The Rural Mail Carrier's War on Irrigation Runoff
An irate rural mail carrier threatens legal action against local farmers for washing out the roads.
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.
“Blankety blank!” said Ed Mann, carrier on rural route No. 2, as he puffed into this office Saturday afternoon. “I want to tell ye irrigation water is going to cost some of those Highlanders a blankety blank site more than $9 an acre this year if they don’t stop letting it run into the roads. I have been talking my head off trying to get Jim Clements and Henry Thamke to spend a little money on the Highland roads. No sooner does the road crew get a bad place fixed up than some blankety blank farmer lets his irrigation water slop over and wash all the work away. The next rancher that lets his water spill I’m coming down town and have a warrant sworn out for his arrest. I don’t give a whoop if it’s my own dad.”
“No sooner does the road crew get a bad place fixed up than some blankety blank farmer lets his irrigation water slop over and wash all the work away.”
The struggle between agricultural irrigation practices and maintaining rural public infrastructure is a century-old conflict that remains familiar in irrigated regions across Eastern Washington.
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