Richland Farmers Dig Ditches to Reclaim 450 Acres
Irrigation seepage has turned productive farmland into bogs, sparking a major local reclamation project.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Richland, Jan. 20—As very generally happens to a region that is put under irrigation, the low spots become swamps through seepage and useless for farming purposes unless a system of drainage ditches are dug. This is what happened in the Richland district, and consequently upwards of 450 acres of the very best farming land is now covered with water or a rank growth of vegetation. Plans to reclaim this land are underway; a district known as drainage district No. 7 was formed and commissioners elected. The work calls for the excavation of about 112,000 yards. The commissioners, Messrs. R. McGhan, James Willis and Ross Page, are currently advertising for bids to do this work, which will affect a territory covering nearly 4,000 acres. Bids will be opened February 2, 1915, and the commission hopes to have the work completed this summer.
“As very generally happens to a region that is put under irrigation the low spots become swamps through seepage and useless for farming purposes.”
Early 20th-century irrigation was a double-edged sword: bringing water to the desert created agricultural booms but eventually waterlogged the soil, requiring the massive earth-moving projects described here. Today, the management of water tables and drainage remains a critical, if less visible, infrastructure challenge in the Tri-Cities as residential development expands over former farmland.
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