The Price of Parched Earth
Irrigation users in White Bluffs vote for another tax to cover ballooning debts.
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.
At a meeting of the water users under the White Bluffs Water company plant at the schoolhouse Wednesday night, those present by a vote of eight to five decided to levy another assessment of $4 per acre to clean up an indebtedness of $200 for taxes and about $1000 for power. One hundred dollars of the taxes was for 1915 and $100 for this year. The Water company owed $1060 at the close of the 1915 irrigation season. As an offset to this, there was about $500 due the water company from those actually using water, which was collected this spring, and it and the first installment of the 1916 assessment liquidated this old power bill. As a matter of fact, the water company, with a $10 per acre maintenance, has been going behind about $300 per year, and this year has been no exception.
“As a matter of fact, the water company, with a $10 per acre maintenance, has been going behind about $300 per year.”
Managing water rights remains the defining tension of life in the arid Columbia Basin. The struggle of early 20th-century farmers to fund their own irrigation infrastructure foreshadows the massive public projects that eventually reshaped the region's relationship with the river.
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