The Engineer, the River, and the Farmers Who Objected
A Northwestern Gas and Electric engineer stops in Walla Walla to inspect survey routes for a new power plant on the Walla Walla River — but riverside farmers are already resisting the chosen paths.
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Samuel Storrow, engineer in charge of the developing work of the Northwestern Gas and Electric company, was in the city yesterday. Mr. Storrow was on his way from Spokane to Portland and stopped off one day in Walla Walla to inspect the work being done by the company's surveyors on the Walla Walla river, where the power plant is to be located.
"The work is progressing satisfactorily," said Mr. Storrow, last night. "The exact point at which the plant will be erected has not yet been determined. Our engineers have made numerous surveys and plats of the ground, so that we can determine which will be the best and most practical place to locate the plant. We are experiencing some difficulty with the farmers living along the river, who are objecting to some of the routes surveyed, but we do not anticipate trouble that will interfere with our plans.
"The construction work will not be commenced for some time, as I do not believe in doing the work by piecemeal. It will take several months to secure the necessary machinery. Everything that will be necessary to make the plant complete and up to date will have to be made to order. Until the electrical appliances and other machinery is ready to be placed in position the construction work will not be commenced. I am certain, however, that by July 1 of next year, we will have the plant in running order and be in a position to furnish motive power to the amount of 10,000 horse power to those who will need it. It will be the plan of the company to be ready at any time to furnish electric power at the shortest notice, and no one will have to wait an hour for it when it is called for."
Mr. Storrow left last evening for Portland, to look after other engineering work in which he is interested.
“We are experiencing some difficulty with the farmers living along the river, who are objecting to some of the routes surveyed, but we do not anticipate trouble that will interfere with our plans.”
In 1903, a private utility was surveying the Walla Walla River for a generating plant and promising 10,000 horsepower, while farmers along the river pushed back over the routes crossing their land. The fight over who gets to use a river — and who bears the disruption — is still central to Western water and energy politics. The exact site was still undetermined here, a reminder that infrastructure arrives through a series of local negotiations, not a single announcement.
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