San Diego County CA Archives History - Books .....Water 1888 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/copyright.htm http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 20, 2006, 9:34 pm Book Title: The City And County Of San Diego CHAPTER XII. WATER. THUS far the land has been estimated as plow land pure and simple. Ninety-five per cent of it needs no clearing whatever, none of it at present needs fertilization and for many kinds of products never will need any. It does however need water. The ways and possibilities of watering are so numerous and varied, there is such difference in the distance of the underground water, such differences in the amount of rainfall, that it has been impossible within the limits of a reader's patience to consider the water question in connection with each tract. It will be necessary therefore to treat it generally using particular localities only to illustrate a principle. As we have seen in our first trip from coast to mountain-top the rainfall increases with elevation. There are four different rain belts caused by this change, and the whole county is subject to its influence. We find however other changes for which we cannot account in this way. Thus Fallbrook has generally more rain than many other places having a greater elevation and distance from the coast; while the coast line above the Santa Margarita River has generally more than the coast below. Still the general rule is that the rainfall depends upon elevation, especially where a broad tract is elevated. The general impression that San Diego is a dry country has been caused by the constant publication of the rain record of San Diego City to prove that it has the best climate in California, to wit, the driest. An ordinary reader would infer that this represented the rainfall of the county. The following is the rainfall by seasons for San Diego City for fifteen years. This record is compiled by the signal service observer himself at the U. S. Signal Station at San Diego, and is the only accurate one yet published. All others are too low:— YEARS. INCHES 1871-72 7.18 1872-73 7.41 1873-74 14.95 1874-75 5.48 1875-76 9.40 1876-77 3.05 1877-78 16.10 1878-79 7.81 1879-80 14.48 1880-81 5.20 1881-82 9.44 1882-83 4.92 1883-84 25.97 1884-85 8.00 1885-86 16.62 It will be seen from this that the rainfall is very variable. Such is the case all over California. The difference between the different rain belts is most apparent in the years of very low rainfall. The second rain belt is best shown by the rainfall at Fallbrook, where we have a record of the last eleven years as follows:— YEARS. INCHES 1875-76 17.51 1876-77 8.75 1877-78 24.84 1878-79 8.52 1879-80 20.45 1880-81 11.45 1881-82 12.24 1882-83 10.60 1883-84 40.25 1884-85 12.78 1885-86 20.50 Under this rainfall well-tilled land has never failed to produce good crops. The third rain belt, best represented by Bear Valley. Santa Maria. Viejas, and similar elevations within that range, has about thirty-five per cent more rain than Fallbrook. The fourth, or high mountain belt, is best represented by the rainfall of Julian four thousand two hundred feet high and about forty miles from the coast. We have only five years of reliable report. YEARS. INCHES 1979-80 30.03 1881-82 29.28 1880-81 25.89 1882-83 41.31 1883-84 61.42 A record of the snow was kept in only one of these years, 1882-83, when it was five feet, making seven inches of water, which are included in the 41.31 inches. Reference to the San Diego table shows this to be the driest winter on the coast since 1877. As a large proportion of the water at this elevation is every year precipitated in snow, especially in wet years, it will be safe to add about twenty per cent for snow to the other four years. In 1881-82 there were over five feet of snow at Julian in a single storm. This snowfall increases of course with elevation and on the high mountains it often takes weeks to melt off. Following the analogies of elevation from the coast upward it would be safe to add at least thirty-five per cent more for the next one thousand feet of elevation. It is well known that the precipitation at the Cuymaca is considerably greater than at Julian. The average rainfall is doubtless fifty inches at five thousand feet. This high rain belt embraces about forty townships, being one thousand four hundred and forty square miles, or nine hundred and twenty-one thousand six hundred acres of land. As most of this is quite steep hill-side with a tight soil, as the rain falls very rapidly and the snow melts fast under the warm sun, the amount of water that runs off is fully sixty percent. Of the remaining forty per cent fully thirty per cent finds its way seaward under-ground, trickling out in thousands of springs and rivulets which in the mountains combine their water into little brooks and run all summer, but as they approach the coast sink in sand, or into the soft granite bed-rock or old under-ground channels and disappear. The drainage of this broad highland area forms seven rivers which in wet winters often carry water enough all the way to the coast to float a large steamboat. They are often impassible for days at a time. During the summer they generally sink into their deep beds of sand and under-ground channels, and cease running above-ground, except in a few spots where a small thread may run for half a mile or so. Water may always be found in abundance a foot or two below the surface of the sand; but generally there is no flow above-ground worthy of mention until we reach the mountains, though in years of excessive rain these rivers flow to the coast all summer. In many years of low rainfall the excess above the summer flow is only in the mountains, the water, though in abundance there, serving only to fill up the sand and under-ground channels below. In such years, large streams pouring from the mountains are swallowed up within ten miles or less after leaving the steep, rocky channels, and reaching the sand beds of the lower levels. The irrigation possibilities of this county are far beyond what they are generally supposed to be even by old residents. The lowest rainfall recorded anywhere on this area of highland in fifteen years, was at Mesa Grande in 1877, where at an elevation of three thousand five hundred feet the fall was twenty-four and one-half inches. At Pine Valley, thirty miles south, and same elevation, the rain gauge for the same year gave twenty-five inches. Reducing the percentage of water running off to forty per cent we have about ten inches. Twenty inches being sufficient for full irrigation, we have water enough lost by surface drainage to irrigate four hundred and fifty thousand acres of land, to say nothing of the amount that afterward drains from below the surface. And this for the driest season yet recorded. As a matter of fact, however, water that will cover land ten inches deep will serve very well for irrigation, though it is not enough for the best results. The proportion of this drainage that can be secured for irrigation cannot be easily estimated, as it is in most cases merely a question of what expense the present value of the land will justify. There are many places where large reservoirs may be made in the mountains to catch the flood waters there, many others where they may be made in the lowlands and water from the mountains led into them, many others in the lowlands where dams may be made to catch the waters of wet winters and hold them over for dry ones. Several large schemes of this sort are already projected. The Hemmet Valley Reservoir Company will build a dam one hundred and ten feet high in the San Jacinto Mountains and irrigate a part of the San Jacinto plains. The San Marcos Water Company will irrigate by reservoirs the fine country around Encinitas and on each side along the coast. In time the San Luis River will be brought upon San Marcos. Escondido, and the mesas about Oceanside. The San Luis Rev Flume Company is already at work upon this great project. The Otay Valley Water Company has been incorporated to irrigate by means of a large reservoir, with a dam of one hundred feet in height, the Otay Valley and adjoining mesas. The Fallbrook Water and Power Company is now at work to bring water from Temecula River upon the Fallbrook country. The Sweetwater Valley Water Company is incorporated to build a twenty-five foot dam in the Sweetwater River at a narrow gorge upon the Jamacha Rancho, and irrigate part of the Jamacha and National Rancho below, conducting the water from the dam with a flume and pipes. This company has already made the necessary surveys and begun condemnation proceedings for right of way, etc. The Land and Town Company have about finished a large dam in the Sweetwater, six miles east of National City, which is to be ninety feet high. From this the water will be taken to the best part of their lands below National City, and will also supply National City with water for household use. The Mission Valley Water Company is at work to bring water from the San Diego River upon the Mission Valley. These four last enterprises, in connection with the one next mentioned, will reclaim four-fifths of all the dry lands within ten miles of the bay, and whenever it will be safe to trust a flume outside of the American line, the Tia Juana may be brought in from Mexico to reclaim some twenty thousand more. The most advanced of all these projects is that of the San Diego Flume Company, which intends taking the waters of the San Diego River thirty-five miles back from the coast. This line is now under rapid construction, the two principal dams are done, and the whole line is graded and tunneled, sixteen miles of flume built, and the whole will be done to San Diego by June 1, 1888. The Santa Maria Land and Water Company will put in a large dam above Ramona to irrigate the lands thereabout, although very little is needed on that rain belt. In addition to these large systems there are numerous ways in which water enough for a few hundred or a thousand acres may be had. In almost every valley water may be stored to some extent. Long, low dams may be made of simple earth, as in India. These are quite safe up to about twenty feet without any puddle wall, and can be made by home labor, without any engineering skill. In the higher lands there are scores of small streams whose waters may be piped or flumed out. There are hundreds of springs whose waters piped into a cistern and saved will irrigate all the land one needs. Hundreds of others may be tunneled out and the flow of water increased from ten to fifty-fold. Water may be pumped, or drawn by under-ground pipes, from wells sunk in river beds or washes, and horizontal wells may be driven into a thousand hill-sides and reach a fair supply of water where none now shows upon the surface. Artesian water has been found in some places, and doubtless exists in more. At San Jacinto there are now one hundred and five flowing wells, made by boring into old river beds about one hundred and fifty feet below the present banks of the river. All over the valley lands water is easily found at from ten to forty feet in abundant supply, for windmills or other power, and nearly all valleys have some wet ground where irrigation is unnecessary for any purpose. The average depth of water in wells is less here than in the East, owing to the different formation of the country. Irrigation is also unnecessary on nearly all the highest lands, and on the highest rain belt might be only a detriment for most things. Many of the lowland valleys and slopes do surprisingly well with nothing but good cultivation, especially when the subsoil is clay or red granite, which hold water like sponges. On the lowlands generally, irrigation is, however, necessary for some things, and on the mesas is needed for nearly everything except grain, which is irrigated nowhere south of the San Joaquin Valley. As a rule, whatever can be done without irrigation can be far excelled by it, provided it be not done to excess and be accompanied by thorough cultivation. Los Angeles County, where they have practiced irrigation and cultivation side by side, combined and separate, for many years, upon all kinds of soils, and generally under abundant rainfall, is the best place to study the various applications of the two systems of irrigation and cultivation only. Both are invaluable in their way, but their proper combination leads to the most marvelous results on earth. It is not always necessary that irrigation be continued all summer. It is not to keep things alive through months of rainless weather that irrigation is needed in California. There is little trouble in doing that. Many things need no irrigation later than June, and many more do well enough with the ground well wet down by the middle of May. In many places where water cannot be obtained in summer plenty may be had in winter and spring, and in many others where a summer flow would be too expensive to maintain, a winter flow is easily and cheaply secured. A careful estimate made by the writer places the amount of land irrigable in this county by all systems, of both winter and summer irrigation (except vertical and horizontal wells or tunnels) at about three hundred thousand acres. This supposes the first cost to be not greater than $50 an acre. Generally it will not exceed $30 for the first cost, with an annual cost of about $4.00. The amount irrigable by wells and tunnels and small dams can hardly be estimated at much less than two hundred thousand acres more, as it is solely a question of expense. When we recollect that the greater part of the splendid prosperity of Los Angeles County is due to about ninety thousand acres of irrigated land, it is easy to see what the future will do for San Diego County. And at the ever-increasing ratio in which people of wealth, weary of Eastern winters, and determined to have a home in Southern California at any cost, are pouring into it, the development of all irrigation facilities is not far ahead. Thus far only simple methods have been used all through South California. But these have drawn about all the water obtainable in those ways, and the whole South is about entering a water-development era that will leave the past in the shade. When that time is complete San Diego County will stand in the front line. Additional Comments: From: THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO. ILLUSTRATED, AND CONTAINING BI0GRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN AND PIONEERS. SAN DIEGO, CAL. LEBERTHON & TAYLOR 1888 File at: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ca/sandiego/history/1888/cityandc/water301nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/cafiles/ File size: 15.4 Kb