Secretary Udall Moves

Document: "Secretary Udall Moves," America, Febuary 13, 1965, page 4tions based usually on the purported inadequacy of a 160-acre holding (despite the fact that the capital value of such an irrigated unit in California may go as high as $300,000). In the Central Valley of California. the seene of by far the most grandiose irrigation schemes. a convenient geological feature of the area is commonly utilized by the exceedingly large landowners to benefit from but evade the effects of the law. Underlying millions of acres of this enormously fertile but semi-desert land is a vast underground reservoir into which natural forces have poured water for countless centuries. In recent decades. however, thousands of irrigation pumps have been sucking this reservoir dry to such an extent that in many localities the overlying earth has subsided a dozen feet or more. As the underground water table has sunk ever deeper, the cost of pumping the diminishing water supply has become almost prohibitive. In the face of such potential disaster, the large landholders of the area have not depended on their own well-publicized free enterprise, but rather have looked to the Federal government for relief. What they have attempted in the Westlands Water District may serve as an example of their tactices. This district, large though it is, is only a small part of the four million acres on the west and south sides of the San Joaquin Valley in Central California, almost all of which is owned in exceedingly large private holdings. The following table lists the major ownerships in this area. Acres Kern County Land Co. 348,026.46 Standard Oil Co. of California 218,485.48 Southern Pacific Railroad Co. 201,851.00 Tejon Ranch 168,531.07 Boston Ranch 37,555.58 Other private holdings (over 1,000 acres each owner) 1,323,821.57 The Westlands District comprises 352,000 irrigable acres. The pattern of ownership is comparable to that of the area of which it is a part. The Southern Pacific Railroad. for instance, owns over 60,000 acres within the district and another 60,000 acres in the immediately adjacent West Plains District, which is expected soon to be incorporated into Westlands. With consummate political skill, the powerful owners of these vast acreages have persuaded Congress to appropriate a half-billion dollars to construct the San Luis project, a combination of dams, canals, reservoirs and distribution systems. to collect water in northern California and transport it to the parched land of the Central Valley. By legislation and administrative legerdemain, the large landowners were able to have half the San Luis area declared a "State" service area and therefore presumably exempt from the Federal 160-acre limitation. The other half, the Westlands "Federal" service area, required another device to achieve their objective of benefit without limitation. That device has been an apparently innocuous clause in the Westlands water service and distribution system contracts, a so-called "unavoidable" clause. Stripped of legal and geological complications, this clause asserts that if the underground water table should be improved through the operations of the San Luis project (this is a chief and explicit purpose of the project) whether through the seepage of surface water or through the cessation of pumping by those who receive surface water, then this very sizable and clearly intended benefit to the excess landowners would be considered "unavoidable" and therefore not in violation of reclamation law. But for the alert, effective protest of a handful of concerned citizens and organizations, this maneuver most likely would have succeeded and the Southern Pacific and other corporate owners would have been enabled to euchre taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars while destroying the very justification for Federal reclamation activities. Early in 1964, an informal coalition of conscience and power was formed, including the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, AFL-CIO, National Farmers Union. National Grange, National Rural Electric Co-operative Association and others, all organizations that have a long-time commitment to the basic purpose of reclamation law. When the coalition's initial protests to the Department of the Interior were ignored, a Senate hearing was requested. Largely through the intervention of Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, the request was granted. Although the testimony before the Senate Interior Committee, chaired for this hearing by Senator Nelson, was overwhelmingly against the Westlands contract and focused particular criticism on the "unavoidable" clause, the Department of the Interior and the Westlands spokesmen kept insisting that everything was legal and proper. Realizing, therefore, that this avenue of protest was a dead-end street, the coalition shifted its efforts to the White House. In addition to a flood of letters, personal visits on the issue were paid to the President by, among others, George Meany, Walter Reuther, Jim Patton and Clyde Ellis. In blunt terms, these stanch allies of President Johnson told him that the whole reclamation program was in danger because of the Westlands contract. Each of the letters and visitors made it unmistakably clear that unless this circumvention of the law was rectified, the friendly and effective support of these organizations and others would be withdrawn America / February 13, 1965 222Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 2,159,610 byte