The Struggle to Irrigate the High Lands
Federal engineers are surveying the Kennewick and Richland deserts to determine the most economical way to bring water to 210,000 acres of parched ground.
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.
It is the belief of local men in close touch with the irrigation situation in the Columbia and Yakima Valleys that by the end of summer the U. S. Reclamation Service will have decided upon definite plans for irrigating thousands of acres of land lying above the present levels of the Kennewick and Richland projects. To definitely determine the most desirable plan to utilize storage water, a survey was started this week by the Reclamation Service, with Fred Bonstedt in charge. Project Manager R. K. Tiffany explained that when present storage plans are completed, they will have water to reclaim 210,000 acres. The question is how to best utilize this surplus. If the new 'high line' they are projecting proves to be the most economical, it will be the only one constructed. The service intends to use the storage water at Keechelus, Cle Elum, and Kachess, released into the Yakima River and conveyed by the Sunnyside canal into the lower valley, with extensions to cover lands in the Cold Creek and Kennewick districts.
“The Reclamation Service wants to be in a position when the time comes, to say which plan is the best for utilizing storage not yet appropriated.”
The massive irrigation projects of the early 20th century transformed the desert into the agricultural powerhouse of Washington. Today, these same water rights and regional allocations remain a central, contentious point of negotiation between environmental, tribal, and agricultural interests in the Yakima Basin.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.