A $32,000 Dike Bet Pays Off in the Calispel Valley
Twenty teams race a June deadline to reclaim 6,500 acres, backed by ranchers who saved a crop last year and proved the dike would pay.
Jones & Onesrud have about twenty teams at work diking for Calispel district No. 1, and are confident that they will be able to complete their contract before June 15, according to agreement. They expect to soon have a largely increased force at work. The contract price is $32,000 and about 6,500 acres will be reclaimed. That diking will pay is shown by the experience of the ranchers at the north end of the Calispel valley, who got their dike completed last year in time to keep out the high water, and whose crops, which would have been a total loss but for the dike, netted them almost enough to pay one half the cost of the dike.
“That diking will pay is shown by the experience of the ranchers at the north end of the Calispel valley, who got their dike completed last year in time to keep out the high water.”
The Calispel diking project was an early bet that engineered flood control could turn wet ground into productive farmland. Modern drainage districts and floodplain managers still make the same calculation, now with heavier scrutiny of wetlands, water rights and who pays when the water rises.
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