The Fight for Yakima Valley Water Rights
State officials abandon their opposition to federal reclamation investigations, clearing the way for government-led irrigation projects.
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.
Land Commissioner Ross and Governor Mead have stepped down from the fight over the state's selections of land in the Yakima valley under the Carey act. These officials gave their indorsement to resolutions prepared by representatives of various commercial bodies in the Yakima valley. The resolutions ask the secretary of the interior to withhold his approval of the state's selections in the lower valley until the government reclamation investigations are completed. This is virtually an agreement that the state will abandon the fight for these lands until the reclamation service completes its work, potentially removing the final obstacles to government-led irrigation in the region.
“One of the two obstacles mentioned by Chief Engineer Newell in his Yakima speech is now removed and government irrigation may soon become an accomplished fact in the Yakima valley.”
This 1905 struggle over water rights captures the birth of the massive irrigation infrastructure that still sustains Kennewick’s economy today. The tension between state control and federal reclamation projects remains a foundational civic theme in the Pacific Northwest.
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