Turning the Desert Green: A Bold Plan to Irrigate the Pasco Sands
A new company, backed by railroad officials and engineering innovators, aims to pump Columbia River water into the Franklin County arid lands.
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If the plans of a new irrigation company organized in Spokane materialize, about 100,000 acres of land in Franklin County will be opened up for farming and fruit raising. The Current Motor Power Company has been organized with a large capital stock, incorporating figures including O.L. Hanson, A.F. Law, and A. Beamer of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The company intends to pump water from the Columbia River using a specialized 'current motor' device, which uses a long, sweeping arm and deflection blade. A pilot motor at Chandler on the Yakima River currently pumps 200 gallons per minute, enough to irrigate 80 acres. The company hopes to scale this technology to make the sandy Pasco landscape productive, though the timeline remains contingent on their ability to manufacture the massive pumps required for the project.
“The opening of the Pasco district for agriculture will be one of the largest irrigation conquests in the state of Washington.”
This 1903 project represents the beginning of the massive irrigation infrastructure that would eventually transform the Tri-Cities into an agricultural powerhouse. The reliance on the Columbia River for regional development remains the central, and often contested, theme of Eastern Washington's economy and ecology today.
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