The Fight for Irrigation Control
A local editorial urges landowners to organize into a district to secure government water projects and neutralize land speculators.
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.
Owners of land under the proposed extension of the Sunnyside canal have taken a wise step in organizing an irrigation district at this time. The district plan is the only fair and equitable one upon which to proceed and the only one which the government will recognize in extending its irrigation projects. Organization now means that when the government is ready to begin construction it will not be held up to await the working out of these preliminary details. In brief, the irrigation district plan means that every acre included in the proposed project must stand its share of the construction cost of the system, regardless of whether or not the owner takes water for its irrigation. It means that the speculator cannot hold his lands and wait for the actual settler to make them valuable. It means the speedy development of the project after the water is available. It provides an authoritative body with which the government can deal.
“It means that the speculator cannot hold his lands and wait for the actual settler to make them valuable.”
The tension between large-scale land speculators and settlers looking to build local infrastructure is a recurring theme in the history of the Tri-Cities. The editorial reflects a period where organized districts were the only way to compel development, a precursor to the massive federal Reclamation projects that would eventually define the region's landscape.
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