Los Banos Rotary Club History
Bates Sees Good Water Year Ahead

C. W. Bates, secretary manager of the Central California Irrigation District, Tuesday noon told members of the Los Banos Rotary Club that irrigation water prospects in the area has improved considerably in the past month, and demand at the present time is less than the regular entitlement. There is no question, Bates said, but that landowners within the four local canal companies will have sufficient water for all normal crop demands.

Bates recalled that just a month ago, with no valley rainfall and little snow in the Sierra Nevadas, water prospects generally throughout the valley were desperate. Even in this area, with a stabilized flow from the Delta-Mendota canal, the companies were unable to supply the demand for early season irrigation, with the CCID's eight wells operating, plus several private wells which were being operated on a day, lease basis by the company. Today, no deep well water is being used, and current demand is less than the available supply.

Bates said at present the CCID and local mutual canal companies are receiving water from the Bureau of Reclamation on about the same basis as last year, which proved the most plentiful water year in recent history. Though the proposed revised exchange contract with the Bureau has still not been definitely agreed to, Bates said progress is continuing on the proposed contract and all parties feel confident that the contract will be ready for approval in its final form within the next few weeks.

Bates pointed out that with all the current talk of major canal and reservoir projects throughout the state, we in this area are apt to Jose sight of the importance of our own area in relation to the entire state. The four local canal companies, he said, represent a total of 250,000 acres, and is the second largest irrigation group in the state, exceeded only by the Imperial Valley Irrigation District. The CCID alone is the sixth largest irrigation district in the state, with 159,000 acres—just a bit smaller than the Merced Irrigation District, which ranks fifth.

In water usage, Bates pointed out that last year the four companies used 840,000 acre-feet of water, or 4/5ths as much as all other irrigation water users in the Central Valley Project.

Bates paid high tribute to the late T. C. Mott, stating that it was his engineering genius plus intense personal love for this area that was in large measure responsible for the very secure water rights that this area holds on its water supply.

Traces History

Bates recalled that the CCID is the one mature development of the former Central California Mutual Water District, organized on a voluntary basis in 1944 with 750 members. The CCID was itself born in October 1951, when approval of the district was given by the voters at a special election. Two years later the people voted a bond issue of $4 ½ million to purchase the San Joaquin Canal System, and they took over actual operations of the utility in January last year.

Bates briefly recounted some of the improvements made in the system in the first year of operation, stressing the value of the 3-way radio system construction of new weirs, decentralization of operational departments for closer coordination with the farmers, and improvements in employee relations by institution of health and life insurance program.

In the opening year, Bates reported, irrigation water cost the farmers of the CCID an average of $1.57 per acre-foot, one of the very lowest rates in the state. Total per-acre cost of water amounted to about $487 per gross acre, or $5.08 per net acre of land irrigated.

Roby said one such case uncovered through investigation by the Bureau of Claims was a Fresno woman who had made a comfortable living by drawing on insurance for an supposedly dislocated shoulder. However, her index card showed she filed a similar claim in Phoenix, Arizona. Subsequent investigation revealed she had a trick shoulder "which she could throw out at will."

"But the payoff case," Roby said, was a man who claimed permanent paralysis only to face a paternity suit which occurred during the period he was allegedly paralyzed."

There are nine branches of the Bureau of Claims in the United States, the speaker explained.

Another man nearly succeeded in ruining the reputation of many fine restaurants, Roby said, by sitting down to his meal and swallowing a handful of rubber tacks.

May 20, 1955

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