAL PACIFIC BASIN

AREA Or BASIN. .7.3*

AREA Or A6. LANDS .4.1%

WATER RESOURCES 3. IX

WATER RESOURCES 3.IX

SOUTH PACIFIC BASIN

AREA Or BASIN .6.8X

AREA Or AS. LANDS. 10.0%

WATER RESOURCES.. J.4X

NOTES

Area* of basins are glvtn in ptrctntages of total art a

ofstot*.
Anas of agricultural lands artfivtn in percentages of

total areas of agricultural tanas within fh* jtote.
Wafer resources ore given in ptrctntooe* of total wafer

resourctsofstett.

SCALE Or MILES

THE GREAT VALLEY 45

Hydrographer of the Geological Survey, realizing the increasing
dangers of the situation from his studies of the valley's water
supply, took matters in his own hands. He sent a plan to the
governor, writing him "in a personal capacity."1 His recom-
mendations, known as the Marshall Plan, included a scheme for
"transferring surplus waters from the northerly to the southerly
portion of the Central Valley."2 Such a plan looked like an
impossible dream at the time— and yet it is exa'ctly what is being
accomplished by the Central Valley Project today. The Mar-
shall Plan also proposed the construction of a number of storage
reservoirs on the main rivers and "a system of canals skirting the
entire rim of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers."8

People in California became interested again. In 1921 the
Legislature finally appropriated $200,000 for a broad study of
water resources. It directed the State Engineer "to determine a
comprehensive plan for the accomplishment of the maximum
conservation, control, storage, distribution and application of all
waters of the State, and to estimate the cost of constructing dams,
canals, reservoirs and other works necessary in carrying out this
plan."4

The State Engineer submitted a complete report to the
Legislature in 1923. From that time on the Legislature kept
passing additional appropriations— amounting to over a million
dollars in all— for further work on plans and surveys. The fourth
and final plan, drawn up by State Engineer Edward Hyatt after
ten years of investigation, was adopted in 1931 with a few minor
changes. This was a state-wide plan for water conservation
proposing smaller projects for the control of southern California
streams as well as the Central Valley Project for the great interior
valleys.

1 Walker R. Young, op cit., 543.

« Ibid.

PART II
HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT

MONEY, MEN, MACHINES, MATERIALS

We have seen that for nearly a hundred years men studied
ways to solve the immense problem of California's water short-
age. Hydraulic engineers measured the rivers. Surveyors
charted the hills. Topographers mapped thousands of square
miles. Plan after plan was drawn up, picturing how to harness
and direct the water resources of the State.

These plans were not wasted. The best part of each was
used to make up the great state-wide water plan, from which the
Central Valley Project was derived.

The master plan as formulated by State Engineer Edward
Hyatt and the Division of Water Resources of the Department
of Public Works was submitted to the California Legislature for
consideration in 1 93 1 . Many interested persons urged that the
part of the master plan known as the Central Valley Project
should be approved at once and money provided so that this
long-needed work could begin. They considered this project to
be the nucleus or minimum part of the master plan urgently
required for immediate development.

After long delay due to opposition to the plan from those
who claimed it would increase taxes or provide government com-
petition to private power companies, the project was approved
by the Legislature; and on August 5, 1933, the Governor signed
the bill giving the state authority to begin work.

The opponents did not give up, but at a special state-wide
election held on December 19, 1933, the people of California
voted their approval of the water-saving Central Valley Project.

MONEY

There was still an obstacle. Lack of Money!

One hundred and seventy million dollars was needed— and
it couldn't be found. The state of California tried to sell bonds
to secure the money. But 1933 was not a good year, the depres-
sion was serious, and it was hard to persuade people to buy these

49

50 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

bonds. $ 1 70,000,000! What a huge sum of money! Yet, if
the cost were spread among all the people of California, the
6,062,000 residents would have to pay only $28.04 each. And
when the benefits were considered— the lives and property that
might be saved from future floods, the riches that would be added
to the state each year— $170,000,000 was really a small sum for
such an investment. The floods of 1937 and 1938 alone did
$150,000,000 worth of damage in California, nearly enough to
cover the entire amount required.

In 1934, no money!

In 1935, no money!

Finally it became clear that unless the United States Con-
gress made funds available the whole idea would never get
beyond the planning stage.

In 1935 the War Department recommended the construc-
tion of Shasta Dam, a part of the Central Valley Project, on the
grounds that it would improve navigation on the Sacramento
River and aid in controlling floods . Congress acted on the recom-
mendation and authorized the expenditure of $ 1 2,000,000. An
appropriation bill was passed that specified that the work was
to be done by the Bureau of Reclamation of the Department of
the Interior, which already had made some engineering studies
of the Central Valley Project.

Why did Congress select the Bureau of Reclamation?

Because it is the greatest body of dam builders and irrigation
experts in the world. Since it was organized in 1 902, this Bureau
has built 1 6 1 dams (including the monsters Boulder Dam and
Grand Coulee) and more than 20,000 miles of canals and has
reclaimed nearly 4,000,000 acres of arid lands in sixteen western
desert states. The projects that it has built produce billions of
kilowatt-hours of electrical energy annually, enough to supply
all the power needs of a dozen great cities. Since the first
reclamation project began operating in 1906, farms served by
these works have produced additional crops to the value of
$2,657,000,000— many times the cost of the project. The
Bureau of Reclamation has accomplished great things by saving

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 5 1

farmers in many states from the menace of drought that in past
years has driven hundreds of thousands of families from their
homes.

On December 2, 1935, the United States Bureau of Recla-
mation officially took over the Central Valley Project, promising
to make a good job of it, to begin and complete it in the shortest
possible time with the funds to be provided year by year by
Congress. The Bureau immediately began checking plans and
estimated cost, making more studies of its own, and designing
the dams and canals. Because of some necessary changes, and
because of increased cost for labor and materials, it was found
that a somewhat larger sum of money than the original estimate
was needed, that the project would cost $228,0 1 0,000. Even at
this price, all agreed that the Central Valley Project was still a
bargain.

If this great sum of money were changed into pennies, and
they were piled high, they would make a pile towering 21 5 miles
above the earth; or if they were laid edge to edge, they would
reach from San Francisco to New York. Big money? Yes!
Yet this is just the value of the California orange and vegetable
crop for one year.

After bids were made on certain sections of the Central
Valley Project, a contract was let on July 6, 1938, for furnishing
labor for the building of Shasta Dam to a great combine of twelve
contracting companies, since no single contracting company was
large enough to handle the job. This contract, in the amount of
$35,939,450, was the second largest labor contract ever awarded
on a federal irrigation project. The contractor posted bonds in
the amount of $9,500,000 to assure his completion of the work.

Bids were called for the construction of Friant Dam, and
on October 9, 1939, a contract was let in the amount of $8,71 5,-
358.50 for furnishing labor only. This contractor posted bonds
in the amount of $4,500,000.

The money invested in the project is not lost to the federal
government. Through the sale of water and power the whole
amount is expected to be returned within forty years to the

52 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

United States Treasury. And after that the project may stand
for generations, continuing to add to the wealth of California
and the nation.

THE BUILDERS

In 1936, when the newspapers carried many stories of the
beginning of the Central Valley Project, thousands of men
began moving toward Redding and Fresno to seek work on the
two main units of the project that were to be constructed. They
were attracted to this big job as steel is attracted to a magnet.
But they came too soon; there was no work for them. They
drifted away.

Two years later when large-scale construction was actually
under way the project employed 5,000 men— 5,000 pitting their
strength and skill against the mighty forces of mountain, rock,
and river.

Who are these men? What do they do?

They are men of many races and creeds, white men and
black, thousands of men with strong arms, precise eyes, and
alert minds, skilled in many trades, gathered here to put across
the biggest job in California history. Here are workers of ninety-
two different occupations and a dozen different kinds of engi-
neers, all working directly on construction. Behind them are
thousands more in mines and mills and factories throughout the
land preparing the necessary steel, machinery, and equipment.
For every man on the job there are two elsewhere getting material
ready for the undertaking.

In the years of building up the West there has grown up
a set of brave and hardy men who know the make-up of the earth.
These are the construction workers and tunnel miners, the men
who forced mile-long tunnels through the Rockies, built dams
to store water, scored the surface of desert-dry but fertile areas
with canals, stretched huge bridges over rivers, bays, and moun-
tain gorges. On the job they spend months at a time in rough
construction camps far out in wild mountain or desert country
working hard and dangerously on mighty projects.

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 53

When one job is finished they move on to the next— from
the six-mile Moffat Tunnel in Colorado to a flood-control dam
in San Gabriel Canyon in southern California, from Boulder
Dam to Bonneville. The families of many of these men move
with them over the great spaces of the West.

The men building the Central Valley Project operate jack-
hammers, air compressors, concrete mixers, cranes, crushers,
dinkeys, derricks, and draglines. They run graders, grout
machines, hoists, power shovels, wagon drills, and water-clari-
fiers. They are blacksmiths, bricklayers, carpenters, electricians,
firemen, laborers, locomotive engineers, machinists, and mechan-
ics. They are miners, ironworkers, painters, pile drivers,
plasterers, and plumbers. They are riggers and riveters, sheet-
metal workers and steamfitters, welders and burners. They
drive tractors and dumping trucks and flat beds and transit-mix
trucks.

There are "powder monkeys," "muckers," "high-scalers,"
and "sand hogs." There are a "diver" and his tender, a "boot-
man" and a "nipper"; there are tenders for the endless belt con-
veyor that travels 1 68 miles a day.

Then there are the even more highly skilled workers: the
scientists and the various kinds of engineers and other technical
men. They have spent many years in colleges and technical
institutes, learning what water is, where it comes from, what it
does, where it goes, and how to control it. They can measure
the snow and gauge the streams and calculate how much electric
power will be delivered by the powerhouses under construction
as a part of the project ten years from now and a thousand miles
from its source; they can build a dam on paper and calculate how
strong it must be to hold back a million acre-feet of water; they
know how to examine a sample of rock taken from 200 feet below
the earth's surface and from this determine the "strength" of
the earth and its ability to support a 1 2,ooo,ooo-ton dam. There
are hydraulic, civil, construction, electrical, and mechanical
engineers working on the project as well as geologists, hydrolo-
gists, topographers, architects, chemists.

54 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

At the headquarters of the Bureau of Reclamation are
other men who make very important contributions to the work.
Long before actual construction could begin these men had to
make drawings— blueprints— of each intricate detail of the huge
project. The broad problems of water in the Central Valley
were solved in 1 5,000 detailed drawings, about enough drawings
to paper the walls of two hundred rooms. Engineers have a
saying: "When the plans are done the job is half done."

The man credited with perhaps the greatest engineering
skill in dam-designing is J. L. Savage, Chief Designing Engineer
of the Bureau of Reclamation. He has been with the bureau
for twenty-nine years, has been called to many far-off countries,
including Puerto Rico, Santa Domingo, Panama, England,
and Australia, for advice on engineering problems, and is con-
sidered the world's foremost authority on dam-engineering.
He works under S. O. Harper, Chief Engineer of the Bureau
of Reclamation at its western headquarters in Denver, Colo-
rado. Commissioner John C. Page heads the Bureau in
Washington, D. C., working under Secretary of the Interior
Harold L. Ickes.

The boss "on the job" for the first five years of work was
Walker R. Young, the Bureau's Supervising Engineer, with
headquarters in Sacramento. In 1935 when he was transferred
to California to take charge of building the Central Valley Proj-
ect, he was Construction Engineer of Boulder Dam. In 1 940 he
was appointed Assistant Chief Engineer of the Bureau of Recla-
mation, moving to the Denver office, and R. S. Calland became
Acting Supervising Engineer of the Central Valley Project. In
direct supervision of the construction work being done by the
various contractors on the three divisions of the project are three
Construction Engineers— Ralph Lowry at Shasta Dam, R. B.
Williams for the Friant Division, and Oscar G. Boden for the
Delta Division.

At Camp Baird near Redding are four hundred boys of the
Civilian Conservation Corps assigned to the Central Valley
Project. Their principal work has consisted of cutting the trees

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THE BUILDERS — Mechanic tightening grout
pipes (upper left). Jackhammer operator
drilling into rocky cliff (upper right). Bureau
of Reclamation surveyor (lower left). Cable-
way signalman guiding a load by short-wave
radio (lower right).

GOVERNMENT CAMP — Engineers, other government employees/ and their families live in
the neat town of Toyon in order to be near the Project.

TOYON SCHOOL — There are six classrooms in this school, which was built especially for
the children of Shasta Dam workers.

DOOMED — Destined to a watery grave are the ghost mining town of Kennett (upper view)
and the abandoned copper smelters (lower view) in the Shasta Reservoir area.

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MACHINERY — An electric scoop shovel
under Shasta cableways (upper left). Visitors
ride skip across canyon (upper right). A big
truck dumps a load of dirt (lower left). Cob-
ble-size gravel on the 10-mile long conveyor
belt (lower right).

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HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 59

and burning the underbrush from the 3o,ooo-acre site of the
Shasta Reservoir.

How much work can a man do? This is a question that
must be answered as exactly as possible before plans are drawn
up for any important undertaking. Knowing how much work
a man can do makes it possible to work out in advance what are
called labor costs, or the amounts of money in any construction
or manufacturing job that must be paid out in wages. Finding
the answer to this question comes under the heading of industrial
engineering.

Let us see how an industrial engineer would go about
answering this question. He would ask, what kind of tools will
a man use? What kind of work will he do? What are the con-
ditions under which he will work? What are the special dangers
and difficulties he will meet on the job? Is he strong, weak, well,
sick? What experience has he had? Has this sort of work been
done before and if so under what conditions?

By answering these questions the industrial engineer is
able to reckon the amount of work a man can do in one hour
under given working conditions. This unit is called a man-hour.
The usual method of determining a man-hour is to make a time
study. An engineer goes to a plant or construction job and
studies the men at work, using a stop watch to check the amount
of time each man requires to do a certain amount of work.

The problem of determining the amount of work a man can
do is a difficult one. To solve the problem one of the most impor-
tant things to find out is what sort of tools a man uses, whether
they are old-type tools or modern ones, in good condition or bad.

A tool is really like an extra hand grafted onto a man's body.

Perhaps now we understand enough about the question
to see what engineers mean when they tell us that 80,000,000
man-hours of direct labor— probably an additional 160,000,000
man-hours indirectly— will be needed to build the Central Valley
Project: enough man-hours to build a city about as large as
Oakland with a 300,000 population.

60 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

Of course, we know that one man could not build the Cen-
tral Valley Project even if he had a hundred thousand years to
do it. But if one man could operate all the complex tools and do
all of the work himself, it would take him 38,500 years to carry
through the job, working eight hours a day, five days a week.

How many hours do the men building the Central Valley
Project actually work?

Construction goes on continuously, twenty-four hours a
day and seven days a week, but naturally each man does not work
continuously. The work is carried on in shifts— that is, on a
typical job, one group of men works from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; the
"swing" shift goes on at 4 p.m. and works to midnight; the "grave-
yard" or night shift works from midnight to 8 a.m. In this way
part of the men work while part sleep and the rest are free for
recreation. Under federal regulations, the maximum hours that
each man may work are set at forty a week.

HOMES FOR THE WORKERS

Where do the project builders live? Many of the workers
have made their homes in communities already established,
increasing the population of Redding, Fresno, Madera, Friant,
Clovis, Antioch, Pittsburg, and other places near the centers of
construction. But the site of Shasta Dam in a remote canyon
about 5 miles from the nearest highway made necessary the
building of additional near-by towns to house some of the work-
ers. One of the first towns built was Toyon, named for the
Indian toyon, or redberry, which grows in abundance there.
Toyon is 3 miles from the dam site and was built by the govern-
ment to house Bureau of Reclamation employees and their
families. It consists of two large dormitories for single men, one
hundred family residences, a park and recreation center, an
office, a fire station, laboratories, a garage, and other buildings
for community use. The population of this model town is 464.
A similar but smaller Bureau of Reclamation camp was built
near Friant Dam; its population is about 250.

Other towns have sprung up in the vicinity of Shasta Dam:
Shasta Dam, built by the general contractor just below the dam

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 6 1

site, population 659; Central Valley, better known as Boomtown,
population 1,771; Project City, population 565; Summit City,
population 484. In these towns most of the contractors'
employees live.

Toyon has no commercial establishments, but in the other
mushroom communities are stores, service stations, a roller-skat-
ing rink, and motion-picture theaters. Toyon's public school is
attended by 344 children of the builders of Shasta Dam. This
school serves Toyon and one other settlement. In this recent
wilderness a school bus picks up children and takes them safely
to and from classes. These boys and girls long will remember a
part of their education— living here and watching the day-to-day
progress in the building of the second largest dam in the world.

MECHANICAL HELPERS

Some of the larger and more important machines used to
build the Central Valley Project are the wagon drill, the air
compressor, the dragline, and the belt conveyor; the mix plant,
the air pump, the cableway, and the towers; the hammerhead
and the whirley crane; the trimming machine and the concrete
liner. In addition to these mechanical mastodons, there are
thousands of other complex and simple tools: acetylene torches
and X-ray machines; compass saws and ordinary screwdrivers-
all the varied tools that have enabled man to add to his strength
and to increase his reach and ability.

Early tools were very rough and primitive, but they did
make it possible for man to change and improve his surround-
ings. The first shovel was probably only a flat stone fastened to
a branch of a tree by a leather thong, but it enabled man to
change the earth. Because of this change in the course of time
he began eating different foods, he came to depend less com-
pletely on fishing and hunting, and his habits changed in other
ways as well. He no longer had to go from place to place fol-
lowing his food. He began to settle down in one place and dig
up the earth and grow his food. Then a pointed stick came into
use as a plow, and he could raise better crops. Many generations

62 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

went by, and man captured the wild, shaggy horse of that distant
day and tamed it to serve his needs. This marked a tremendous
step forward in human development. The horse added to man's
slight strength and helped him to increase his mastery of nature.
A horse plus a pointed-stick plough made him a much better
farmer; a horse plus a bent-log sled permitted him to move large
objects over the earth.

In the course of centuries the plough was given a metal
ploughshare; the pointed stick became a pick; the wheel was
given handles and a body, becoming a wheelbarrow; two wheels
and an axle became a chariot; four wheels and a body became a
horse-drawn wagon. The shovel, now made of metal, remained
much the same in shape as its stone predecessor. Then a larger
shovel with two handles, drawn by horses, became the scraper.

When this century began, men still were working with
these same simple tools— the shovel, the pick, the wheelbarrow,
the scraper, and the wagon— to change the earth. But in the
years following the turn of the century man's genius showed
itself in new ways. Confronted with bigger problems demand-
ing much greater skill and more powerful equipment than ever
required before in their work, men developed the machines they
needed at a tremendous rate. From 1 900 to 1 930 more improve-
ments and advances took place in construction engineering than
in the previous ten thousand years.

When construction work on the Central Valley Project
commenced, the men and machines were ready; and both engi-
neers and workmen were equipped with the experience gained
at Boulder Dam and similar projects.

Drill, Scraper, and Scoop Shovel

Machinery was first used in exploring the dam site.
Diamond and calyx drills began grinding down into the earth
looking for the faults and flaws in the earth's surface.

Then came the machinery of excavation. Over the 400-
mile length of the project, huge scrapers called "carry-alls"
began scooping the "overburden" from the two dam sites at

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 63

Shasta and Friant and moving the earth for the canals. Drawn
by tractors, each with the strength of twenty elephants, these
lumbering carriers move away to the waste piles or embankments
to dump their loads and without stopping to return for more.
Giant electric scoop shovels with pronged teeth bite up tons of
boulders, loose rock, and dirt and set them down in the oversize
trucks— six tons to a bite. Each truck can hold 30 tons or five
times the capacity of one scoop shovel. In the "good old days"
the most a hand shovel could lift was about i o pounds of dirt,
and a wheelbarrow could handle only about 200 pounds. That
means that a man using a hand shovel would have to dig down
into the soil about i ,200 times to remove the amount dug out
at one scoop by a power shovel. It means that 300 wheelbarrows
equal one truck. This is progress.

Many of these efficient scoop, or "dipper," shovels are used
on the project, varying in size and type, some electric and some
powered by Diesel engines or gasoline motors. There are hun-
dreds of trucks of many sizes and shapes, and probably most of
them will be worn out before the job is finished. There are
bulldozers, charging in with caterpillar treads and broad blades
to push the earth before them; cowdozers with concave blades
that pull the earth behind them; caterpillar tractors, called "cats/'
compactly powerful; and sheepsfoot rollers, leaving their thou-
sand footprints behind them as they pack solid the earth of the
embankment and fill.

When several million tons of earth, boulders, and loose,
weathered rock had been removed from the Shasta and Friant
dam sites, the builders encountered different rock— harder and
more massive— rock not quite solid enough to serve as a founda-
tion for a dam, but too tough to be dug out by power shovels.
So "hard-rock" men, as they are called, advanced on the barrier
with their whirling steel bits, their jackhammers and dynamite.

Wagon drills, the most modern machines yet developed in
the battle with hard rock, were brought in. The largest number
of these wagon drills ever used on dam construction whirred and
cut their way into the rock, day and night, drilling dynamite

64 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

holes. Mounted on two pneumatic-tired wheels, they look much
like small automobile trailers and are moved from place to place
just as easily. Each drill is highly adjustable and can be set to
drill at any angle or direction— overhead or underfoot— "top
holes/' breast-high, or "snake holes."

The idea of the wagon drill is very simple. It really serves
as steel arms, holding and guiding the pneumatic drill as it
bounds and twists and cuts its way into the foundation rock.
Before the general use of wagon drills on jobs of this type, hand-
operated rock drills or jackhammers were used to bore into the
rock. The drillers were compelled to use smaller bits and were
unable to drill so deep or to hold the drill so steady. Men
operating these jackhammers developed great muscles but still
they tired from the work. Today on the project, to a large extent,
steel and springs take the place of bone and muscle. By the use
of wagon drills 200 feet of tapered holes can be drilled in a
single shift. About 20 feet a day was the most a man could make
with the earlier types of drills.

In one month at Shasta wagon drills sank 60 miles of
blasting holes. Each drill bores, on the average, one-half foot
per minute. In the rock encountered at Shasta it was necessary
to change the steel bit after each foot or so of drilling and to take
it out for resharpening. The steel bits range in length from 4
to 12 feet when new. They are hardened steel rods with two
or more sharpened cutting edges at their ends. The sharp end
spins around, cutting through the rock.

How are these wagon drills operated? What is their source
of power? Air! Air pressure!

Air Compressor

How is this air compressed? Part of the contractor's plant
at Shasta dam site is a building housing big compressor machines,
operated by electric motors, that gulp in air, ordinary air, at the
rate of 84,000 cubic feet a minute and compress it nearly eight
times. An air compressor works on the same principle as a
bicycle pump, but instead of compressing air within a tire it
presses it into a small space within a container strong enough to

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 65

hold it. From this container it is directed through pipes and air
hoses to the drills (in all parts of the dam site), where it is
released, passing over wheels with several blades. Thus the
air turns the wheel and drill as it seeks an outlet to expand to
normal pressure.

Everyone is familiar with the force of the air which makes
an explosive noise when a tire is punctured, and yet automobile
tires today seldom carry more than 35 pounds pressure per square
inch. The air compressors at Shasta and Friant dams maintain
a constant pressure of 1 1 o pounds.

During the construction of the Central Valley Project the
air compressors will "inhale" thousands of cubic miles of air,
put it to work, and then release it. This is typical of the way
that man makes the forces of nature serve him in this great job
of construction.

When the excavating machines that remove the earth and
rock from the tunnels, canals, bridge foundations, and dam sites
have finished their task, the machines that move in the materials
for construction are put to work.

Dragline and Conveyor Belt

One of the first machines encountered in making ready for
construction is the gigantic walking dragline at the gravel beds.
This machine waddles along like a huge goose with the i oo-foot
boom serving as the neck and the enormous bucket as the head.
This mechanical pet that stands 10 stories high in its walking
"shoes," when erect, reaches out and scrapes up 1 1 tons of gravel,
placing it in the vibrator hopper. Fuel oil feeds its Diesel
engine. A steel drum whirls about, winding the cablelike wire
thread on a spool, pulling it over a wheel at the boom's end,
and thus lifting the bucket with its 22,ooo-pound load. At the
Shasta gravel or aggregate deposit, this tremendous dragline has
a smaller, a brother dragline, helping to the limit of its six-ton
capacity. These draglines are called "cherry-pickers" by the
men because they are sometimes used to pick up boulders—
"cherries"— too heavy for the men to lift or place on the trucks.

TRESTLE AND CRANES— Friant Dam is being built by th
trestle method. Buckets of concrete brought out on the stee
trestle are lowered into place by the giant hammerhead crane

In the preparation of aggregates, the sand and gravel needed
for the millions of tons of concrete, there are other machines, im-
portant although not so spectacular. There is a moving belt which
carries aggregates to the washing and screening plant, where
oversize rock is put through a "jaw crusher." Here are a scrub-
bing trommel, where each stone and pebble is given a thorough
washing; a cone crusher for special crushing; a "slugmill" for
grinding and elimination; "hydroseparators," which whirl off dirt
and silt from the sand; a "rod mill" to manufacture sand from
fine gravel; a "rake classifier" for sorting; and many screens.

And then there is the most exciting machine of all, the
i o-mile-long belt conveyor, the longest in the world, which car-
ries the scrubbed and classified aggregates to the concrete-mixing
plant near their final resting place in Shasta Dam. A conveyor
belt is an endless belt similar to an escalator in a department store;
but it is used for moving materials from place to place rather than
for transporting people from floor to floor in a building.

Up and over the hills and down and across the canyons it
moves, creeping slowly 61A miles an hour, looking from a dis-
tance like a tremendous caterpillar moving over the earth. At
many places it seems to hug the ground; at one place it spans a
chasm 90 feet above ground. Those obstacles that cannot be
removed are bridged; in each trip of this hard-working conveyor
it crosses the Sacramento River twice, leaps four creeks, five
county roads, the state highway, and the main line of the railroad.

Slowly, doing the work of a thousand motor trucks or a
hundred railway cars, it rolls along with hundreds of tons on
its back, delivering this amount each hour, starting at an elevation
of 490 feet at Redding and crossing a pass 1,450 feet above sea
level near the dam site. Aglow at night with scattered lights, the
unbroken stream of aggregates flows over the hills, night and
day, month after month. The stream will keep on flowing, if
present plans are carried through, until the four years required
to move 10,000,000 tons have passed.

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CANAL BUILDER — A paving machine lays a 3-inch lining of concrete on the sides and bottom
of the excavated ditch.

WATER CARRIER — A completed section of the Contra Costa Canal. The other project canals
will be somewhat larger.

MATERIALS— Cement is stored in these tall
silos (upper left). Gravel is stored in great
bins (upper right). Heavy structural steel is
used in towers and bridges (lower left). Re-
inforcing steel is embedded in concrete piers
and walls (lower right).

SHASTA DAM— The dam site before the work was started (upper). How it will look when
completed (lower).

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT Jl

To build this conveyor was a big job in itself, although in
contrast with the project it was a relatively unimportant precon-
struction detail. Beginning at the sand and gravel deposits near
Redding, a loo-foot right of way had to be surveyed, secured,
and cleared and some embankments cut on the i o-mile route to
the construction site. Then the framework of steel and wood
had to be built to hold the 16,000 rollers on which the 20 miles
of rubber belting move. The belts used on the conveyor are
36 inches wide. More than 500,000 pounds of cotton and
nearly i ,000,000 pounds of rubber went into their manufacture
—enough cotton and rubber to make nearly 700 automobile tires.

What keeps the sand and gravel on the conveyor? The
sides of the belts are held up by the two outside rollers, which
are set in the frame at an angle, thus forming a trough.

The conveyor is made up of forty sections, or "flights," with
varying lengths of belts, depending on the contour of the hills.
The first twenty-two sections are powered by 2oo-horsepower
motors; the next four sections, going downgrade as much as 25
per cent to the Sacramento River, require no power— in fact, the
weight of the load in motion, called kinetic energy, is used to
generate electricity which helps pull the other sections up the
steep hills. The last fourteen sections, climbing from the river
to the stock piles and to the mix plant, also require 2oo-horse-
power motors to move each flight.

Along the route of the conveyor are many telephone stations
for emergency use. An intricate system of automatic electric
controls can stop the entire conveyor if a section gets out of order.
The location of the breakdown is indicated on the central control
panel.

Along the route are many signs reading "KEEP OFF-
BELT STARTS WITHOUT WARNING-DANGER/' and
at each transfer point are crossbars to prevent anyone from riding
the belt.

When the load reaches the end of each flight, it is dumped
through a steel chute to the next section, continuing its chute-
the-chute ride to its destination, the concrete mix plant.

72 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

Cement Pump and Mix Plant

The machine for moving six million barrels of cement from
railroad cars to the ten storage "silos" near the dam site is strange
at first sight although it is common in the cement industry.

The cement is not moved by truck, train, or belt; it is blown
from the boxcars to the cement "silos," which are tall storage
tanks. Here again we see compressed air put to work for man.

When the boxcars, containing more than 1 20,000 pounds
of bulk cement, are "spotted" on the siding, the door seals are
broken and an electric-powered portable air pump is placed in
the car. The air pump, mounted on two rubber-tired wheels, is
called the "Chinese dragon" by the workmen because it has a
huge "head" which eats its way through the bulk cement and a
long rubber hose "tail" which carries the cement out of the car.
The pump is operated by remote control by means of push
buttons. When the operator presses the switch a disk begins
whirling about near the floor, gathering the cement and feeding
it into the pipe opening. Within this pipe an 8-inch screw spins
about at 500 revolutions per minute, forcing the cement into the
air ring. Here in the air ring the finely powdered cement is
lifted and begins its long, floating journey to the silos. Air,
entering the "line" through injection points in the ring, aerates
and gives buoyancy to the cement. Air pressure of about 40
pounds per square inch then forces the suspended particles out of
the hose to the silos, each of which holds twenty-two carloads of
cement. In the same way a stationary cement pump blows
cement from the silos more than a mile to the concrete-mixing
plants.

The mixing plant at Shasta is interesting for two reasons-
its size and the scientific exactness of each batch. Nearly every-
one is familiar with the simple process of mixing concrete: the
blending of cement, sand, gravel, and water. But here, where
the concrete must be solid and free from flaws to hold the great
weight of waters, the amount of each ingredient automatically is
weighed and recorded in the batching plant before the five units
begin rolling with their eight tons of mix.

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT

73

Each unit of the mixer holds an average batch of 14,782
pounds of aggregates, 1,540 pounds of cement, and 900 pounds
of water, which is fed to it by hopper and hose. When filled, the
drum begins rotating, and after turning over an average number
of thirty times, the mix is ready. The wet concrete is then
dumped into cars on a most unusual elevated endless railway,
called so because of its circular track. The cars, holding 32
tons of cement, move around to the loading dock, dump their
load, and return on the steel circle to the hopper. The diameter
of this circle is 420 feet. This endless electric railway making
a trip of a quarter-mile is no doubt one of the shortest in the
world, and the engineers who operate each of the electric engines
make this merry-go-round ride hundreds of times a day.

Cableway

The last and most important machine used in the place-
ment of concrete at Shasta is the "radial" cableway system, with
its structural steel head tower 460 feet, or more than forty stories,
above ground and its anchorage 102 feet, or more than eight
stories, below ground. This tremendous steel pyramid is 562
feet taller than the Los Angeles City Hall. The three upper
"floors" of the tower are the operators' rooms, machinery room,
and rigger's cable room, reached by an elevator which creeps up
the outside of the structure.

From this great head tower seven cableways stretch or
radiate, to smaller, movable "tail" towers affectionately called
"Twelve-toed Petes." These young giants, each supporting up
to a half-mile of steel cable, received their odd name because they
have twelve wheels on each leg that, strangely enough, do
resemble a dozen toes. Each tower holds a weight of more than
100,000 pounds.

The head tower is centrally located on the west side of the
Sacramento River. Three of the "tail" towers are spaced on
tracks at the top of the east abutment, a half-mile away; two
more, below the dam on the east side; another, below the dam
on the west side; and another, at the top of the west abutment.

74

THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

To each, powerful steel cables stretch fanwise over the gaping
dam site. The direction in which each cable reaches out from the
head tower is changed whenever necessary by moving the "tail"
tower along its curved track. It is on these 3 -inch steel cables
that the mix takes its last ride. When the endless railway
empties its burden into the huge buckets, each holding 1 6 tons
of wet concrete, these buckets are picked up, swung out and over
the excavation on the great cable way, then lowered— down,
down— and dumped of their load into the final resting place.

Trestle and Cranes

The method of placing concrete at Friant Dam and at other
parts of the project varies according to the size and kind of work
to be done. At Friant a steel trestle nearly a half-mile in length
and 200 feet high performs service similar to the cableways at
Shasta. This trestle— whose legs will become part of the dam by
being swallowed up as the concrete rises higher and higher— has
single railroad rails laid along each outer edge 44 feet apart.
Traveling on these rails, several giant cranes straddle the trestle
and do their work of placing the 8-ton buckets of concrete. Two
of the cranes, called hammerheads because of their shape, are
72 feet high and have a boom, or arm, a block long. The other
two cranes, called whirleys, are designed so they can revolve or
whirl about in any direction. Two standard-gauge railroad
tracks run along the deck of the trestle underneath the cranes.
Seven lo-ton Diesel-electric locomotives move back and forth
over the tracks hauling cars carrying bucketloads of concrete,
feeding them to the relentless cranes that lower the buckets into
place as needed. Reinforcing steel, cooling pipe, and materials
other than concrete are brought out on a lower single-track trestle
from which the materials can be picked up by the big cranes.

Canal Diggers

In the building of the miles of canals on the Central Valley
Project, two special machines were put in use to speed the work
after the ditches were dug to rough grade by big draglines. The
first, a trimming machine, shaped like a broad U, is suspended

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT

75

in a roughly excavated ditch, riding on two rails that are laid
along each bank. By means of sharp-edged buckets that move
on an endless chain, this machine trims or scrapes the earthen
sides and bottom of the canal bed, leaving it neat, smooth, and
the correct size. The second is called a concrete-lining machine.
Its job, as its name indicates, is to line or pave the canal with
concrete. It, too, moves along the two widely spaced tracks,
spanning the canal laterally. By means of a hopper car the con-
crete is fed through a slotted chute to rapidly vibrating baffle
plates. This vibratory or shaking motion settles the concrete
and permits it to run down to its proper place. On the Contra
Costa Canal, the concrete-lining machine, with three men,
paved 3,000 square yards of canal surface in a day. If this
machine had not been used it would have taken twenty-eight
men four days to pave this area by the old hand methods.

THE RAW MATERIALS

We have read of the money, men, and machines needed
to fashion the great stone fetters to chain the waters of the
Great Valley. There is another all-important factor which still
must be considered; what are the raw materials out of which men
and machines create the Central Valley Project? In other words,
how much of what does it take to build its giant structures?

To name all the materials used would make a very long list.
Here we can only describe the most important materials and
give the total quantity of each of these used. This will help to
give some idea of the huge proportions of the job.

Aggregates

On the entire Central Valley Project it is estimated that
over 15,000,000 tons of aggregates— sand and gravel— will be
required for mixing with cement to make concrete. Everyone
knows what sand and gravel look like whether one lives at the
seashore or in the mountains, in the country, or in the city. But
not everyone knowns how sand and gravel were formed and why
they are conveniently placed along river beds and streams.

76

THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

Sand, gravel, boulders, and all the smooth and rounded
rocks that are strewn over the face of the continent were made
hundreds of thousands of years ago during that long, cold, ice-
age night before the dawn of the world, when great glaciers
ground their screeching way through the deepening valley, pick-
ing up billions of tons of earth and rock and carrying them along,
wearing their rough edges smooth and grinding and polishing
their surfaces. Under the glaciers and imbedded within them,
the billions of tons of sand and gravel were carried along as the
mighty mile-thick sheets of moving ice thrust their way down to
the sea.

Both Shasta and Friant dams, like all the great modern
dams, are built of concrete. Concrete is sand and gravel (aggre-
gates) bound together by cement.

In the course of centuries, as the earth's climate grew milder
and the glaciers began to melt and rivers were formed, untold
billions of tons of sand were carried down to the ocean, forming
the sandy and pebbly beaches; and billions of tons more of sand
and gravel were spread along the riverbanks. It is these deposits
or aggregates that man discovered and put to work.

Five sizes of washed and graded aggregates were required
for Shasta and Friant dams— one of sand and four of gravel-
ranging in size from 3/16 of an inch to 6 inches in diameter.
More than ten million tons of aggregates are used at Shasta, and
the price for digging, washing, sorting, milling, and transporting
them over the belt conveyor is 41.88 cents a ton. More than
three million tons are used at Friant. At Shasta, the sand and
gravel deposits are 12 miles downstream from the dam site. At
Friant, the deposits are three miles below the dam.

Cement

The second most important ingredient in terms of quantity
is cement— that simple, yet rather mysterious product which
binds sand and gravel together, forming artificial rock stronger
and more solid than any found in nature. This rock is called
concrete.

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT

77

The equivalent of more than forty million bags, each
weighing 94 pounds, will be used in the building of the Central
Valley Project, and this great quantity, which would require a
train of more than 30,000 freight cars— a train 282 miles long
and needing 555 powerful locomotives to move— will be manu-
factured almost entirely in California. One cement order for
5,800,000 barrels, placed by the United States Government for
Shasta Dam, was the largest single cement order ever given.

When the Treasury Department received bids for the
5,800,000 barrels of cement for Shasta Dam, the lowest bid was
from a company which had never been in the cement business;
its price was $1.19 a barrel— $6,907,000 for the lot. This com-
pany got the immense order. It immediately began to erect a
modern plant with the newest and most efficient machines near
an almost inexhaustible supply of the ingredients, clay and
limestone.

How is cement made?

Limestone is the most essential part of cement. Broadly
speaking, limestone plus sand plus clay plus gypsum, heated,
crushed, and ground, equals Portland cement. Limestone was
built up from the remains of prehistoric plants and animals
through many centuries. In making cement, after the limestone
is blasted loose and scooped up by power shovels it is crushed by
powerful jaw crushers that can crush a rock as big as a piano.
The small rough chunks are then pounded into smaller pieces in
a hammer mill, measured quantities of clay and slag added, and
the rocky mixture ground and reground until it has the texture
of fine dust.

Now it is ready for the fire. Heat, 2,700° F, so intense
that it would consume a tree instantly or melt the hardest steel,
is used to melt the mixture and burn away impurities.

Burned to the clinker state, with gypsum added, the mix-
ture is altogether changed, both chemically and in appearance.
It is harder than the rock it came from. It is ground again, as in
the early stages of preparation, in a shot mill which breaks the
clinker into small particles like grains of sand and in a rod mill

7 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

that finishes it to a powder finer than most flour, so fine that it
will pass through a silk screen tight enough to hold water.

This is how the cement is made that will bind the vast
structures of the Central Valley Project together: fine textured
so it will adhere to the uneven surface of the aggregates and uni-
form in quality so that there will be no weak spots.

Steel

Of the many products that go into the project, steel is one
of the most important. So frequently are the dams and canals
referred to as concrete structures that the many thousands of tons
of steel that go into them are sometimes forgotten.

Why is steel put in concrete?

Steel is imbedded in concrete to strengthen it and to tie the
mass together. Concrete alone is very strong: one cubic foot
will support a loaded boxcar. But concrete reinforced with only
6 per cent of steel will support several loaded boxcars.

Reinforcing steel is used in parts of Friant and Shasta dams
along with many tons of steel tubing and fabricated steel which
are buried within these mountains of concrete. More than
35,000,000 pounds of steel bars are used to reinforce portions of
the dams, the powerhouse, the spillways, the canals, the pump-
ing stations, bridges, tunnels, and many other structures of the
project. Placed in both horizontal and vertical positions and
wired together at points of contact, these bars form what looks
like an immense wire fence. When the concrete surrounds this
fence, the bars become the steel backbone of the concrete mass,
adding greatly to its strength. Once imbedded in concrete and
protected from the air, steel does not rust or deteriorate, but
remains as strong as when first installed.

What other kinds of steel are used in the Central Valley
Project? Part of the great steel bridgelike trestle constructed at
Friant Dam for the placing of concrete will be buried within the
dam itself. Each day the concrete will rise higher and higher,
concealing the legs of the trestle forever from view. The same

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT

79

kind of structural steel was used to build the Shasta cableway
towers.

More than 1 1 ,000,000 pounds of steel tubing— about i ,800
miles of it— will be buried within the two dams to serve as coils
to carry cool river water which will lower the high temperature
of the quick-setting concrete.

More than 20,000,000 pounds of steel drum gates and other
control devices will be installed at Friant and Shasta, and thou-
sands of tons of trashracks, penstocks, outlet pipes, and other
steel products will go into the completed dams.

Then there are the nine steel bridges being erected near
Shasta for the rerouting of the railroad and highway, including
the great double-decked Pit River Bridge, which alone will
require more than 16,000 tons of steel. More than 5,000 tons
of new steel rails will be used to reroute the railroad line around
the Shasta Reservoir. The total for all the bridges is 30,000 tons
of steel. The total for the entire Central Valley Project is
170,000 tons.

Other Materials

The quantities of other materials used on the Central
Valley Project sound like figures from some astronomical cal-
culation.

Seventy million board feet of lumber will be used to make
the forms to hold the concrete while it sets. Twenty-five hun-
dred acres of forest had to be cut down to make this amount of
lumber— enough for the building of more than two thousand five-
room homes.

About 3,200 tons of explosives will have been used on the
project, and about 200,000 tons of fuel, coal, and lubricants.
Millions of kilowatt-hours of power will be used to run the
machines and to furnish lights during the time of building.

The list of construction materials at the dams and canals
include thousands of lesser items of infinite variety— kegs of
nails, tanks of oxygen, dishpans and water pails, tractors and
trucks, industrial diamonds by the dozen and X ray film by the

8o

THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

case, sponges and chalk line, hard-shell hats and safety belts,
hacksaw blades, jackhammer bits— even fishpoles!

These, then, are the ingredients. The recipe for this far-
flung project would read something like this:

Take 1 5,000,000 tons of aggregates,

Add 40,000,000 bags of cement,

Place 1 70,000 tons of steel,

Season with electric conduits, water pipes, and miscellane-
ous machinery,

Put 5,000 men to work mixing well;

When mixed, place within the confines of more than
70,000,000 board feet of forms and let set.

Soon you will have the great Central Valley Project.

WHERE SHALL WE BUILD?

Before work could begin on the Central Valley Project
those in charge had to decide where to locate the two great dams,
the canals, and the other units.

In selecting the site for each dam they had to keep the fol-
lowing requirements in mind: a great mountain valley to
become a reservoir when dammed up, a location in the narrow
part of the valley so that the dam would not be too long or cost
too much to build, a foundation strong and firm enough to sup-
port the mountain-size concrete dam, hills surrounding the valley
high enough so that the water of the immense reservoir would
not flow out at some low spot, a site on the river where the stream
flow would be sufficient to provide an ample supply of water.

Another problem to be met arose from the fact that the
thousands of acres of land which would be flooded when the
river was dammed belonged to private owners and so would have
to be appraised or valued and bought by the federal government;
and if there were any towns or villages in the area, they would
have to be removed to some carefully chosen and equally good
location. Finally there was the very complicated question of
water rights to various parts of rivers and streams affected by dam
construction to be settled.

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 8 1

After the surveying of many suggested locations on the
upper reaches of the Sacramento, the choice for Shasta Dam
finally narrowed to three sites : the Table Mountain site between
Redding and Red Bluff, the Baird site near the confluence of the
Pit and McCloud rivers, and the Kennett site 1 2 miles north of
Redding in the Sacramento Canyon and 5 miles below the
merging of the Pit and Sacramento rivers. As early as 1935
the Bureau of Reclamation began explorations at these three
locations. Engineer-geologists pushed the work forward,
honeycombing the earth, delving, boring, probing for signs of
decomposition, weakness, and faults.

At Kennett, hundreds of 2-inch holes were made, some as
deep as a city block. Day after day diamond-set rings whirled
about, cutting through the earth, through the top layer of decom-
posed and weathered rock, down, down to the solid greenstone.
And from these holes were taken rock core samples, slightly
larger than broom handles. These cores were marked to show
the depth from which they came and then were carefully packed
and sent to the laboratory for tests and examination. Geologists
studied them for cracks and flaws, to determine their stability
and strength. More than 1 1,000 lineal feet— over two miles—
of these 2-inch borings were made at Kennett. And all over the
site many test holes were dug.

But this was not enough. The engineers had to be abso-
lutely sure that there was a solid support for such a huge dam.
Thousands of feet of tunnels were dug under the river and under
the base of the proposed dam. Engineers and geologists studied
the tunnel walls to determine the general geological formation
of the rocks, looking for signs of water seepage, percolation, and
sheering characteristics.

But even this was not enough. Huge calyx (flower-
shaped) hollow drills, with chilled-shot cutting edges, began
boring away, grinding, cutting holes 3 feet in diameter fifty feet
deep into the million-year-old stone. The cores were removed,
round and smooth, looking like petrified trees, and were exam-
ined by the scientists. The scientists themselves went down

82 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

into these yard-wide holes, to test, chip the rock, and examine
the earth from the inside. Innumerable tests were made; various
Bureau of Reclamation experts contributed recommendations;
the records of United States Army Engineers and the reports of
the California Division of Water Resources were considered; the
California Water Project Authority and the Board of Consult-
ants of the Bureau of Reclamation rendered their opinions. At
last the Kennett site was pronounced safe and suitable.

The Board of Consultants for the Bureau had stated that
any of the three sites were suitable for dam construction. The
Bureau selected the Kennett site because "it was superior from
an economic standpoint'' and would cost less to build. Shortly
after its selection the Kennett Dam site was renamed Shasta for
the majestic Mount Shasta which looms up 14,161 feet in the
distance.

In this same careful way, with all the tools of modern
science and the skills of many branches of engineering, the
Friant Dam site was selected on the upper San Joaquin River,
20 miles north of Fresno and the same distance east of Madera.

WORK WITH A BIG W

The Central Valley Project is made up of two huge dams,
about 350 miles of main canals, a hydroelectric power plant,
more than 200 miles of power-transmission lines, and many
accessory structures such as pumping plants, bridges, and tun-
nels. Each is located to serve its part in adjusting and conserving
the water supply of the great Central Valley. Knowing the
name of each principal part will aid in fixing its location.

Shasta Dam and power plant are on the Sacramento River,
1 2 miles north of Redding. Friant Dam is on the San Joaquin
River, 20 miles north of Fresno. The main water carriers,
besides the two rivers, are the Delta Cross Channel, Contra
Costa Canal, San Joaquin Pumping System, Madera Canal, and
Friant-Kern Canal. And the project includes the Shasta Power
Transmission Line, stretching from Shasta Dam 200 miles south
to a substation at Antioch.

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 83

If a man walked 20 miles a day it would take him over a
month to inspect all the far-flung project, from Shasta Dam to
the southern tip of the Friant-Kern Canal.

THE JOB BEGINS

The surveys had been made and the plans drawn, the money
had been provided, houses for the workers had been built, mate-
rials were being prepared, and equipment was being delivered.
The time had come to start construction.

Early on the bright, hot morning of September 8, 1938, a
small gang of men began the actual building of Shasta Dam.

There was no crowd of spectators in attendance. The
exact time the excavation would begin was not known even to
the contractor. The machines used to grade roads down the
steep canyon walls to the dam site were the same machines that
began removing the overburden— the first loose topsoil above the
foundation rock. The transition from road-building to damsite
excavation was imperceptible. On September 7, the foreman
remarked, "It looks as if we'll be ready to start in the morning."
And that was the extent of speech making when work began.

Starting on the east bank, 250 feet above the greenish, curl-
ing Sacramento, two 4-ton scoop shovels lowered their heads and
bit up their first taste of earth from the Shasta Dam site. A
power-shovel operator grinned and waved to a truck driver as he
expertly swung the scoop around. A lever was pulled, the
scoop-bottom opened, and earth, rocks, and silver-leafed man-
zanita brush fell into the waiting truck.

Scoop-scoop—take it away. Scoop-scoop—take it away.
That was the rhythm of the work as through the hot, dust-laden
air a small hole in the ground became visible. Nearby a crew of
carpenters was completing shop buildings and a construction
camp. Another crew of workmen was clearing manzanita and
other brush from the dam site.

A few weeks after the job was started, three immense 6-ton
electric shovels arrived and went to work; and a fleet of eighteen

84 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

big new trucks with extra-large steel bodies and overhanging
visors to protect the drivers from falling rocks moved in and took
over. Five quick bites and the giant scoops had filled these
trucks to overflowing, ready to roar away over the steep new
roads to the waste piles— called "spoil banks" in construction
language.

October 22, 1938, the ground-breaking ceremony was held
in Redding. Here crowds gathered to hear the dedicatory
speeches and to see the visiting state and federal officials.

But at Shasta the work went on.

Some visitors went to the dam site to see this long-talked-of
project— dust, load, dump, dust— and departed. Other visitors
came; the work went on. And after days and weeks and months
the insignificant hole-in-the-ground became distinct against the
towering canyon walls.

Five scoop shovels and a fleet of thirty trucks dug into the
steep banks on both sides of the river, removing the loose boul-
ders and earth. And "cats" (caterpillar tractors) guided by
tanned and wiry "catskinners" (drivers) pushed the overburden
from the upper strata of rock.

Drillers and Dynamiters

Up on the face of the canyon wall, high above the river, the
"high-scalers" sway in midair. They are the daring drillers who
climb, or scale, the sheer cliffs to do the preparatory work for
blasting out a level landing or "working table" from the solid
rock so that the wagon drills can move in. "High-scalers" also
are used for drilling in spots so steep and inaccessible that only
men, and not machines like the wagon drill, can work there.

Suspended in bosun chairs the "high-scalers" grip their
whirling, vibrating jackhammers and force them cutting and
hammering into the stony barrier. The bosun chairs are the
same sort sailors use when they paint the side of a ship, rather
like the swing hung from the limb of a tree out in the backyard.
They are fastened to the rocks high overhead.

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 85

In their precarious seats the "high-scalers" push forward
their hard and dangerous work. With silver-colored metal safety
helmets to protect them from falling rocks and make the sun's
burning rays more bearable, they hammer their way into the
earth's crust. Danger threatens below as well as overhead.
Sometimes a man's footing breaks loose, leaving him suspended
in the air, his heavy, speeding jackbit twisting and whirling
wildly. Each time they change drills the "high-scalers" "blow the
hole" with opened air line, sending the powdered rock dust
geysering into the air. Jackhammer operators and the men
handling steel bars and picks pound and drill their way in, pry-
ing loose huge pieces that fall away and down the slope, sending
up great clouds of dust.

When the working table is prepared on the canyon side,
a fleet of wagon drills arrives. Guided by their operators and
chuck-tenders, the drills begin breaking their squirming, twist-
ing, screeching way into the tough rock. This rock is called
Meta-Andesite by the geologists; it is hard, greenish-gray rock of
volcanic origin. It is much older, tougher, and more difficult to
drill than the rock, the Breccia formation, encountered at
Boulder Dam. The drillmen do not bother much about the
names or histories of the rock they struggle to pierce. What they
want to know is: how quickly is this rock going to wear out
a steel bit?

Drill a foot or so and remove the bit for resharpening; drill
a foot and remove the bit for resharpening, each foot of rock
requiring about two minutes to drill. The holes at Shasta range
in depth from 20 feet near the top to 4 feet near foundation rock
and are spaced about i o feet apart.

When a string or round of holes is ready for blasting, the
wagon drills move on and the powder men, or "powder monkeys"
as they are called, go to work. It is thrilling to see these men
handling explosives— tons of explosives on a job of this size. Of
course they understand the risk, but they know their business;
completely sure of themselves, they handle the sticks of dyna-
mite as though they were pieces of firewood.

86 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

Carrying their 5o-pound cases of dynamite, the "powder
monkeys'" move along from hole to hole, loading each according
to its depth, the 2o-foot holes taking about 50 pounds of explo-
sives. When one hole is loaded they move on to the next, load-
ing, tamping, and connecting each charge to the "buzz wires"—
lines which are strung from one charge of explosives to the next.
At the bottom of each hole is a stick of dynamite called a primer,
containing a delayed-action cap. When the round of several
hundred holes is hooked up, all is in readiness.

The short, sharp blasts of the shift whistle sound above the
roar of wagon drills, air compressors, power shovels, humming
cable, and the general thud and clangor of construction.

The workers move quickly out of range of the explosion,
piling into waiting trucks that take them to the camp where they
live. The next shift has not gone to work, but awaits the shock
at a distance. It is near the zero hour. A final careful examina-
tion of the entire danger zone is made by the shifter or foreman.
Everyone is clear. The switch is pressed, sending 240 volts of
electricity through the line.

Zoom— Zoom! The earth shakes and a tremendous roar
echoes back from the canyon walls. A barricade of rock lifts
from the ground and for an instant seems to remain suspended
in the air, then settles to the earth in a clatter of falling stone and
rolling clouds of dust.

But that was only the first blast. About three-fourths of
a second later, when the element in the delayed action cap has
burned through, a second great roar drowns out all other sound,
shaking the air as it seems to recede over the towering horizon.
Once more the rocks lift high and settle earthward, sending out
a pall of dust.

The great tide of sound ebbs and flows. Again and again
the charges explode at brief intervals until all twelve delays have
been fired. One contact of the switch and the rocks have
showered upward for ten seconds until the entire round has done
its work— and some three hundred holes have been "shot."

MEN AT WORK— Shovelins muck out of a
tunnel (upper left). Steel riggers on the Pit
River Bridge (upper right). Wagon drills
sinking dynamite holes (lower left). Dumping
a bucket of concrete at Friant Dam (lower
right).

RAILROAD RELOCATICN-
Twelve tunnels and eight majo
bridges were built to relocate a mail
line railroad around Shasta Reservoir

A view of tunnel.

PIT RIVER BRIDGE — The world's highest double-deck bridge carries a four-lane highway and
two railroad tracks across part of the reservoir.

STATE CAPITOL

Section of bridge.

STATE HIGHWAY

ULTtMAW WATER L£V£L
Or SHASTA RESERVOIR

DAY AND NIGHT — Work goes on twenty-four hours a day at Shasta Dam These views are
from the same point on the east abutment.

FROM THE AIR — A view up the canyon shows: (1) The concrete mix plant/ (2) giant cableway
head tower; (3) one of the tail towers; (4) part of the rising dam/ (5) powerhouse under con-
struction; (6) Vista house for visitors.

;-,, ^ • 3?V"-..-

%. -«?

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 91

In this one furious round of blasting about 1 5,000 pounds
of explosives have been used, the force of which broke loose and
lifted nearly 12,000 cubic yards of rock.

Twice a day, usually at the end of the day shift at 4 P.M.
and at 12 midnight between the swing and graveyard shifts,
during the entire period of excavation, these tremendous chains
of explosions shook the upper Sacramento Valley.

These "powder monkeys" know what can and what cannot
be done with explosives: they respect its power, they know the
hazards of their occupation, they are careful. The Shasta con-
struction job has a good safety record.

When the dust has settled and the far-flung echoes have
died away, the next shift comes on, and the lumbering scoop
shovels begin to load the shattered rock into the waiting trucks.

And so the excavation goes on— scoop, drill, blast, scoop—
until more than 4,000,000 cubic yards of material have been
removed and in the yawning east and west abutments the hard
bedrock is reached.

The excavation at Friant Dam was a similar process. The
amount of material removed totaled about i ,300,000 cubic yards.

Grouting

When the foundation for Shasta Dam is cleared and the
Board of Consultants and the Bureau of Reclamation engineers
have approved its depth and strength, have examined the fault
angling across the site, an unusual kind of job called grouting
still must be done before the order is given to pour concrete.

Grouting is the sealing of all cracks and tiny flaws in the
natural rock by pumping grout, which is cement and water, into
the seams formed millions of years ago when the molten rock
solidified, cooled, and shrank.

But even before grouting begins, the "dental work" as the
workers call it must be done: any remaining fragments of shat-
tered rock must be pried loose and the soft spots in the founda-
tion must be gouged out. Then the hydraulic monitors— high-

92 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

pressure nozzles— spray thousands of gallons of river water on
the exposed rock, washing its surface and blowing away all
broken stone and particles of dirt.

The natural rock of the foundation appears hard and solid,
yet it is not good enough to meet man's rigid standards. It must
be bound together into a mass equaling in strength the man-
made rock, concrete. At both Shasta and Friant for many weeks
grouting went on. Special holes were drilled into the founda-
tion and into the seams. Under high pressure, "pumpcrete"
operators forced grout into every crack to a depth of 200 feet.
The filled grout pipes stuck up from the twisting seams like
broken fence posts, looking out of place in the clean, bare
foundation.

After two years the work of preparation was complete.
Hundreds of men who had worked on the excavating went
away. Other men took their place, men with experience for the
next great task. The time had come to pour concrete.

THE FOUNDATION is READY

From the crest of a hill overlooking the east abutment of
the Shasta Dam site, the slightly curved foundation site stretches
like a giant trench across the river to the west, 3,500 feet in
length and gouged as deep as 300 feet. This huge, gray scar on
the rolling hills looks too immense to be man's handiwork. It
seems like some wild slash across the landscape made by the
rough and purposeless hand of nature. Man is dwarfed by the
scattered rocks. Even the machines, the trucks, and the scoop
shovels scattered in the foundation, seen from above, look insig-
nificant, like grains of sand and bent match sticks. The only
impressive man-made thing in range of vision is the cableway
head tower, standing like a great unproductive oil derrick on
a landing across the canyon.

To the left beyond the river, ten red cement "silos" stand
new and ready. The diminutive railroad track paralleling the
river twists away downstream. A mile below, the age-blackened

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 93

buildings of Coram, an abandoned copper town, stand deserted
on a leveled hill. No smoke issues from the squat chimney of
the smelter— it has been quiet many years— but the raw, scorched
earth for miles around, the leafless long-dead trees, standing and
fallen, give mute evidence of a long period of wide-spreading
acid fumes belching forth and destroying all vegetation.

Cutting through the foundation is a placid stream of water,
the Sacramento River, reflecting the white clouds overhead.
Here in midsummer the Sacramento is a peaceful river giving
no sign of the havoc it wreaked at the Shasta Dam site in the
spring of 1940, when, rising 43 feet to an unprecedented peak,
it swept away three new bridges, each playing a part in the
building of the great concrete dam.

Terracing the receding hills on both sides of the canyon,
many roads wind and twist away to the waste piles and to the
new towns where the workers live. Upstream, on the hazy
northern horizon, snow-sheeted Mount Shasta continues her
million-year watch on the Central Valley, towering above man's
great effort to change his environment.

On this hot July day a small bird wings over the dry, brush-
dotted hills and slowly circles the gaping hole in the earth. It
is strangely quiet in this place. Some men move about below,
but with an air of expectancy. One can almost sense some great
development.

This is that important day in California's history, July 8,
1 940— the day when the first bucket of concrete is to be poured
in Shasta Dam. Here is a dream come true.

The First Concrete

For many weeks the great belt conveyor had carried its
daily load of thousands of tons of aggregates from the deposit
near Redding to the stock piles above the river at the dam site,
building up reserves so that once the mix plant started no break-
down or emergency would stop the flow of sand and gravel to
the revolving monsters.

94 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

The cement "silos" near the stock piles, each holding 5,550
barrels, were filled and awaited only the push of a button to start
blowing their contents up the western hillside to the mixer.

The day before, word had been telephoned to the mix plant
to have the first batch ready by ten o'clock. "Drop the first bucket
in Row 38 at 10 A.M.," was the long-waited order.

The supply bins in the top of the round, six-story mix plant
had been filled with cement and all sizes of gravel and sand long
before.

At 9 : 50 A.M., the concrete-mix operator pressed a switch on
his complicated panel board and with a violent and overpowering
roar, cobble— coarse, medium, and fine gravel, then sand and
cement dropped down the metal chute into the number-one
mixer; water shot into the drum; and the total of each was
weighed exactly on the automatic scales and printed on the
record tape— all automatically.

Like huge gray elephants arranged in a circle, the five con-
crete mixers stood ready for their long task. Only number one
was rolling and its mix of 1 2 tons fell noisily about in the slowly
rotating cylinder. Compared with the attendants working
nearby, these mixers seemed tremendous machines; but com-
pared to the great hole to be filled, they seemed miniature toys
totally inadequate for their job.

At 9: 55 A.M., the first batch was ready. An inspector had
approved the mix. The operator shouted excitedly through the
telephone to the engineer of the endless railway. All was ready.

The mixer came to a noisy stop, tilted and spilled its moist
load through a collecting cone in the center of the floor and down
into the waiting "goose," a new and spotless receptacle on a car
of the circular railway. A sample of this first batch of concrete
was taken, as thousands would be taken in the future, and the
sample bucket was marked so the laboratory technicians could
identify it.

At 9:59 A.M., a small but shrill train whistle sounded and
a car of the endless railway made the first of its hundreds of
thousands of trips around the circular track. The engineer

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT

95

grinned; it was good to get down to work. At the loading dock
the car passed and the curved bottom of the "goose" opened and
dumped its important load into the huge bucket suspended from
the cableway.

High in the head tower, seated at his controls, the operator
of number- three cableway awaited the signal, a set of headphones
clamped to his ears. Down at the loading dock the hook tender
waved his arms, signaling "take it away." With accurate fingers
the operator pulled the proper lever.

A thousand eyes watched the cable bend under its burden
as the square bucket swung up and out over the excavation,
suspended from a twenty-four-wheel carriage rolling along the
cableway, straight and true toward the place prepared, Block C,
Row 38, in the east abutment. When directly overhead it
stopped, a foreman motioned his directions to a "whistle punk"—
a radio signalman— seated on a projecting rock, the signalman
spoke into a portable microphone, and the message to "drop her
down" was flashed by radio to the operator in the head tower.
With constant guidance the 22-ton plummet settled gently into
the base of Shasta Dam. A half-mile away in the head tower the
operator pressed another lever, a cable drum spun, wheels in the
cable carriage whirled, the bottom of the bucket opened and
dropped its load. Though emptied of its 8 cubic yards of con-
crete the bucket was not immediately lifted, but hung there near
the ground, posing for photographs. It was 10:02 A.M. A
great cheer went up from the crowd. The first concrete had
been poured.

At last the great barrier was begun. Mr. Frank T. Crowe,
the contractor's superintendent, threw three new dimes into the
moist mass "for luck," as a dozen "muckers" in hip-length rubber
boots spread and settled the concrete over the clean, rocky sur-
face. The single bucket of concrete seemed lost in this great
cavity; from the visitors' observation point on the hill above, it
was not visible. Even the metal-lined wooden form, about 5
feet high and 50 feet square, was an unimpressive speck in the
foundation.

9 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

It took two shifts to pour the first "lift" in Block C, Row 38,
near the Sacramento River bed, two shifts in which "muckers"
tramped about in the wet mass which they called "mud," while
their noisy, compressed-air vibrators, making the harsh noise of
a riveting hammer, shook down and made compact the freshly
poured concrete. But already carpenters were at work building
the next section of forms, completing Row 38 the full length of
its 400 feet. Simultaneously, the pipemen were installing the
thin-walled pipe to cool the settling mass and the one-half-inch
grout pipes to seal the joints.

This was the beginning. Now night and day, seven days
a week, for more than four years these quick-moving buckets on
the seven cableways make their fast flights through space from
the loading platform to the slowly filling forms.

Cooling

Most visitors to Shasta Dam are greatly surprised to learn
that concrete is not poured continuously in one huge wall, but
is placed in successive lifts 5 feet high and 50 feet square, with
the blocks or columns in each row raised alternately, like a great
game of building blocks. To lock these blocks together they are
"keyed"— made with corrugated sides that fit into the adjoining
blocks. The corrugations, or "keys," on the sides of the blocks
running cross-stream are horizontal; on the sides paralleling the
river they are vertical.

Although the practice of placing many blocks rather than
one massive block would seem to make a dam less strong and
less able to withstand the side-thrust of the deep reservoir, this
is the only practical method of building a dam. This is so
because of the heat-creating chemical action that takes place in
setting concrete.

Mass concrete mixed with water will generate enough heat
after it has set to increase its temperature from 50° to 90°, If
left to cool naturally it would take a great many years, perhaps
a century, to reach a normal temperature. And because of the
forces of expansion and contraction generated by this heat, the

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 97

dam would crack and shatter years after it was in use. The
seams between the blocks give "elbow room" to the swelling con-
crete, serving as contraction joints. In other words, the cracks
in the dam are controlled— made to occur only at these joints,
which later can be filled with grout, like the tiny seams in the
natural bedrock.

In order to speed this swelling-shrinking process, several
methods have been worked out by the Bureau of Reclamation,
among them being the use of low-heat cement. The Bureau
determined by test the best formula for mixing, regulating the
height of each lift, and controlling the rate of pouring concrete.
At least seventy-two hours is required to elapse between placing
successive lifts. The most important temperature-control device
is a system of refrigeration first used at Boulder Dam.

This method called for the installation at Shasta of more
than 1,200 miles of thin-walled steel tubing, spaced about 5
feet apart, through which river water would be pumped, dissi-
pating more heat than 1 5,000 tons of coal could produce.

By this method each block can be cooled within five weeks,
so that when Shasta Dam is completed its final temperature will
be about 50° F.

This same system of artificial cooling was used for Friant
Dam and for the largest piers of the Pit River Bridge on the
Shasta railroad relocation, a feature of Shasta Dam.

View from the Head Tower

On a cloudy autumn day the sights and sounds of Shasta
Dam fill the eye and ear. The half-completed dam stretches
irregularly across the canyon and the varied and discordant noises
merge in a roar that wells up and overflows the rim of the valley.
The scene is much the same as on any day during the 48-month
period of concrete-pouring.

From the platform atop the head tower the whole picture
is visible; and although dwarfed in size from this height, the
details of construction fit together more understandably.

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW— From the Shasta head tower, a workman
looks across the canyon toward the east abutment excavation
with a few concrete blocks of the dam in place at its base, and
the mighty Sacramento River (looking like a mere creek from this
height) flowing by in a diversion channel 700 feet below.

To the south the conveyor belt can be seen sliding down
the steep eastern hillside, leaping the river, then moving
upstream to the mix plant immediately below. Ten boxcars
stand on the siding near the cement silos and a faint humming
sound comes from the pump as it empties carload after carload
of cement. The grating roar of the mix plant can be heard as the
rolling drums fill and mix another and another and another batch.
Directly below, a car on the endless railway creeps around its
circle, dumps its load into the waiting buckets, and returns.

Across the river and downstream, the building housing the
great air compressors and the pumps pulling the water supply
from the river and forcing it up to the 3,ooo-gallon tanks stand
in a draw behind the shoulder of a hill. A short distance away
is the steel-bending shop where the reinforcing steel is bent to
shape to support every opening in the dam and powerhouse. In
the foreground below the dam the scattered buildings of the
town of Shasta Dam (called "the Camp") are plainly visible—
the building for the engineers and inspectors, the two-story
building that houses offices for the contractors, the dormitory for
single men, the commissary (eating place), and stores. Along
the hillsides, electric power lines, air lines, and water pipes
stretch like tangled cobwebs. At the top of the east abutment
is the white Vista House where the public may watch the fas-
cinating scene from a covered grandstand.

To the north and high above the river are some of the
temporary industries essential to the building of a dam : the car-
penter shop, where skilled men build the detailed and precise
forms to shape the many openings in powerhouse and dam; the
blacksmith shop, where the glowing furnaces heat the steel bits
for resharpening; the concrete pipe plant, where the miles of
porous drainage pipe are made; and the welders' and electricians'
shacks. To the south, near Coram, is the penstock-fabricating
plant where the great turbine pipes, 1 5 feet in diameter, are

welded together.

98

m

i

sHn"

^Mf:^ . 3

•;

MORE CONCRETE — The bucket is about to drop its 16-ton load of concrete in one of the
blocks of Shasta Dam.

INSIDE AND OUT — The dam looks mighty solid on the outside (left) but it contains many
passageways (right) called galleries.

POWER— Huge generators, like these at Boulder Dam, will produce electric power at
Shasta Dam.

FOR DEFENSE— Electricity will be carried over transmission lines (right) to many national
defense industries such as oil refineries (left).

•m

c

m

FRIANT DAM — The spillway section in construction (upper). An artist's sketch of how it wil
look from the air (lower).

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 1 03

Following the twisting Sacramento River to the north where
it makes a great loop, a sharp eye detects a few scattered buildings
of the old copper-mining town of Kennett, soon to be covered
with several hundred feet of water of the Shasta Reservoir.

On a level with the top of the head tower, 260 feet above
the ultimate crest of the dam, the cables spread over the growing
wall which rises over an area of twelve blocks every day. The
cables vibrate and sing, sending a breath-taking tremor through
the tower, as the concrete-loaded bucket makes its rapid flight to
the east abutment, dropping dow7n and out of sight of the oper-
ator, guided by the radio signalman and hook tender, to its
final bed.

Near-by a skip (a metal body used to transport various mate-
rials) loaded with sand, and with skip tender riding, is lowered
by number- three cable to a freshly poured block. Here it is
dumped and the sand spread 4 inches deep over the entire sur-
face, flooded with water, and left to serve as a wet blanket, to
retain the moisture in the setting block.

In another row the muckers push their vibrators into the
moist mass. The spent air makes a hollow explosive sound as
the concrete settles and unifies. Near the center of the dam
"form raisers" hammer and bolt a form together and oil its metal
surface in preparation for the next pour. Near the western end,
directly below the head tower, "form strippers," wearing safety
belts, strip the form from a cool and solid block.

Near-by "pumpcrete" men place their concrete pumps, and
with pressure gauges high, begin forcing grout into the seams
which have been caused by contraction. Although the cracks
between the blocks are only one-sixteenth of an inch wide, over
the length of the dam they would total over 4 inches, too great
a gap for the burden this dam must bear. As each level is com-
pleted, every crevice, every minute opening is pumped full of
grout, sealing it into one monolithic block. Even the coil of
cooling pipe, having served its purpose, is pumped full and
closed forever.

1 04 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

While the work goes on, one shift of men sits about on a
high row eating lunch. Everywhere catwalks lead from one
huge block to the next.

Two hundred feet away air hoses stretch from the distant
compressors to masked men holding air guns. Patiently, in the
noise and heat and dust, they sandblast the marked surface of a
block, cleaning and roughening it and removing loose particles.
With tremendous force the air pressure hurls millions of grains
of dry sand against the concrete, scouring and making the surface
ready, so the next pouring will bind and unite with it.

And moving about over the entire dam are inspectors from
the Bureau of Reclamation, watching, testing, examining, mak-
ing sure that each foot of the structure is strong and durable.

Strung from the center cable, a great arc of floodlights
reaches across the dam, and spotted about the hillsides, banks of
shielded lights await nightfall to focus their illumination on a
particular section of the work. Strategically located i,5oo-watt
lamps— 2,000 of them— stand ready to make the scene like day.

Noise and dust ascend. The work goes on. Over the
shoulder of a hill the huge SAFETY FIRST sign shows its
message of caution.

Far below, a cloud of smoke billows from the diversion tun-
nel as a freight train emerges and grinds north, following the
Sacramento. To the north, where sky and mountains merge,
the cold, white face of Mount Shasta gleams above the lesser
majestic peaks.

Seen from the head tower, the dam site appears in all its
immensity: this is labor on a grand scale, purposeful, planned,
and magnificent.

On this 46 o-foot tower man can look the mountains in the
eye and, feeling his power, seem more equal to the task of
reshaping nature.

THE DAM INSIDE AND OUT

Since every aid of science and engineering is being used to
make Shasta Dam a solid, unified mass, it seems strange and

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 105

contradictory that it is not solid; in fact, an X ray would reveal
that it is honeycombed with galleries, elevator shafts, chambers,
conduits, penstocks, and concrete drains. Only i per cent of the
total volume is space, but every hollow inch is there for a definite
reason.

As the concrete pouring goes on, carpenters place plywood-
covered arch-shaped "forms" at each 5o-foot level to shape the
galleries, and steel workers put bent reinforcing bars about the
forms to strengthen the long, cool passageways that will run
lengthwise and crosswise in the dam, from one end to the other
and from top to bottom. When the moist concrete is poured it
covers the steel and shapes itself about the forms, leaving these
inspection tunnels ready for use.

Other galleries are made running lengthwise in the dam
from the left abutment to the right, connecting with the trans-
verse galleries by circular stairways. Near the base of the dam,
a foundation and drainage gallery 5 feet wide and 7 feet high
follows the irregular contour of the dam base and extends into
the foundation rock for a distance of 500 feet on each side of
the river. Connecting with this foundation gallery is a net-
work of 6-inch porous drain tile running through each block,
1 3 feet in from the upstream face of the dam, forming a drainage
system to carry any water seepage down to the foundation gallery,
from which it is pumped up and out of the structure.

Will water seep into the dam? Yes. It is known that a
certain amount of water will penetrate through the hundreds of
feet of concrete and through the grouted foundation, but this
has been taken into consideration. Months before work was
begun, exploration tests were made to determine how much
water would be forced through the gray-green Meta-Andesite
rock. As a means of controlling the amount of seepage, hun-
dreds of holes were drilled on a line following the upstream dam
face and a rich cement-and-water grout was forced 150 feet
down into the cracks and seams, forming a curtain, or watertight
wall within a wall. But there was a limit to the depth of the
grout curtain, and it was known that some small amount of

1 06 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

water would find its way down and under the grouted barrier.
The problem then was to control and direct this persistent trickle
of water into the 1 9-mile drainage system of the dam. Although
only a few gallons an hour seeped in, this amount, if not released,
would be enough to set up a tremendous lifting pressure which
might some day force up and weaken the entire structure.

To release this pressure, weep holes were placed through
the walls of the seventeen galleries in the dam and the seven
tunnels in the foundation rock of the east and west abutments,
so the water could trickle down like tears and find its way into
the drains.

As the work of concrete placing went on, in Rows 38 and
46, near the center of the dam, carpenters made forms in each
5-foot lift to shape the elevator and hoist shafts that would hold
these modern devices, moving passengers and equipment up
and down their 4oo-foot guide rails, at each level connecting
with the galleries that stretch cool into the distance.

Yet these are not all the holes or openings in Shasta Dam.
Near the center, about 200 feet from the base, four steel-lined
conduits reinforced with heavy ribs are placed, leading right
through the dam from the upstream face to the curving spill-
way on the downstream side. Each of these conduits is 8l/2 feet
in diameter. Their purpose is to let water out of the reservoir
into the river as desired : water is sometimes needed downstream
in addition to that released through the great turbines. About
i oo feet above, eight more of these great conduits are placed and
imbedded in concrete. Near the top of the dam, more than
400 feet from the base, six more of these outlets are placed,
spaced about 50 feet apart. These eighteen river-control outlets
will be used to release water from Shasta Reservoir, in a regulated
flow, in accordance with the needs of the Central Valley Project.
Also, during seasons of heavy rains and melting snows, part of
the excess flow will be released through these river outlets. In
times of extreme high water, flood flows will be passed over the
central spillway.

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT

107

How is this tremendous force of water controlled? What
will prevent floating trees, logs, and other debris from blocking
up the outlets?

Within each conduit are high-pressure hydraulic tube
valves, each weighing 10,000 pounds, permitting the operator
to open or close these great gates simply by pressing a button.

On the upstream side of each outlet, a great trash rack about
60 feet in height is fastened to the side of the dam, screening the
opening and keeping all floating matter in the reservoir.

But even these are not all the openings in Shasta Dam.
On the west abutment five great pipes, called penstocks, more
than 1 5 feet in diameter (large enough to drive a truck through),
will carry a hurricane of water to the turbines with a capacity of
515,000 horsepower that generate electricity.

This is what the towering mass of concrete that is Shasta
Dam will look like on the inside. With almost 5 miles of gal-
leries, with elevator shafts, circular stair wells, and drum-gate
control chambers formed in the everlasting concrete, with
eighteen great outlet pipes and five penstocks embedded in the
mass and passing completely through the dam, and with a drain-
age system extending to every part of the monolith— this is Shasta
Dam, not quite so porous as a sponge, still much stronger than
a rock. This strength will hold back the waters.

The Final Touch

Stage by stage and block by block the concrete reaches
toward its maximum height 560 feet above the Sacramento
River bed.

On that day in 1944 when the concrete buckets have taken
their last ride, when the "muckers" have pulled their vibrators
out of the last towering block for the last time, when the shift
whistle has made its last deep-throated blast, the concrete men
will jump their last ride on a truck passing to the camp, to the
dormitory, for the last meal and the last clean-up. Their work
will be done.

108 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

Then only the roadway across the top of the dam will
remain to be surfaced, the wide tracks for the traveling crane to
be put in place. The railings and the ornamental lights already
will be there.

Only the "riggers" will be at work installing the three huge
28-by-i lo-foot drum gates that will control the flow over the
spillway. Under the spillway bridge, in the three openings pre-
pared for them, these 6oo-ton gates will be bolted into place.
Each gate, shaped like a quarter of a circle, will sweep up and
hold over 34 feet of water behind its riveted surface, bringing
the reservoir to its maximum height, at 1,065 feet (above sea
level) at flow line. When lowered, these great steel barriers
will turn down into their chambers concealed from view. The
drum gates are for emergency use only. Most of the water
released from Shasta Reservoir will pass through the power
penstocks or the river outlets. But occasional heavy flood flows
will swamp over the crest of the huge spillway, at a possible peak
of 1 87,000 cubic feet per second, falling 480 feet down the con-
crete slope to the river below.

Shasta Dam, built to outlast the mountains, will be ready.

SHASTA POWERHOUSE

During the years of building Shasta Dam, work on the
other important parts of the Central Valley Project is going
forward.

The seven-story Shasta powerhouse below the dam is being
built and four of the main generators of 75-kilowatt capacity are
being installed, with provision left for the addition of one more
unit of the same size.

From the time of placing the steel anchors deep in the rock
and concrete to hold the penstocks secure and vibrationless
(when the great surge of water cascades down and around the
spiral casings of the turbines) to the painting of the railing on the
observation balcony, work progresses with hardly a hitch.

The turbines and generators are connected by vertical steel
shafts or rotors, each weighing 450 tons. When the water of

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 1 09

Shasta Reservoir is admitted to trie penstocks, it will roar down
into the great turbines— each of them of io3,ooo-horsepower
capacity— and when the turbines start whirling they will auto-
matically turn the big generators, each of which will constantly
produce 75,000 kilowatts of electricity. This electricity will go
to the five main transformers mounted on their platform. Elec-
tric cranes for installation and repair work, with 250-ton capacity,
are to be provided on high tracks. All the thousand and one
switches and control devices of a complex and mysterious power-
house will be connected, ready to do their part in transforming
the force of falling water into the force of lightning-like
electricity.

Every inch of this modern powerhouse, from the graduated
penstocks to the curving concrete bays, shows evidence of great
engineering precision— all this to make possible the operation of
the project and the repayment of part of its cost through the sale
of electric power.

And from the powerhouse the steel towers of the transmis-
sion line will march away 200 miles southward to Antioch,
strung by those linesmen who do their work with swaying high
tension lines and glistening insulators and label their effort high
voltage.

REROUTING HIGHWAY AND RAILROAD

In the building of Shasta Dam one difficult problem was
the relocation of portions of the main north-south Pacific High-
way and the Shasta Route of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

The railroad, which for more than sixty-five years had fol-
lowed the twisting Sacramento Canyon, past the dam site, to
Kennett and beyond into Oregon, followed a route which for
many miles was now to be submerged under the great Shasta
Reservoir.

To enable work on the dam to progress, a temporary
by-pass tunnel was driven for 1,820 feet through the west abut-
ment under the dam foundation. This was one of the earliest
jobs at the dam site, and it took eight months to complete. It

1 1 0 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

was dangerous work. When the tunnel was bored and lined
with concrete, tracks were laid through it and the railroad began
using this temporary route, passing under, instead of across, the
actual dam site.

This diversion tunnel had a twofold purpose. For about two
years it was to serve as a temporary by-pass for the trains while
the permanent railroad relocation was being constructed around
the entire reservoir site. After the railroad was rerouted over its
permanent high-level line, the tunnel at the dam site would carry
the swirling waters of the Sacramento River while concrete was
raised in the dam. But even this was only a temporary use for
the tunnel. When its diverting work was done, great concrete
plugs, each more than 32 feet thick, w7ere to be placed side by side
in the tunnel, making a solid wall 1 62 feet thick and sealing the
tunnel forever.

The old roadbed across the dam site was torn up by the
excavators while the permanent relocating of the railroad and
highway around the reservoir went on.

The new railroad high line, far above the future water
level, crosses the Sacramento River near Redding and, swinging
on a half-circle to the east, heads north for the Pit River. On this
3o-mile route through rugged country, twelve tunnels were
holed through and eight major bridges were built. The most
important of these is the Pit River Bridge, 8 miles above Shasta
Dam, where the railway and highway meet.

This bridge is a double-decked structure crossing an arm of
the reservoir— the highest double-decked bridge in the world,
one deck being more than 500 feet above the water of the river.
The lower deck, 3,590 feet long, carries two railroad tracks; the
upper deck, four lanes of highway traffic and two walkways.
Requiring sixteen months to build, the bridge leaps from wall
to wall of the canyon, with 500 feet of water beneath its cen-
tral span, when the reservoir is filled will be 500 feet of water.

The old Pit River bridge, a pygmy by comparison, located
upstream and far below near the river, will not be removed, but
will be covered by the cool waters of Shasta Reservoir.

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT III

A NETWORK OF CANALS

About 30 miles below the city of Sacramento, on the Sacra-
mento River, near the town of Hood, the pumping station of
the Delta Cross Channel will lift a great stream of seaward-
rushing water and let it flow southward through miles of dredged
delta channels to the San Joaquin River. The job of creating
the cross channel and its pumping station is not so spectacular as
building a dam: it is but another engineering feat; yet this is the
key to the proper functioning of the entire Central Valley
Project.

The building of the Contra Costa Canal goes on during the
construction of Shasta Dam. Excavating machines dig their way
through the dry land of Contra Costa County. Concrete covers
the close-spaced reinforcing steel, making a tight lining so that
there will be no water loss through seepage.

The Madera Canal was the next to be started. The build-
ing of the Friant-Kern and San Joaquin canals is to follow. In
construction, the method of making these canals is pretty much
the same; but each varies in size and type, depending on the
water it must carry and on the topography of the country through
which it runs.

The 46-mile Contra Costa Canal requires four pumping
stations with five great pumps in each to boost the water from
the low level of the delta up the hills to an elevation high enough
so it will flow by gravity to the industrial cities and semiarid
areas of Contra Costa County.

The San Joaquin Canal and Pumping System, over 100
miles in length, requires seven pumping stations to lift the sur-
plus waters of the Sacramento River to a maximum elevation of
200 feet. At this height the force of gravity carries the water
southward down the canal on the westerly side of the valley as
far as Mendota.

In both the 37-mile Madera Canal and the tremendous
Friant-Kern Canal, extending 160 miles into the hot, dry lands
of the southern San Joaquin Valley, water from the Friant

112 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

Reservoir is to be carried along by gravity. The first section of
the Friant-Kern Canal is 70 wide at the top— wider than many
rivers— and 1 5 feet deep.

It is doubtful whether this great system of waterways will
be visible from the planet Mars, but from an airplane the clean
lines and blue waters will mark California indelibly in the minds
of sky-crossing visitors as they look down.

BUILDING FRIANT DAM

Like the construction of Shasta Dam, the work of building
Friant Dam will go on day and night for several years. The men,
machines, and materials are similar; only in the method of
placing concrete is there much difference.

At Friant, concrete is not placed by cableway; instead, a
trestle that looks like a steel bridge is used to carry cars of con-
crete out over the dam site. The buckets of concrete are lowered
into place by big cranes that also travel on the trestle. As the
blocks of concrete increase in height, the legs of this trestle are
buried forever within the wall of manufactured stone.

Friant Dam, begun in November, 1939, on the upper San
Joaquin River, is the fourth largest masonry dam in the world. It
is a straight gravity-type dam, whereas Shasta Dam is slightly
curved. Both depend on their broad bases and immense weights
to hold them upright and in place. There is no power plant at
Friant, and the waters of the reservoir are stored only for flood
control and irrigation. Four great outlet conduits, with ponderous
shut-off valves, lead through the dam to the Friant-Kern Canal;
two similar conduits feed the Madera Canal; and four let water
out into the San Joaquin River. As at Shasta, in times of flood,
excess flows will spill over the huge central spillway and race
away through the little-used San Joaquin River bed— away to the
junction with the Sacramento River in the delta country, to
Suisun and San Francisco bays, to the Golden Gate, and to
the sea.

Although its mass is less than half as great as that of Shasta
Dam, Friant's 3,430^00! length is very impressive. Compared

HOW THE PROJECT WAS BUILT 1 1 3

with the 3,5oo-foot-long Shasta, Friant seems more like an equal
than a smaller replica.

Friant Dam (named for the founder of a near-by town),
whose reservoir will flood the abandoned village of Millerton,
the first seat of Fresno County, will stand on its solid foundation
doing its full share of the work, holding its full share of the
burden.

Between the two massive guardians of the great Central
Valley— Mount Shasta to the north, and Mount Whitney to the
south— the monumental evidence of man's hand and brain
stretches across the land— the Central Valley Project, the most
tremendous undertaking ever begun by the Bureau of Recla-
mation.

From statistics it can be seen that Shasta Dam is the second
highest dam in the world and is also the second largest in mass-
content. Boulder Dam is the highest dam in the world. Grand
Coulee is the greatest dam in mass and also generates the largest
amount of electric power. The San Gabriel Dam is the largest
rock-fill structure. Fort Peck Dam is the largest earth-fill dam.

Yet these magnificent records of man's achievements will
not stand for long. The world's greatest soon becomes the second
greatest, then the third greatest, as engineers plan and workers
build larger and more productive structures.

A new "world's largest dam" was partially completed and
destroyed in the path of the German Army. It was the tre-
mendous Kuibyshev Dam, being built on the Volga River in the
Soviet Union. Two miles in length, with 13,000,000 cubic
yards of concrete, it was built to produce an average of 15,000,-
ooo horsepower of electric energy.

But this record, like all records, would not have stood for
long. Men press forward in the application of their increased
knowledge, solving greater problems in a world of expanding
horizons.

PAHT III
THE PROJECT IN USE

JUST PRESS A BUTTON

When the Central Valley Project is completed, how will
it be operated? Is it difficult to keep this far-flung quarter-
billion-dollar project functioning?

No, the problem of keeping the widely separated parts
working together and in good repair is hardly a problem at all.
It is nearly as easy as pushing a button.

In the great Shasta and Friant dams only a few men will
be needed for inspection and to operate the drum gates, outlet
valves, turbines, pumps, and elevators. Only when a valve or
motor wears out and must be replaced will there be a job out of
the run of ordinary tasks.

How is a spring flood prepared for if it comes?

Each winter after the blanket of snow in the foothills and
on the mountains has been gauged and it is known what the
spring runoff of water will be, the outlet valves in the giant pipes
will be opened and the water level of the reservoirs will be
lowered enough to hold the flood to come. From many points
on the project, along the canals and the rivers, telephone lines
will lead to the control rooms of the dams. The rate of discharge
into the rivers will be regulated and controlled so that no sudden
dumping will flood the valley below. Normally, through the
greater part of the year, the reservoirs will be only partly filled,
with a maximum 237-foot rise and fall at Shasta.

All the money and materials and labor going into the build-
ing of the Central Valley Project have been spent to preserve
and control and provide for man's use one valuable resource-
water. Back of all the planning, the making of laws, the raising
of money, are the needs which the project will fulfill : the need
to overcome both flood and drought, the need for water— water
in the river beds to float vessels; fresh water to hold back the
salty ocean tides from creeping inland; water in reservoirs and
canals to feed factories and farms; water plunging into power-

117

1 1 8 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

house turbines to generate electric power. And when the vast
Central Valley Project is completed and the President pushes an
electric button in Washington to set it into motion, it will serve
these purposes, all achieved by harnessing water: irrigation,
salinity control, navigation, conservation and flood prevention,
and hydroelectric development.

The project, when the builders finish their work, will be
the most complicated irrigation system in history. As water
begins backing up behind the great dams, plunging down spill-
ways, coursing through the canals, filling the reservoirs, the
whole vast Central Valley will change in appearance. If a
person could tour this broad region in an airliner, from the snowy
crest of Mount Shasta in the north to the bare, brown Tehachapi
Mountains in the south, he would see two huge new lakes nearly
400 miles apart, filling great valleys between steep, wooded
slopes. He would see new rivers flowing where none flowed
before, old rivers following new courses, dried-up rivers brought
to life with fresh mountain water.

Water from the Sacramento River which has almost reached
the sea will be diverted from its journey, pumped uphill for a
hundred miles, and released to flow into the San Joaquin River.
From Friant Dam artificial rivers will flow in two directions, a
northbound river emptying into the bed of the Chowchilla
River 37 miles away, a southbound river emptying into the Kern
River 1 60 miles away. Two great dams, hundreds of miles of
canals, and countless bridges, aqueducts, tunnels, siphons,
powerhouses, and pumping plants will form California's first
line of defense against the spectre of water famine.

The rain which falls in the wet, wooded Siskiyou and
Cascade mountains of the far north will be moved all the way
to the parched plains of the San Joaquin Valley in the south.
And here water will again transform thirsty, dried-up fields into
green acres and blooming orchards. Man will correct his mis-
takes of the past, and conquer the creeping menace of drought
now threatening rich farm lands of central California.

OUTLET PIPES— Water stored
behind Friant Dam (above) will
be released into canals through
big pipes like these (below)
which are built into the dam. At
the right are two collars for the
pipes ready to be hoisted into
place.

IN USE— First part of the Central Valley Project to be placed in service is the Contra Costa
Canal, carrying water to industries, cities, and farms.

IRRIGATION — Water from the Canal is directed by a farmer into furrows between the rows
of his vineyard.

ii

BEFORE AND AFTER — Torn-up pieces of irrigation pipe and twiglike branches of dying
orange trees (upper view) testify to the paralysis of drought in the valley. But oranges thrive
(lower) when the fertile soil is adequately irrigated by water from the Central Valley Project.

i - >>S

INLAND NAVIGATION — By restoring reliable water depths, Shasta Dam will give new life
to steamboat and barge traffic on the Sacramento River.

THE PROJECT IN USE 1 23

Behind Shasta Dam's wall of concrete, 560 feet high— more
than twice as high as the State Capitol and higher than San
Francisco's highest office building— will stretch an artificial lake
almost as large as Lake Tahoe, extending back between mountain
ridges for 35 miles. Into it three rivers, the Sacramento, the
Pit, and the McCloud, will pour their waters. This great lake
will be broad enough to float all the vessels of the United States
Navy; it will be deep enough to cover the whole city of San
Francisco to a depth of 167 feet. Its area will be 29,500 acres;
its capacity, 4,500,000 acre-feet. In all California, only Lake
Tahoe will be larger.

Friant Dam, only about half as high, damming the upper
San Joaquin River, will impound less water, but still enough to
create a lake 1 5 miles long with a 56-mile shore line, covering an
area of 4,900 acres and holding 520,000 acre-feet of water.
Together the two dams will be able to store up the colossal total
of 5,020,000 acre-feet of water— only about a third less than all
of California's 6 1 8 other dams combined.

Held in reserve behind the dams, this tremendous volume
of water will be released as needed to flow through a network
of canals and river-beds extending down almost the whole 500-
mile length of the Central Valley.

Issuing from the draft tubes of the Shasta powerhouse, or
gushing from the outlet conduits built into the dam, and some-
times cascading down the great spillway in a waterfall nearly
three times as high as Niagara, the conserved waters of Shasta
Reservoir will course down the Sacramento River under the
control of man. Shasta Dam will serve as a monitor on the
river— that is, the disastrous flood flows of winter and spring will
be diminished and, correspondingly, the usually meagre runoffs
of summer and fall will be augmented, thereby restoring year-
round navigable depths on this important inland waterway and
assuring adequate irrigation supplies for thousands of acres in
the Sacramento Valley.

After Shasta's water has performed these functions and
has passed every possible user on the Sacramento River, there

OREGON

UNITED STATES

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
BUREAU OF RECLAMATION

CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT
CALIFORNIA

SCALE OF MILES

O Los Angeles

THE PROJECT IN USE

125

still will be a surplus for use in the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta as well as for export to the Contra Costa area and the needy
San Joaquin Valley. The water to be exported— that is, taken
out of the Sacramento Valley— will be diverted at a point on the
river below the city of Sacramento by another main feature of
the project called the Delta Cross Channel.

RESERVOIRS AND CANALS

Water is to be pumped out of the Sacramento River into
the Cross Channel, which will convey it southerly through the
eastern edge of the rich delta where the two great rivers meet
and mingle in a 550-mile network of interconnecting, tule-
bordered, meandering sloughs and channels. Some of the fresh
water in the Cross Channel will be turned out at various points
to flush away the brackish, salty water that every so often creeps
up into the delta sloughs from Suisun Bay. The water in the
sloughs will be "sweetened," as the farmers say, so these channels
can be drawn upon for irrigation of the fertile asparagus and
sugar beet fields. The Cross Channel will follow the beds of
some of these natural sloughs, which will be dredged and
widened; in other places it is to be a dug canal.

Through it part of the Sacramento's surplus flow will be con-
veyed across the delta, past Stockton where another set of pumps
will boost it on its way, to a point on the San Joaquin River at the
southerly edge of the delta northeast of Tracy. The purposes of
the Delta Cross Channel are to facilitate the freshwater flushing
of the sometimes-salty waterways in the delta so as to permit full-
season irrigation of crop lands there, and to introduce an adequate
all-year supply of Sacramento River water to the intakes of the
Contra Costa Canal and the San Joaquin Pumping System,
which are the next features of the project to be considered.

The Contra Costa Canal begins at Rock Slough, which is
a branch of the lower San Joaquin River, near Knightsen. Four
pumping plants, spaced about a mile apart along the head end
of the canal near Oakley, will raise a maximum of 350 second-
feet of water in successive lifts to an elevation of 1 24 feet, from

1 2,6 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

which it will flow by gravity westward as far as a small terminal
reservoir on Vine Hill near Martinez. The Contra Costa Canal
has a diminishing capacity along its 46-mile course, in accordance
with the amounts of water taken out at various points to serve a
number of cities, a long string of manufacturing and processing
plants, and broad acres of Contra Costa County crop lands.

The course of surplus Sacramento River water has been
traced through the Cross Channel and over to a point in the
San Joaquin end of the delta where some of it can be picked up
by the pumps of the Contra Costa Canal. More of it will be
picked up by greater pumps of the San Joaquin Pumping Sys-
tem which, in a sense, is the connecting link of the Central
Valley Project— the feature which makes possible a better balance
of water resources between the Sacramento Valley's abundant
supply and the San Joaquin Valley's shortage. Six or seven
pumping plants with a maximum capacity of 4,000 second-feet
will be located near Tracy, boosting this water in successive lifts
to an elevation of about 200 feet, from which it will flow south-
erly another i oo miles in a large high-line canal along the west
side of the San Joaquin Valley, finally emptying into Mendota
Pool on the San Joaquin River in Fresno County.

This complex system sometimes has been called "making
the San Joaquin River run backwards." That is not strictly
true, of course, because the regular San Joaquin River channel
through that section will not be changed. However, nature's
distribution of water in that area will be changed; for much of the
San Joaquin's natural flow is to be cut off at Friant far upstream,
and crop lands in the northern San Joaquin Valley which now
are irrigated by San Joaquin River water will be given instead a
substitute supply delivered by the San Joaquin Pumping System
—a supply originating, it must be remembered, from the Sacra-
mento River. This novel exchange of water in the northern San
Joaquin Valley will make possible holding back the bulk of the
San Joaquin River runoff at Friant Dam in the hills above
Fresno, so that its precious waters can be diverted to the areas of
critical irrigation need in the southern San Joaquin Valley.

THE PROJECT IN USE 1 27

So, like the Sacramento, the San Joaquin River will be
transformed. No longer will it flow entirely northward toward
San Francisco Bay through its old bed; most of its waters, backed
up behind Friant Dam, will be turned off into new paths as
unfamiliar as those which the Sacramento will follow. They
will flow both north and south, but in neither direction will they
find the sea.

Of all the canals in the Central Valley Project, the Friant-
Kern Canal will be the largest. It has been described as a
"young river" in itself. For its first 30 miles, it will be 15 feet
deep, its bed 30 feet wide, and its surface 70 feet wide. With a
diversion capacity of 3,500 second-feet, it will carry the San
Joaquin River water from Friant Dam southward along the edge
of the foothills east of Fresno, Visalia, and Tulare. At the Kings
River a gigantic half-million-dollar siphon will carry the water
under the Kings River. Running on southward, the flow will
pass through another siphon beneath the Kaweah River. Into
both the Kings and Kaweah rivers, water can be spilled to flow
down their courses to Tulare Lake, for years in the process of
drying up. Replenished now, it will hold water to supply farm,
grain, and dairy lands surrounding it.

Below the Kaweah River the Friant-Kern Canal will turn
southwestward across the flat valley floor, and west of Bakers-
field it will empty its remaining waters into the Kern River
through which it will drain at last into Buena Vista Lake near
Taf t in the valley's far southwestern corner. All the way for 1 60
miles along the route of the canal, through Fresno, Tulare, and
Kern counties, farmers will have more water for their thirsty
crops; canneries and industrial plants no longer will have to worry
about water shortages; and householders can keep their lawns
and gardens green and fresh. Waters of the Friant-Kern Canal
will be distributed to the farms through hundreds of smaller
lateral canals owned by the various irrigation districts in the
southern valley.

The Madera Canal will carry i ,000 second-feet of the San
Joaquin's water from Friant Dam northward along the valley's

128 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

eastern edge. Less than half as large as the Friant-Kern Canal
and only a fourth as long, it will be 32 feet wide at the surface
and 9 feet deep along its upper reaches, and will run for a
distance of 37 miles. It too will be siphoned where it crosses
the Fresno River. Turning northwestward, it will empty its
waters into Ash Slough, a branch of the Chowchilla River north
of Madera. From the Madera Canal, a 35o-mile network of
lateral canals will supply water to 1 70,000 acres of orchards and
vineyards, cotton fields, dairy and truck farms in the Madera
Irrigation District.

It is a gigantic undertaking to redistribute a large part of
the water supply of a valley 500 miles long. But the benefits
will be gigantic. No longer will two-thirds of the Central Val-
ley's whole water supply run off unused to the sea. No longer
will settlers in the valley's arid southern half face the threat of
abandoning their parched farm lands because their local water
supplies have failed. In the Central Valley as a whole at least a
million acres— a third of all the valley lands now under irriga-
tion—will be spared the effects of unequal and inadequate irri-
gation facilities. And not only will the thirsty farm lands receive
surface water, but also the underground water reservoirs will be
replenished as the new supply of water seeps beneath the sur-
face. No longer will wells run dry or irrigation by pumping
from deep wells be so expensive.

To almost every part of the great valleys the new water
supply will bring its benefits, enriching lands already under
cultivation, saving others from abandonment for lack of irriga-
tion. Along the Sacramento River farmers and townspeople can
count on a dependable supply the year round. The farmers will
pay less for pumping charges because the river, no longer
dwindling to a small stream in summer, will be kept at a more
stabilized level in all seasons.

The city of Pittsburg became in August, 1940, the first
community in the state to use Central Valley Project water,
when its new municipal water works began receiving their
supply from the Contra Costa Canal. The chemical and rubber

THE PROJECT IN USE 1 29

plants, oil and sugar refineries, paper and steel mills of Contra
Costa County's great industrial belt will use millions of gallons
of fresh water from the canal every day. Their boilers and other
machinery will not be endangered by brine.

To the San Joaquin Valley, water will be almost as welcome
as a drink to a man dying of thirst in the desert. In time, new
lands may be plowed, planted, and watered— lands now left
barren because of lack of water. It has been estimated that as
many as 2,500,000 additional acres might be irrigated and culti-
vated in the Central Valley by 1 970 through further conservation
and control of all the water resources, such as has been begun
with the Central Valley Project.

Besides irrigation, the new water supply will bring another
great benefit: salinity control in the Delta area, whose rich acres
lie mostly below sea level, protected by levees. When the Friant
and Shasta dams are completed, controlling the flow of the
rivers at a more even level all year, the river water will be high
enough to hold back the ocean water.

In its first thirty-five years of existence, from 1902 to 1937,
the United States Bureau of Reclamation, which is directing
the construction of the Central Valley Project, built reservoirs
that now irrigate a little less than three million acres of land
settled by about 900,000 people. The Central Valley Project
alone will provide water for more than two-thirds as many acres—
about two million in all— and for more people, over a million of
them, living in the Central Valley.

RETURN OF THE RIVER BOATS

It has been many years since river boats navigated upstream
beyond Sacramento in the summer, many years since they sailed
upstream beyond Stockton in any season. But when Shasta
Dam is completed, Red Bluff, 246 miles from the mouth of the
Sacramento, can be a river port again, as it was in the old days.
River boating on the Sacramento will return.

To make the rivers once more navigable the year round is
one of the chief purposes of the Central Valley Project. It will

1 30 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

be achieved by providing a steady flow from the reservoirs.
Also, navigation will be improved by dredging out parts of the
river beds. Up the Sacramento River as far as the State Capital,
the Army Engineers Corps already has completed a channel
10 feet deep and 150 to 200 feet wide, with the aid of wing
dams and dredgers. The plans call for the maintenance of a
channel 6 feet deep from Sacramento to Colusa, 5 feet deep
from Colusa to Chico Landing, and as deep as practicable from
Chico Landing to Red Bluff. Down this channel will pour
from Shasta Dam a minimum of 5,000 second-feet of water,
enough to assure navigable depths the year round. Although no
plans have been made to extend navigation up the San Joaquin
River beyond Stockton, partly because all the available water
is so urgently needed for irrigation, the even year-round flow
will aid navigation to Stockton's deep-water port; and later a
navigation project may be planned to permit ships to follow the
river farther upstream.

Already one of the nation's most important inland water-
ways, the Sacramento River will become vastly more important
when the produce of the whole Sacramento Valley can be car-
ried by water to San Francisco's warehouses and wharves. Like-
wise such things as oil, farming supplies, building materials,
and manufactured goods will move upstream by river boat.
All in all, an estimated $2,250,000 a year will be saved on trans-
portation costs of cargo shipped between the Sacramento Valley
and the San Francisco Bay region.

CONSERVATION OF NATURE'S RESOURCES

Just as the Central Valley Project will provide water in the
dry season when nature has yielded too little of it, so it will hold
back water in the wet season when nature has supplied too
much. By harnessing the winter floods, it will not only conserve
precious water which otherwise would run off to the sea; it also
will conserve the soil, the timber, fish and game, fields and
orchards and livestock which otherwise would be destroyed by
too much water on the rampage. And so the people of the

FIELD AND FACTORY — Susar beets are an increasingly important crop in California. Ample
water makes it possible to grow them (upper view) and electric power is used to process
them into pure white sugar for shipment in bags (lower) to all parts of the country.

I

p wp*-
m ^

^

PACKING PLANTS— Many people find work
in packaging the products of irrigated farms:
sacking sugar (upper left); wrapping oranges
(upper right)/ boxing asparagus (lower left);
canning olives (lower right).

,

$S*». r *• :**<*&/• Hi;** < • it* %

RECLAMATION — Under the magic of water, dry but fertile desert (upper view) blooms into a
prosperous agricultural empire (lower).

=

?1

V -T^l

CONSERVATION— Other federal reclamation projects
which serve California include Boulder Dam (upper view) on
the Colorado River and Stony Gorge Dam(lower) near Orland.

Central Valley will avoid many heart-breaking losses of their
vast natural riches, swept off year after year in muddy cataracts
of angry flood water.

The imprisonment of the bulk of winter's flood waters
behind Shasta and Friant dams will greatly decrease flood haz-
ards in the Central Valley. The top 1 5 feet of Friant Reservoir
will be reserved for flood storage, providing 70,000 acre-feet of
storage space to absorb the flood waters. Of Shasta Dam's total
storage capacity, one-ninth, or 500,000 acre-feet, will be reserved
solely to impound flood waters and save them from spreading
havoc below the dam.

In most seasons flood waters no longer will need to be
diverted from the river channel below Red Bluff into the broad
Butte Basin; instead they can be held behind the dam and the
river kept within its channel. Perhaps the thousands of acres
in Butte Basin may then be farmed, rather than held in reserve
to absorb the river's excess flow. Below Butte Basin the river
in flood season will still overflow its channel into the Sutter and
Yolo by-passes, but enough water will be held back by Shasta
Dam during the worst floods to prevent it from overtopping or
breaking through the levees. The damage caused by a flood
high enough to overflow the levees, which might thus be pre-
vented, has been estimated at $47,000,000.

By controlling flood waters, the Central Valley Project will
do more than save human beings from loss of life and property-
homes, farms, highways, bridges, power lines. It will also save
more helpless sufferers: fish, birds, and animals. The damage
done by past floods to fish, game, and livestock has been tre-
mendous. Fish hatcheries have been inundated and fish
stranded on dry land. The high water has drowned small game
birds and animals— quail, pheasant, and deer— or driven them
from their natural haunts. It has carried off barnyard fowls from
their roosts, cows from their pastures. But when the Central
Valley Project is finished, these creatures too, both wild and
tame, will be protected.

135

136 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

To control floods, however, dams and levees and by-passes
are not enough. The watershed lands, from which pour the
thousands of tiny runlets carrying rainfall down mountain
gullies to unite and make a mighty river in flood, must be con-
trolled also. For the runoff of flood waters from the mountains
can be dammed, at least in part, at its source. It can be dammed
by nature's own means— what foresters call ground cover, the
brush and timber which hold back the water long enough for
it to seep underground. When the ground cover has been cut
down by ruthless logging or burned off by forest fires, then the
rushing water in wet seasons races downhill, unrestrained by
roots and branches, tearing away the rich topsoil and carrying
it along to be deposited as silt to choke up river beds. To prevent
destruction by floods and erosion, the ground cover must be
replaced by replanting.

For the areas around both the Shasta and the Friant dam
reservoirs, the planners of the Central Valley Project saw that
watershed protection would be needed. They called on the
United States Forest Service and the California State Division
of Forestry to share the responsibility for providing it. To pro-
tect the 6,644 square miles of the watershed draining into the
Shasta Reservoir, the Forest Service worked out a plan to replace
the great forest which once covered these slopes, long ago
stripped almost bare by logging, burning, and the fumes from
copper-mine smelters (long since abandoned). The plan will
require the planting of thousands of trees with the help of the
boys of the Civilian Conservation Corps. To protect the forests
from fire, government and state lookouts and guard stations,
telephone stations and fire lines, new roads and trails will have
to be built and maintained.

As new forests grow— and the Forest Service estimates that
52 per cent of the area will grow timber— lumbering may revive
in this region, for areas now inaccessible will be reached by
boats traversing the huge artificial lake. Within these watershed
lands the Forest Service will encourage the pasturing of sheep
and cattle as fast as the ground cover is restored to provide a

THE PROJECT IN USE 1 37

feed supply; the development of copper, gold, and silver mining;
the stocking of game refuges with deer, elk, and game birds;
and the establishment of summer resorts for recreation. To put
this program into effect, the Forest Service recommends that
the federal government buy most of the watershed lands of the
Shasta drainage basin and add them to the National Forest
which adjoins the area on three sides.

The very vastness of the Central Valley Project will disturb
the natural habits of fish and game in the areas where it operates.
Shasta Dam's huge artificial lake will stand directly in the path
of the yearly migrations of deer herds to the south. Unless
these wild creatures find their way around the water barrier, they
will be confined north of the Pit River where the climate is
severe in winter and feed conditions not of the best. It is
planned to provide emergency provisions of food for these
animals as well as for the small herd of elk in this region and
to set aside definite areas as ranges for their welfare. The return
of trees to bare regions as a result of the conservation and fire
protection program will develop improved areas for upland
birds, which are expected to increase in number and variety.

One of the forms of wildlife most seriously affected by the
dams, pumping plants, and diversion of streams will be fish,
especially steelhead and Chinook salmon. It has been estimated
that twenty-five thousand Chinook salmon swim up the Sacra-
mento River each year to spawn and die, their offspring returning
downstream to the ocean. Shasta Dam will block the salmon
runs which have gone up the headwaters of the Sacramento,
McCloud, and Pit rivers to spawning grounds above the dam
site. For years past the San Joaquin River above the Merced
River has dried up in spots in the summer, thus cutting off the
spawning grounds above that point. To solve this problem, it
is planned to divert the salmon run up the Merced River or
some lower stream. The Sacramento River situation, however,
has no such simple solution. To get the fish over a dam 560
feet high— even if fish ladders such as the ones built at 6o-foot
Bonneville Dam were installed— would do no good, because

138 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

even if they could spawn above the dam, the young fish swim-
ming downstream toward the ocean would be killed by the
56o-foot descent.

Several plans for salvaging the salmon run have been pro-
posed. One suggests trapping the salmon on their way upstream
to the spawning grounds and transferring them to new spawning
grounds in tributary streams below the dam until they learn to
find these new streams. Another proposes to hold back the
salmon when they have swum upstream as far as Redding, keep
them in ripening ponds until they are ready to spawn, and
hatch their entire crop of eggs artificially in hatcheries.

It might be possible to combine the two plans suggested:
to divert some of the salmon up new streams and to hatch arti-
ficially the eggs of the rest. The first of these plans has been
tried at Grand Coulee Dam, where the upstream salmon are
caught in traps, lifted in elevators, dumped in thousand-gallon
tank trucks, and carried overland to be released in one of four
streams flowing into the Columbia River below the dam. Since
the salmons' homing instinct always leads them back to the
spawning grounds from which they came, this operation needs to
be continued only for one generation of fish— estimated at four
years for the Chinook salmon— since succeeding generations
would naturally return to the new grounds. Unfortunately for
the success of this plan, the Sacramento River has few satisfac-
tory tributaries which might serve as new spawning grounds.
But whatever plan is finally adopted, the salmon run will be pro-
tected if man's ingenuity can protect it.

POWER FROM WATER

To provide water— and to provide water at the right places
in the right amounts— is the job which the Central Valley Project
builders set out to do. But water, turning the wheels of a tur-
bine, provides electric power. And power will light homes and
run factories; power will run the motors of the project's own
pumping plants; power will make possible new production for
national defense. Sold to millions of users, it will bring in

THE PROJECT IN USE 1 39

money to help repay the gigantic costs of building the project.
And so the Central Valley Project Act which Congress passed
was written to provide "secondarily for the generation of electric
energy/'

As the base of Shasta Dam is a powerhouse, seven stories
high but almost dwarfed in size by the massive concrete wall
towering above it. Inside it, water rushing in through shafts
from the reservoir will turn five immense turbines, each con-
nected with an immense generator. The electricity generated
here will be carried away by cables suspended from great steel
pylons or towers marching 200 miles southward to a substation
at Antioch on the southern shore of Suisun Bay. From here it
can be distributed over a network of cables, east, west, north, and
south to farms, factories, and homes anywhere between the Sis-
Idyou Mountains and the Tehachapis, between the Pacific Coast
and the Sierra Nevada.

Some time in 1944 or 1945 the turbines in the Shasta Dam
powerhouse will begin turning. The generators will begin
creating electric power. Working together at one time, they will
produce 375,000 kilowatts of electricity. In one month they
can produce from fifty to two hundred million kilowatt-hours.
Over a year's time, with the aid of a steam electric plant operating
when rainfall is slack, they can generate from one to two billion
kilowatt-hours, an average of one and one-half billion kilowatt-
hours annually.

A billion and a half kilowatt-hours of electricity would
operate the trains crossing the San Francisco-Oakland Bay
Bridge for 66 years; it would generate power for the bridge's
illumination system for 840 years. With as much power as this,
every electric iron, toaster, refrigerator, washing machine, and
every other household electric appliance in the country could be
operated for forty days. It would supply all the needs of San
Francisco for twenty-two months, all the needs of the United
States for four days.

The Central Valley Project itself will need only about one-
fifth of all this power to operate its pumps on the Delta Cross

14° THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

Channel, Contra Costa Canal, and San Joaquin Pumping Sys-
tem. The rest it will have for sale, at least a billion kilowatt-hours
of electricity a year. But how will this power, increasing by
about one-fifth the total output of electricity for Northern Cali-
fornia, be distributed to the hundreds of thousands of people
who will pay for it? This is a question the project builders find
hard to answer.

The whole territory between the Oregon line and Bakers-
field is already served by a single gigantic private power company,
which sells nearly six billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year.
Three-fourths of this it generates in its own powerhouses; the
other fourth it buys from other producers. Only 8 per cent of
the power market in this whole territory is supplied by other
power systems, and only 3^ per cent of this by publicly owned
systems.

Central Valley Project power can be distributed for use in
two ways: it can be sold to the great private corporation, which
already sells 92 per cent of the power produced in northern
California, or it can be sold to public agencies, which sell 3^
per cent. The private utility corporation has offered to buy the
entire commercial output from the project. To distribute the
power through public agencies, the state or federal government
would have to help the people in areas where public ownership
of public power is desired to form public utility districts to buy
and sell the project's output.

The people who favor distributing public power by selling
it to a private company argue that public utility districts would
have to construct their own distribution lines. These might
duplicate lines already built by the private system. Or, if the
movement for public ownership grew strong enough, it might
lead to the cancellation of franchises granted to the private
system and to confiscation of its transmission lines by public
agencies.

On the other hand, the advocates of public ownerhsip of
power argue that it will benefit the people, in spite of the expense
of constructing facilities, because it will reduce the price of

THE PROJECT IN USE 141

electricity. As the money invested in building the system is
paid off, rates can be lowered constantly. The advocates of
public ownership also argue that northern California's great
private power corporation has opposed the Central Valley Project
from the beginning, and they argue that it has opposed the
organization of public utility systems throughout the Central
Valley. Governor Culbert L. Olson agreed with the believers
in public ownership when he said in his inaugural address: "It
shall be the purpose of this administration to promote the means
for public ownership and operation of plants and distributive
facilities for the distribution of this electric power for the people
at cost/'

The man under whose direction the vast Central Valley
Project is being built, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes,
stated his belief in the governmental control of electric power in
an address which he gave at Friant Dam when work was begun
in November, 1939: "What has been accomplished here in Cali-
fornia, and elsewhere, in the way of great public works illustrates
the value of intelligent co-operation between the national, state
and local governments .... This is a line of creation, built
to unlock the fertility of the rich soil, to resist drought, to over-
come floods, to provide outdoor recreation, and to generate cheap
power that will lighten the labors and improve the living con-
ditions of millions of our citizens/'

In a meeting with representatives of the federal govern-
ment on September 8, 1940, the State Water Project Authority
decided that its policy should be to help form and finance public
distribution systems to distribute Central Valley Project power.
"I think a great amount of good will result," said United States
Commissioner of Reclamation John C. Page, "if the Authority
steps out aggressively and lets the people know that it is now in
a position to give assistance to districts desiring Central Valley
Project power. This move will grow like a snowball rolling
downhill . . /'

On both sides in the controversy between public and
private ownership, constant warfare of words and legal conflict

142. THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

goes on. But few people believe that undertakings so vast as the
great dams and irrigation projects built throughout the nation
during the last few years could ever have been built by private
industry. For private industry could not have invested the huge
sums necessary for their construction without hope of imme-
diate profit. Only the federal government can wait the long
years which will pass before these mammoth construction
projects will be paid for.

GAINS FOR THE PEOPLE

When the Central Valley Project's two immense new lakes
appear on the map of California, the people of the state will have
for their enjoyment two new mountain recreation centers. Over-
looking the lakes, people can build cabins, resorts, campgrounds,
and summer homes. The reservoir waters, stocked with game
fish, will attract fishermen; on their placid surfaces, people can
enjoy swimming, canoeing, rowing, sailing. Hikers and hunters
can ramble over the surrounding slopes. Under the jurisdiction
of the National Park Service, camping and picnicking grounds
will be developed, new summer resorts established, roads and
trails laid out.

If the Shasta and Friant dams rival Boulder Dam, which is
visited yearly by a half million people, as tourist attractions, they
should become two of California's most popular sites for visitors.
Already California has more national parks than any other state.
With two new areas to draw vacationers and visitors from all over
the nation, it should profit from a new stimulus to tourist trade.
When these man-made spectacles are added to that great circuit
of the West's wonders that lies between the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado in the Southwest and Bonneville and Grand Coulee
dams in the Northwest, the traveler by automobile will be able
to make a magnificent tour, swinging in a great half-circle from
Arizona to Washington, past Boulder Dam, Death Valley
National Monument, Sequoia National Park, Friant Dam,
Yosemite National Park, Lake Tahoe, Mount Lassen Volcanic
National Park, Shasta Dam, and Mount Shasta.

THE PROJECT IN USE 143

But the people will gain much more than new recreation
centers and increased tourist trade. The completed Central
Valley Project will help agriculture, business and industry,
finance, the trades and professions. Up and down the state,
people in all walks of life will benefit in health, happiness, and
security.

As the network of canals spreads water stored up by the vast
dams throughout the valleys and the land is restored to fertility,
it is predicted that those who have left the land will come back,
that new farms will be created and new acres tilled, that farm
products will increase in volume, and land values will rise. Acres
already planted will be saved; farmers already growing crops will
be protected. And as the farms benefit, so will the cities. It has
been estimated that Los Angeles and San Francisco alone will
save the vast sum of $22, 000,000 a year by maintaining whole-
sale and manufacturing trade with the valleys, which would have
been lost if water-starved farms had to be abandoned.

Little did the forty-niners who came to California to look
for gold realize that the day would come when water would be
more precious than any metal. They found a virgin country,
its natural balance undisturbed. The spring floods of the two
great rivers overflowed their banks and soaked the bordering flat
lands, creating vast marshes. As the country was developed,
more and more water was diverted for irrigation and more and
more marshland reclaimed for agriculture. The natural balance
was upset. When there was not enough river water left, wells
were dug. When wells went dry, they were dug deeper. The
underground water levels went on falling.

The vanishing water supply began to threaten the very
sources of life and property of millions of people. Farms, indus-
trial plants, whole great cities were menaced. Only water could
save them from the fate of other regions where man's carelessness
in plowing up the grasslands and draining the marshes, cutting
and burning down the timber on the slopes, choking up the rivers
with silt from hydraulic mines had upset nature's delicate bal-

144 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

ance. Only water could save vast stretches of California's Cen-
tral Valley from the fate of the Middle West's Dust Bowl.

In few places has man made more changes in his surround-
ings than in California. Sometimes the changes have been for
the better, sometimes for the worse. When they were dictated
only by greed— when man wanted only to rob nature of its riches
by blind and unthinking use of the soil, the water, the timber, the
minerals, the fish and game, without caring about future genera-
tions and their needs— then his changes were for the worse. But
man can repair his mistakes of the past. He can even improve
on nature— and so the Central Valley Project will demonstrate
to those now living and to generations to come.

APPENDIX I

OUTLINE FOR A UNIT OF WORK
FOR THE UPPER GRADES

OUTLINE FOR A UNIT ON THE CENTRAL
VALLEY PROJECT

This outline for a unit on the Central Valley Project which
follows was prepared by students in Education 133, Section III,
during the 1 940 Summer Session at the University of California,
Berkeley. This group of teachers endeavored to explore and to
record all of the possibilities inherent in this area of experience.
It is unlikely that any group of children can undertake all of the
activities suggested. Teachers will find this comprehensive and
practical outline a useful source in their preparation for guiding
the learning experiences of the children.

The great geographic extent of the project will make pos-
sible valuable firsthand experiences for many children from
Shasta County to Kern County. Other children may have direct
contact through summer vacation trips. The extensive illustra-
tions in the bulletin will provide the basis for a realistic vicarious
experience.

I. FACTORS CONSIDERED IN SELECTING THE UNIT

A. The immediate life of a large number of children of California
will be affected

B. Unique and comprehensive utilization of natural resources is
illustrated by the project

C. As an example of democratic enterprise for the welfare of a
region, the study should lead to a genuine appreciation of the
services of the federal, state, and local government

D. The area of experience will help children understand the com-
plexity of our modern technological and scientific era

E. The area of experience will help children understand and
appreciate the variety of services and the number of workers
needed in such a vast undertaking; the social and economic prob-
lems of the workers

F. The area of experience will provide opportunity for firsthand con-
tact with life situations and will satisfy the basic urges or drives to

148 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

•

learning, such as curiosity, construction, dramatic play, creative
expression, manipulation, and communication
G. The area of experience provides ample opportunity for using the
tools of learning

II. INITIATION OF UNIT

A. Alternative ways of introducing the unit

i. By exploration of classroom environment arranged by the
teacher

a. Pictures

C i ) River in flood

(2) Shasta Dam and other dams

(3) Cement "silo"

(4) River boats

(5) Dredges

(6) Power plants

(7) Productive and arid farms

b. Maps

(1) California

(2) United States

c. Books

d. Models

e. Wood for construction purposes

f. Tools

g. Cable

h. Hard shell hat
i. Newspaper clippings
j. Magazines
k. Pamphlets

1. Toys

C i ) Power shovels

(2) Trucks

(3) Tractors

(4) Trains

(5) Dragline

(6) Pneumatic hammers

m. Cement

OUTLINE FOR UNIT OF WORK 149

2. By showing slides or motion pictures of the Central Valley
Project

3. By means of a discussion of the experience of a child who
visited the project, or experienced a flood, or who had migrated
from an arid farm

4. Reading a selection or story, such as Water— Wealth or Waste,
by William Pryor

B. By class discussion

1. Why do we build dams?

2. How are dams built?

3. Why do the workers wear hard-shell hats?

4. What causes floods?

5. Where is the nearest dam?

6. Is it possible to take a trip to the project?

C. By reading to answer questions raised in the discussion

D. By planning the excursion

III. DEVELOPMENT OF UNIT

A. Find out units of project

1. Shasta Dam

2. Friant Dam

3. Contra Costa Canal

4. Madera Canal

5. Kern Canal

6. Pumping station

7. Transmission lines

8. Power plant

9. Railroad and highway construction

B. Purposes of the units, irrigation, flood control

C. Locate various units

D. Read books, pamphlets, clippings, stories, poems

E. Write letters about trip and for material

F. Listen to an informed person concerning history of the area,
construction of the units of the project

G. See slides or motion picture

I5O THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

H. Go on trip

1 . Develop safety plans

2. Develop conduct rules
I. Play with blocks and toys

J. Relive by means of dramatic play

1 . Life of workers

2. Life of pioneers

3. Life of people in flood time

4. Life of the farmers

K. Write stories, poems, letters, and songs
L. Develop rhythms
M. Paint
N. Model

IV. EXPERIENCES IN WHICH TEACHER AND CHILDREN MAY ENGAGE

A. Search for information by reading

B. Art Experiences

i. Construction

a. Relief map

b. Outline map

c. Truck, people, and the like, for play

d. Community at dam

e. Make and dress standpatter dolls

f . Model of irrigation system

g. Models of arid and productive farms
h. Models of power plants and power lines

i. Models of conveyor belt
j. Models of boats
k. Models of tunnels
1. Models of bridges

1 i ) For trains

(2) For highways

m. Model of rock crusher

n. Model of concrete mixer

o. Model of "head tower," "tail tower/' cableways

p. Blueprint (plan of model)

OUTLINE FOR UNIT OF WORK 151

2. Graphic Art

a. Friezes and panels

1 i ) History of the Central Valley

(2) Central Valley water project

(3) Arid and productive farms

(4) River commerce

b. Drawing and painting pictures

1 i ) Illustrations for stories

(2) Impression of experiences

(3) Sources and uses of water

c. Notebook covers

d. Lettering

1 i ) Notebook covers

(2) Captions for displays and bulletin boards

e. Posters

f . Arranging bulletin boards

g. Block printing
h. Slides

i. Motion picture strips

3. Photography

C. Dramatic Play

1 . Reliving the life of workers

a. Concrete workers

b. "High sealers"

c. "Powder monkeys"

d. Planners

e. Surveyors

f. Engineers

g. Drillers

2. Reliving the life of farmers

3. Recreating experiences during floods

4. Enacting scenes from river life

5. Enacting scenes from life related to history of region

152 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

D. Language Experiences

1. Oral

a. Conversation

b. Discussion

c. Dramatization of stories

d. Radio scripts or plays

e. Oral reports

f. Interviews

g. Participating in school club
h. Dramatic play

2. Written (individual or group activities)

a. Letter

1 i ) Inviting guest speaker

(2) Requesting materials or information

(3) Requesting permission to visit

(4) Requesting parents' permission to go on trip

(5) Inviting parents or friends to school or special program

(6) Letters to friends telling about study

b. Stories

1 i ) Co-operative stories

(2) Imaginative stories

(3) News stories

c. Plays

d. Radio scripts

e. Poems

f. Log of progress of unit

g. Reports

h. Captions for pictures
i. Labels for exhibits
j. Notices for bulletin boards

k. Book

(1) New and effective words

(2) Spelling lists

(3) Diaries

(4) Scrapbooks

1. Minutes of club meetings

OUTLINE FOR UNIT OF WORK

'53

E. Music Experiences

1. Singing (see bibliography, page 159)

2. Creative music

3. Bands and orchestras

a. Harmonic

b. Rhythm

F. Specific Learning Experiences

1. Reading

a. Information

b. Solve problems

c. Pleasure

d. Use of bibliography

e. Reference books

f. Dictionaries

g. Tables of contents
h. Globes

i. Blueprints
j. Graphs
k. Diagrams

2. Arithmetic

a. Compute cost

b. Measure distances

1 i ) Measuring electricity

(2) Measuring rainfall

c. Areas

d. Content

e. Time

f. Proportion

g. Financing

h. Profit and loss

i. Acre-feet of water

j. Graph making
k. Blueprinting.

154 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

3. Language Arts

a. Spelling

b. Penmanship

c. Oral expression

d. Organize information

e. Letter writing

f. Report writing

g. Plays
h. Stories

4. Social Studies

a. Function of government

(1) Local

(2) State

(3) National

b. Topography of country

(1) Firsthand experience

(2) Map

c. California history

d. Social problems of workers

(1) Employment

(2) Health and sanitation

(3) Safety

(4) Housing

(5) Recreation

(6) Education

G. Appreciations

1. Books

2. Storytelling

3. Music and songs

4. Poetry

5. Dramatic play and rhythm

6. Visual aids

7. Art

8. Nature

OUTLINE FOR UNIT OF WORK 155

9. Contribution of workers

a. Laborers

b. Mechanics

c. Engineers

d. Others

10. Government

V. ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES

A. Basic Understandings

1 . An appreciation of the difficulties of life without water control

2. An appreciation of the need for conserving waste water

3. An understanding of the effort required to obtain adequate
water supply

4. An appreciation of the resources in nature that make water
supply possible

5. A respect for the contribution of science in the development of
building materials

6. A consciousness of the facilities for conservation of water
supply in the community

7. An understanding of the effect of water on the surrounding
country

B. Basic Knowledges Gained

1 . Topography of the country

2. Better knowledge of the uses of water

a. Irrigation

b. Power

c. Transmission

d. Drinking

e. Recreation

3. The sources of water

4. Protection against floods

5. Contrast of conditions of life in early California days with
those of the present in regard to transportation, navigation,
industries, and irrigation

6. An understanding of how water led to the exploration and
settlement of California

156 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

C. Social Habits

1 . Ability to work well together

2. Ability to think independently

3. Ability to contribute to discussions

4. Courteous consideration of others

5. Ability to use materials

6. Ability to accept suggestions

D. Increased Skills

1. Ability to observe intelligently

2. Ability to recognize problems

3. Ability to use information from a variety of sources

4. Ability to appreciate the value of co-operative planning and
execution of work

5. Ability to express thoughts and feelings in many ways, such
as writing, painting, play, rhythm

6. Ability to read with understanding and enjoyment

7. Ability to speak English well

8. Ability to spell words needed

9. Ability to use tools correctly
10. Ability to measure and plan

E. Appreciations

1. Books

2. Experiences

3. Stories

4. Pictures

5. Models

6. Work of others

7. Music

8. Poetry

9. Rhythms

10. Nature

1 1 . Visual materials

1 2. Contribution of the workers

13. Government

OUTLINE FOR UNIT OF WORK 157

CHILDREN'S REFERENCES
BOOKS

BEATY, JOHN. Story Pictures of Farm Work. Chicago: Beckley-Cardy Co., 1936,
pp., IH-I2I (1-2.).

BEAUCHAMP, WILBUR. Science Stories. Books 2 and 3. Chicago: Scott, Fores-
man & Co., 1935, pp., 117-119 (2-3).

CHARTERS, W. W., and OTHERS. From Morning Till Night. New York: The
Macmillan Co., 1936, pp., 12-14; 53-5^ (1-2).

CHARTERS, W. W. Good Habits. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1935, pp., 102-
106(3 + ).

CHARTERS, W. W. Happy Days. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1936, pp., 86-
8? (2-3).

CRAIG, GERALD. Our Wide, Wide World. Boston: Ginn & Co., 1932, pp., 237-
253; 273-279 (3 + ).

CRAIG, GERALD. Out of Doors. Boston: Ginn & Co., 1932, pp., 180-182 (2-3).
CRAIG, GERALD. We Look About Us. Boston: Ginn & Co., 1933, pp., 78-86 (1-2).

DAWSON, GRACE S. California: The Story of Our Southwest Corner. New York:
The Macmillan Co., 1939 (6, 7, 8).

DOUGHERTY, ETHEL. How the World Drinks. Science and Safety Series, Craw-
fordsville, Indiana: R. R. Alexander and Sons, 1936 (5).

EDWARDS, PAUL. Outdoor World. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1932, pp., 172-
174(3+).

FAIRBANKS, H. W. Conservation Reader. New York: World Book Co., 1920,
pp., 10-11; 8 1-88 (6).

Find Out Book. Vol. 2. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Caro-
lina Press, 1937 (3).

GLOVER, KATHERINE. America Begins Again. The Conquest of Waste in Our
Natural Resources. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1939 (6, 7, 8).

HOLWAY, HOPE. Story of Water Supply. New York: Harper & Bros., 1929 (6).
LULL, MARGARET. Golden River. New York: Harper & Bros., 1930.
Fiction for older girls about the Sacramento River.

PATCH, EDITH M. Surprises. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1933, pp., 173-
194 C3 + ).

PERSING, ELLIS. Elementary Science by Grades. Book 2. New York: D. Apple-
ton & Co., 1928, pp., 163-168 (2-3).

PIEPER, CHARLES JOHN. Everyday Problems in Science. Chicago: Scott, Fores-
man & Co., 1933.

Chapters 5, 9, 10 give the sources of water supply, showing how water is puri-
fied for domestic use, and how heat is controlled and used for heating purposes.

PIGMAN, AUGUSTUS. A Story of Water. New York: D. Appleton-Century Co.,

Inc., 1938 (6-7).
PRYOR, WILLIAM CLAYTON. Water— Wealth or Waste. New York: Harcourt,

Brace & Co., 1939(5)-

Good print, excellent pictures.

158 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

RINGER, EDITH H. Good Citizens Club. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.,
1930, pp., 66-69 (3).

ROGERS, FRANCES. Fresh and Briny. The Story of Water as friend and Foe. New
York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1936 (6, 7, 8).

A useful and excellent account.

STONE, CLARENCE. Joyful Reading. St. Louis, Missouri: Webster Publishing Co.,
1932, pp., 21-23 (2).

THOMPSON, JEAN M. Water Wonders Every Child Should Know. New York:
Doubleday, Page & Co., 1907 (5-6).

TEACHERS' REFERENCES
BOOKS

ADAMS, FRANK. Irrigation Districts in California. State of California, Department
of Public Works. Bulletin No. 21, 1929. Sacramento: State Department of
Public Works.

BRISTOW, WILLIAM H. Conservation in the Education Program. U. S. Office of
Education Bulletin No. 4, 1937, Washington: United States Department of the
Interior, 1938.

"Thirst Quencher Number One," Consumer's Guide. IV (July 12, 1937), 16-17.

An analysis of the physiological need for water. The importance of water to
the human body. Factual.

FLINN, ALFRED D.; WESTON, R. S.; and BOGERT, C. L. The Waterworks Hand-
book. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1927. Technical.

FOLWELL, A. PRESCOTT. Water Supply Engineering. New York: John Willey &
Sons, 1917.

GELDERS, JESSE F. "Miracles Worked by Engineers in Endless Fight for Water,"
Popular Science, CXIX (October, 1931), 42-43; 141-143.

An excellent article outlining man's struggle for water, and describing methods
used by engineers in modern and ancient cities to obtain it.

HOOVER, MILDRED B. Historic Spots in California: Counties of the Coast Range.
Stanford University, California: Stanford University Press, 1937.

HUNT, ROCKWELL. California: A Little History of a Big State. Boston: D. C.
Heath & Co., 1931,

HUNT, ROCKWELL. California the Golden. Boston: Silver, Burdett & Co., 1911.

JACKS, G. V. Vanishing Lands. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1939, pp.,
192-203.

JAMES, GEORGE W. Reclaiming the Arid West. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.,
1917.

Story of the United States Reclamation Service.

LOMAX, JOHN A., and LOMAX, ALAN. Cowboy Songs. New York: The Mac-
millan Co., 1922.

MACLEISH, ARCHIBALD. Land of the Free. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.,
1938.

OUTLINE FOR UNIT OF WORK

'59

MATHEWS, J. L. Conservation of Water. Boston: Small Maynard & Co., 1910.

Although published in 1910, this publication gives a clear, precise presentation
of the many problems connected with water use and conservation. Presents the
benefits to be gained from the control and planned use of the national water
resources.

PERSON, H. S. Little Waters: A Study of Headwater Streams and Other Little
Waters, Their Use and Relation to the Land. Washington: Soil Conservation
Service: Resettlement Administration; Rural Electrification Administration (rev.
April, 1936).

This tells simply, with many pictorial graphs and illustrations, the effects of
the control of little waters— creeks, rills, ponds, headwater streams, and their rela-
tion to the land.

RENSCH, HERO E., and RENSCH, E. G. Historic Spots in California: The Southern
Counties. Stanford University, California: Stanford University Press, 1932.

RENSCH, HERO E., and RENSCH, E. G. Historic Spots in California: Valley and
Sierra Counties. Stanford University, California: Stanford University Press,
I933-

Sacramento Guide Book. Sacramento, California: The Sacramento Bee, 1939.

SHERWIN, STERLING, and KATSMAN, Louis. Songs of the Gold Miners. Cooper
Square, New York: Carl Fischer, 1932.

SMITH, WALLACE. Garden of the Sun. Los Angeles: Lymanhouse, 1939.
A history of the San Joaquin Valley, 1772 to 1939.

WAGNER, HARR, and KEPPEL, MARK. Lessons in California History. San Fran-
cisco: Harr Wagner Publishing Co., 1922.

PERIODICALS

United States Camera Magazine. Travel Issue (August, 1940), 30, 49, 82, 84.

California History Nugget, "The Story of the Pit River," VII (March, 1940),
171-179.

APPROPRIATE Music FROM AVAILABLE COLLECTIONS

McCoNATHY, OSBOURNE, and OTHERS. The Music Hour. California State
Series. Sacramento: California State Department of Education, 1931.

Third Book

Bach
Olds
Lilly
Folk Song (Czecho-Slovak)

Fourth Book
Schubert

Fifth Book
Bach

"The Water Dance," p., 53
"The Rainbow Fairies," p., 78
"Song of the Snows," p., 76
"The Old Man," p.,

"Boatman's Song," p., 89

"The Hidden Stream," p. 23

Kindergarten and First Grade Music Book

Findlay "The River," p., 118

i6o

THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

McCoNATHY, OSBOURNE, and OTHERS. Music of Many Lands and Peoples. Cali-
fornia State Series. Sacramento: California State Department of Education,
1932.

"Volga Boat Song," p., 174
"A Boat, A Boat," p., 120
"Blow the Man Down," p., 143

Adapted by Buck
Old English Round
Old Sailor Chantey

PARKER, HORATIO, and OTHERS.
Burdett&Co., 1918.

Book One
Weidig
Sarnie

Book Two

Progressive Music Series. New York: Silver

"The River," p., 87
"Paper Boats," p., 92

"The River," p., 124

"The Way the Rain Behaves," p., 55

Wathall
Book Three
Bliss

Chadwick
Elgar
Russian Folk Song

Twice 55 Plus Community Songs, The New Brown Book.
&Co., 1929.

"Row, Row, Row Your Boat"
"Levee Song"
"Flowing River"

OTHER APPROPRIATE Music

"Song of the Brook," p., 66
"The Rain Path" (Two Parts), p., 130
"The Brook" (Two Parts), p., 130
"Maid and the Brook," p., 25.

Boston: C. C. Birchard

Strauss

Russian Folk Song

Foster

Kern

Cadman

Lieurance

Schubert

Weber

Mendelssohn

Dukas

Wagner

Ravel

Smetana

Respighi

Handel

Wagner

Schubert

Lehmann

APPROPRIATE PAINTINGS
Hagen
Martin
Van Gogh
Monet
Daubigny
Daubigny
Maure
Jones
Inness
Bellows

"Blue Danube"

"Volga Boat Song"

"Swanee River"

"Old Man River"

"Land of the Sky Blue Water"

"By the Waters of the Minnetonka"

"The Trout"

"The Storm"

"Boat Song"

"Sorcerer's Apprentice"

"Songs of the Rhinedaughters"

"Jeu d' Eaux"

"La Moldau"

"Fountains of Rome"

"Water Music"

"Siegfried's Rhine Journey"

"Songs to be Sung on the Water"

"The Pine Trees"

"Meister der Farbe"
"Harp of the Winds"
"The Bridge"
"The Poplars"
"The Pool"
"Valmondois"
"In the Pasture"
"Chums"
"Autumn Oaks"
"Up the Hudson"

APPENDIX II

SOURCE MATERIAL

SOURCE MATERIAL
BOOKS

California, A Guide to the Golden Gate. Federal Writers' Project of the Works
Progress Administration for the State of California. New York: Hastings House,
1939-

CHAMBERLAIN, WILLIAM H. History of Yuba County. Oakland, California:
Thompson and West, 1879.

DAVIS, WILLIAM J. An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California.
Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1890.

The Drama of Cement Making. Chicago: Portland Cement Co., 1938.

ELIAS, SOL. P. Stones of Stanislaus. Modesto, California: Sol. P. Elias, 1924.

ELLIS, W. T. My Seventy-Two Years in the Romantic County of Yuba, California.
Eugene, Oregon: University of Oregon, 1939.

FENNEMAN, NEVEST M. Physiography of Western United States. New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc. 1 93 1 .

FLETCHER, GUSTAV L. Earth Science, A Physiography. Boston: D. C. Heath &
Co., 1938.

GILBERT, FRANK T. History of San Joaquin County, California. Oakland, Cali-
fornia: Thompson and West, 1879, 2 vols.

History of Stanislaus County, California. San Francisco: Wallace W. Elliott &
Co., 1883.

HUNT, ROCKWELL D., and AMENT, WILLIAM S. From Oxcart to Airplane. Los
Angeles: Powell Publishing Co., 1929.

MIKHAILOV, NICHOLAS. Land of the Soviets. New York: Lee Furman, 1939.
NORRIS, FRANK. The Octopus. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1901.

RANSOME, FREDERICK LESLIE. The Great Valley of California. University of
California Publications in Geological Sciences, Vol. I, No. 14, pp. 371-428.
Berkeley: University of California Press, May, 1896.

SCHUYLER, JAMES Dix. Reservoirs for Irrigation, Water-Power and Domestic
Water Supply. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1908.

SMALL, KATHLEEN EDWARDS. History of Tulare County, California. Chicago:
S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1926. 2 vols.

SMITH, WALLACE. Garden of the Sun, A History of the San Joaquin Valley, 1772-
1939. Los Angeles: Lymanhouse, 1939.

WEGMAN, EDWARD. The Design and Construction of Dams. New York: John
Wiley & Sons, 1922.

STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS

BRADBURY, J. K., and BARNUM, N. M. "Land Use Study of the Kennett Area."
Washington: United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. January
4> 1938 (mimeographed).

163

164 THE CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

"Central Valley Project." Washington: United States Department of the Interior,
Bureau of Reclamation, n.d.

"General Information Concerning the Central Valley Project, California." Wash-
ington: United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, March
i, 1940 (mimeographed).

The Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Basin Reclamation Project. Washing-
ton: United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, n.d.

"The Grand Coulee Dam: The Columbia Basin Reclamation Project." Washing-
ton: United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, n.d.
(Folder).

FORTIER, SAMUEL, and OTHERS. Irrigation in the Sacramento Valley, California.
Experiment Stations Bulletin No. 207. United States Department of Agriculture.
Issued February 15, 1909.

"The History of the Central Valley Project." Sacramento: United States Depart-
ment of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, February, 1941 (mimeographed).

"Memorandum by Edward Hyatt, State Engineer and Executive Officer on Neces-
sity of an Auxiliary Steam-Electric Plant as a Unit of the Central Valley Project."
Reports on Electric Power, Central Valley Project, Water Project Authority of
the State of California. Sacramento: Department of Public Works, May 15,
1940 (mimeographed).

"Output Capacity of Shasta Power Plant under Alternate Methods of Disposal."
Report No. i. Reports on Electric Power, Central Valley Project, Water Project
Authority of the State of California. Sacramento: Department of Public Works,
July, 1940 (mimeographed).

Permissible Economic Rate of Irrigation Development in California. A Co-opera-
tive Report by the College of Agriculture, University of California. Reports on
the State Water Plan Prepared Pursuant to Chapter 832, Statutes of 1929. Bul-
letin No. 27. Publications of the Division of Water Resources. Sacramento:
State of California Department of Public Works, Division of Water Resources,

Proceedings of the Second Sacramento-San Joaquin River Problems Conference and
Water Supervisor's Report. By Harlowe M. Stafford, Water Supervisor. Bulle-
tin No. 4. Sacramento: State of California Department of Public Works, Divi-
sion of Water Resources, 1925.

"Report on the Programming of Additional Electric Power Facilities to Provide for
Absorption of Output of Shasta Power Plant in Northern California Market."
Reports on Electric Power, Central Valley Project, Water Project Authority of the
State of California. Sacramento: Department of Public Works, February, 1928
(mimeographed) .

SCOBEY, FREDERICK C. Flow of Water in Irrigation and Similar Canals. Tech-
nical Bulletin No. 625. Washington: United States Department of Agriculture.
February, 1909.

"The Story of the Central Valley Project of California." Sacramento: Presented by
the Water Project Authority of the State of California, n.d. (Folder).

Variation and Control of Salinity in Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Upper San
Francisco Bay. Reports on the State Water Plan Prepared Pursuant to Chapter
832, Statutes of 1929. Bulletin No. 27. Publications of the Division of Water
Resources. Sacramento: State of California Department of Public Works, Divi-
sion of Water Resources, 1931.

SOURCE MATERIAL 165

MAGAZINE ARTICLES

SMITH, OSGOOD R. "Fact Finding Survey in the Sacramento Drainage Basin,"
Associated Sportsman, V (October, 1938).

California Conservationist. Sacramento: California Department of Natural
Resources.

CLARK, G. H. "The Future of Fish Life in the Central Valley/' IV (May,

1939), i, 16.
GLADING, BEN. "California Valley Quail," IV (January, 1939), 3-6.

CLARK, FRANK W. "Review of State Public Works Program," California
Highway Patrolman, III (May 19, 1939), 6, 7; 68-70.

California Highways and Public Works. Sacramento: California Department of
Public Works.

"Central Valley Project," XVI (August, 1938), 2-6.

"Central Valley Project," XVII (November, 1939), 27.

"Contra Costa Canal Project Illustrated," XVIII (January, 1940), 2, 3.

HYATT, EDWARD. "Division of Water Resources Official Reports," XV
(February, 1937), 24, 25.

HYATT, EDWARD. "Three Central Valley Project Milestones," XVIII (August,

1940), 3-5; 20.

PURCELL, C. H. "State Joins United States in $3^200,000 Contract for High-
way Relocation Around Shasta Dam Reservoir," XVII (November, 1939),
1-4; 1 6.

"Shasta Dam Aggregate Belt Conveyor Longest in the World," XVIII (Feb-
ruary, 1940), 2-4.

"State Adopts a Three-Point Program for Marketing Power of the Central
Valley Project," XVIII (October, 1940), 1-5; 19.

printed in CALIFORNIA STATE PRINTING OFFICE

SACRAMENTO, 79^2 GEORGE H. MOORE, STATE PRINTER
1690 5-42 10M