Orland Project

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Orland Project History (72 KB)

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Construction

In the mid-nineteenth century, wheat symbolized California to the rest of the nation, in the same way oranges and grapes would a century later. First planted in the 1860s, large grain producing `factories` soon dominated the socio-economic life of the Sacramento Valley. Wheat was easy to grow and required little continuing investment. The most commanding of these early growers was Dr. Hugh J. Glenn. A Missouri dentist, Glenn joined the gold rush to California in 1849. In the early 1860s, Glenn began planting wheat, and by the end of the decade, he held 55,000 acres of land, of which 45,000 were in wheat. His acreage produced nearly a million bushels of wheat in a single season. Nicknamed the `The Wheat King,` Glenn earned the title as the leading grain farmer in the entire United States from 1874 until his death nine years later.(6) After Glenn`s death, low prices and poor crops meant the subdivision of his ranch. When the northern end of Colusa County split off in 1891, it was named Glenn County in honor of him. During the late 1890s, as the wheat yield decreased across the farming communities of northern California, grain farming shifted its emphasis from feeding humans to feeding livestock, and cattle ranching increasingly dominated the local economy.(7) Along Stony Creek, isolated individual attempts at irrigated farming began prior to 1880. In 1887, the first local irrigation district in the area formed under the California District Act. Like other organizations of the time, the irrigation district was abandoned due to financial difficulties. After failure of the initial attempt, the Stony Creek Irrigation Company incorporated to irrigate lands on the south side of the creek. Soon after, the Lemon Home Water Company formed for colonization and irrigation of a land tract north of Stony Creek. These two companies built 15 miles of ditches and irrigated almost 500 acres of land. On Stony Creek and its tributaries above Orland, 40 to 50 separate water diversions were built during this period.(8) At the turn of the century, the first indecisive steps taken to upgrade the town of Orland and the surrounding area could not break the area`s cycle of economic and social depression. The mood of the town`s 400 citizens was reflected in a `collection of more or less dilapidated wooden stores which, leaning against one another for support, expressed the discouragement felt by the people.`(9) There was no financial or emotional comfort found in the pastureland away from town. Where `yellow burned-up native vegetation held full sway,` nine landowners monopolized almost 9,000 acres, shutting out small farmers and the federal government. A consulting engineer to the United States Reclamation Service (USRS), H.T. Cory, later recalled the situation before Reclamation`s arrival. Then the entire Sacramento Valley consisted of great farms of `perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 acres owned by one person. . . `farmed by a drifting population employed only during the planting and harvesting season.` The migrant farmers working the valley had `no interest in the welfare of the county except in obtaining a few weeks` wages, which may or may not be spent in the neighboring towns.` Cory added that the only vegetables available in Glenn and Colusa Counties were `purchased from the Chinese vegetable vender (sic), who makes regular trips through the country.`(10) In this atmosphere, the U.S. Geological Survey identified several reservoir sites along Stony Creek and its tributaries. Unfortunately, most locals were `too poor, too skeptical and too discouraged,` to seek and support a large scale irrigation project. Undaunted, a few Orland residents used the Sacramento Valley Development Association to open contacts with the federal government to request construction of an irrigation project under the Reclamation Act.(11) At the close of the nineteenth century, a series of destructive frosts hit Southern California`s citrus crop. The combination of the `thermal belt,` and exhaustion of the soil due to dry-land farming convinced growers to transforming Orland from a bread basket to a center of citrus production. Immediately after the creation of the Reclamation Service in 1902, its managers looked to northern California to create a national reputation in the country`s most economically vibrant state. As one of the West`s most dynamic rivers, taming the Sacramento was the subject of much discussion among USRS staffers. In its first year of operation, the USRS investigated three sites in the Sacramento Valley. A year later, the USRS decided to develop 40,000 to 50,000 acres located on Stony Creek near the town of Orland. In February 1906, a water users` association formed and petitioned the Secretary of the Interior, Ethan A. Hitchcock. Their request extolled the fertility of the soil, the climate, and the advantages for future settlers. The appeal was well-received in Washington, D.C., because many within USRS saw Orland as a springboard to other, greater ventures in California. Superintendent Engineer of the USRS, J.B. Lippincott, wrote to Reclamation Director Frederick H. Newell, `The Sacramento Valley offers the greatest opportunity for irrigation development at the least cost, and with the least complications of anything I am familiar with in the State.`(12) The soil`s `fitness for a diversity of products` excited `the enthusiasms of the experts of the Reclamation Service.` Those experts `freely prophesy that when this land has been devoted to its highest use, but few farms will be of more than ten acres in extent.` The USRS`s `motive actuating it in all its reclamation work is not the sale of its land, nor is it the irrigation of so many acres, but it is the establishment of self-sustaining homes.` In its earliest stages, Orland was both a public relations project and stimulus to community growth as much as a working irrigation design.(13) In July 1906, USRS fielded a survey party and a diamond drill outfit along Stony Creek for four months. Simultaneously, the service appointed an engineering board to produce a detailed feasibility report. In November, the board recommended construction of a dam at East Park, a site 33 miles southwest of the town of Orland in northern Colusa County. The proposed dam would be 115 feet high and capable of holding 26,000 acre-feet of water. Hitchcock apportioned $650,000 for Orland on the conditions that landowners: pledge their lands to insure repayment to the United States under the terms of the Reclamation Act; and subdivide and dispose of their lands in tracts of 40 acres or less. Orlanders agreed to Hitchcock`s terms, and Secretary of the Interior James R. Garfield authorized the project on October 5, 1907.(14) Representing the first generation of Reclamation dam design, both Arizona`s Salt River Project`s Theodore Roosevelt Dam and Orland`s East Park Dam are curved, thick-arch structures. They symbolize the most elegant dam designs attempted by the Bureau. However, the similarities in age and design end upon closer examination. The chiseled rubble-masonry face of Roosevelt is twice the size of the smooth grey concrete facade of East Park. Not as imposing as the 280 foot high Roosevelt, the curve of East Park Dam is a reminder of the craftsmanship engineers and laborers practiced in Reclamation`s first projects. In August 1908, USRS opened 16 bids for construction of the East Park Dam, spillway, and dikes at the Orland Project office. On October 5, 1908, Reclamation announced the winning bid of $79,881.65 presented by the Stanley Contracting Company of San Francisco. The dam site is 33 miles southwest of the town of Orland. Most of the East Park`s construction and lateral and canal excavation came under the administration of Project Engineer W. W. Schlecht from March 1909 to October 1910. In the spring of 1909, Stanley assembled men, machinery, and materials at East Park Dam and work began on June 11. Materials reached the site over 18 miles of winding mountain road. The contractor`s force counted 38 men, including eight teamsters and 20 teams. The engineering and inspection force totaled four men. When summer dryness reduced the creek`s flow and allowed excavation, Stanley`s men pushed work hard, and in September hit bedrock fifty feet below the bed of the stream. On other fronts that year, spillway excavations began on August 16, and the dam`s first concrete poured two weeks later.(15) Heavy rainfall unleashed floods slowing progress on the dam. Between December 4 to 9, floodwater suspended work, washed out the cofferdam`s sheet piling for the cofferdam and carried the contractors` pile driver a mile downstream. Floods overtopping the incomplete dam interrupted work twice that winter, on January 24, 1910 and between March 19 and 22. In spite of those vindictive acts of nature, work progressed promptly as `the concrete men followed the contractors closely` after each storm.(16) The completed thick arch-gravity East Park Dam is 250 feet long at its crest as its wedge shape squeezes into a gorge of conglomerate. East Park is ten feet thick at the top and 86 feet thick at the bottom. It is 139 feet high above the foundation, boasts a radius of 275 feet, and contains 12,200 cubic yards of concrete. Twenty feet above the riverbed is a circular conduit which constitutes the main outlet, controlled by two 4 X 5 foot sluice gates seven feet apart. The outlet works are made up of a pagoda shaped control house, gate tower, four slide gates and a 24-inch-diameter cast iron sluice pipe. The spillway is about 2,000 feet away from the dam in a natural saddle and holds 1,090 cubic yards of concrete. The structure features nine vertical, semi-circular arches and has an effective length of 414 feet, with a capacity of 10,000 cubic feet. The completed dam cost $155,000. Construction conditions were among the safest of Reclamation`s early dams, as no one was killed and only three workers were reported injured from 1908 to 1910.(17) East Park Dam stores water at the similarly named East Park Reservoir. Water discharged from the reservoir flows in the beds of Little Stony and Stony Creeks to Miller Buttes, 41 miles away. There the water is diverted to a point where the Stony Creek breaks through the foothills and flows to the southeast through the valley to the Sacramento River.(18) Although work on many the dam`s secondary systems had yet to begin, the first project water flowed in the spring of 1910. Reclamation furnished water to 500 acres of land in and around the town of Orland. Those first to use East Park Dam previously received water from the company ditches dug 25 years earlier. The dam`s completion in June could not forestall a drought. Stony Creek usually dissipated by July, and a month later, the persistent dry summer determined that no stored water would be available for distribution for the rest of the year.(19) After two dry seasons, water users asked Reclamation to find a means of augmenting the water supply on the Project. Five miles northwest of Orland, Reclamation completed the Northside Diversion Dam to divert water into the North Canal to supply lands north of Stony Creek in the vicinity of Orland. The North Canal runs for a third of a mile along the Creek and went into service in 1913. Northside is a concrete gravity dam is 15 feet high with a crest length of 375 feet, and its final cost was $5,146. The North`s sister structure, the South Canal (also known as the South Main Canal) was purchased from the Stony Creek Irrigation Company. The canal travels 9.6 miles along Stony Creek southeast to Orland. The system delivers water directly to every 40-acre unit through 139 miles of canals and laterals and approximately 2,000 concrete control structures of various kinds. The waterway had to be rebuilt after engineers determined the old canal produced too much velocity for the amount of water necessary to irrigate the project. A major improvement to the canal involved the installation of an inverted siphon under Hambright Creek, five miles northwest of the town of Orland, and another siphon under the Southern Pacific tracks near Orland. Construction of South Canal concluded in 1916.(20) Two dry summers were also responsible for the creation of the East Park Feed Canal. In 1911 and 1912, run-off into the reservoir measured from a third to a fourth of its normal flow. Work started in 1913 on the East Park Feed Canal and concluded two years later. High spring run-off from Stony Creek travels seven miles down the feed canal and into the East Park Reservoir. Concurrent to the canal`s completion, the spillway was raised three feet higher. Workers moved on to the diversion structure for the feed canal, the Rainbow Diversion Dam. Located three miles west of the town of Stonyford, the concrete arch weir is 44 feet high and has an upgraded crest length of 271 feet. Completed in 1914, the rock-fill, concrete on wood piling dam cost $37,060 to build. The additional flow increased the East Park`s storage capacity from 46,000 to 51,000 acre feet. In order to fully use the additional storage, about 6,000 acres were added to the project, bringing its total acreage up to 20,500 by the mid-1990s. The laterals system encompassing the additional acreage was completed in 1915.(21) After USRS signed a separate agreement with the water users, the last phase of project development was the lining of the canal system. Reclamation placed 1.5-inch unreinforced concrete lining in various segments throughout the project`s canals from 1918 to the summer of 1924. The distribution system contains 16.9 miles of canals with a capacity from 50 to 300 cubic feet per second (cfs), and 139 miles of laterals with a capacity of less than 50 cfs. The total cost of canals, laterals and other structures was $276,000. Since 1924, ongoing lining reduced costs and water losses in areas of heavy transit and maintenance. The sum of all work on the Orland Project from 1908 to 1915 totaled $1.2 million.(22) One additional ceremony awaits the East Park Dam. Architects and Historians realized the faded allure of the concrete slab, with a touch of Buddhist inspiration straddling its top, was worthy of preservation. In the mid-1980s, East Park Dam was determined eligible for placement on the National Register of Historic Places, administered by the National Park Service. The hand of a benevolent Uncle Sam scooping a ditch toward the waters of Stony Creek and East Park Dam, nurturing orange groves in his wake, was not just an artist`s fantasy to promote the Orland Project in the 1920s. Many prospered soon after Reclamation`s arrival. In 1930, an Orlander of long-standing, A.E. Lindstrom, recalled that at the time of the completion of East Park Dam, the town`s dirt streets held `ruts deep enough to bury a calf. . . no lights, no water except out of individual wells,` and, `an irrigation ditch running through the principal business street.` No one involved with the project could have guessed how radically the town, its economy, and surroundings would change over the next decade.(23) Construction of East Park Dam was started on August 27, 1908, and completed in 1910. Northside Diversion Dam was built during the same period. Rainbow Diversion Dam and East Park Feed Canal were constructed in 1913-1915 when it was determined that insufficient water was being stored for project use. The original canal system was unlined, but a supplemental agreement with the water users signed in 1918 provided for concrete lining. Under the resulting program, 1.5 inches of un-reinforced concrete lining in varying lengths was placed throughout the summer of 1924. Since then, additional lining has been placed as required where heavy transit and maintenance costs were encountered. Stony Gorge Dam was started in 1926 and finished in October 1928. In April 1954, Northside Diversion Dam failed. Temporary repairs permitted water service during the 1954 irrigation season, and permanent replacement was made during the following fall and winter. The principal crops are irrigated pasture, wheat, alfalfa, hay, sorghum, olives, nuts, and citrus fruits. Dairying is an important business due to the mild climate, good market, and feed conditions. The hills and mountains west of the project are used extensively for grazing of sheep and cattle. This project has had dramatic results--the value of the crops in 1921 alone was $45,000 more than the value of the project lands in 1910, before the project. In 1991, the project irrigated 19,160 acres which produced $9.7 million in crops. East Park and Stony Gorge Reservoir areas provide campgrounds, including trailer space, picnicking areas, swimming, boating, and fishing, primarily for bluegill and largemouth bass. Reclamation manages the recreation facilities. Reclamation and resurrection hold two separate interpretations, but for Northern California`s Orland Project, both concepts speak of a region`s transformation from barrenness toward fertility. The Bureau of Reclamation`s first venture into California, Orland soon was overshadowed by more ambitious federal and state endeavors responding to the state`s insatiable thirst for water. The Orland Project represents a link to a lost, pastoral California of almond groves and orange trees, before highways, smog and decades of excess redirected the use of the state`s natural resources. A partnership of local farmers and the federal government led the resurrection of Orland`s soil, and redirected an agricultural community from financial and ecological bankruptcy to one that could support a variety of crops with the help of irrigation. Throughout its history, Reclamation has been criticized by any number of individuals and groups for its role in adapting the environments of the West. However, the Bureau`s work on the Orland Project initiated real social and ecological changes that noticeably improved the land and the lives of the people living off it. Described by one Reclamation employee in 1916, as `the project of no regrets,` Orland remains the rainbow`s end California once promised.(1) The Orland Project is in north-central California`s Sacramento Valley, 103 miles north of the city of Sacramento. One of the smallest projects ever tackled by Reclamation, Orland`s 20,000 acres is one percent of the Sacramento Valley`s total irrigable soil. The project incorporates parts of neighboring Glenn, Tehama, and Colusa Counties. The hub of the project, the town of Orland, is in northern Glenn County. The project is irrigated by Stony Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River. Flowing northward, the creek gathers water drained from the surrounding slopes of the Coast Range Mountains. The collected water irrigates lands on both sides of the creek near the town of Orland. The Orland Project comprises two main dams to store water (East Park and Stony Gorge), two diversion dams, almost 17 miles of canals, and 139 miles of laterals.(2) At the turn of the century, a railroad public relations man conjured a massive amount of hyperbole to encourage Easterners to come to the Sacramento Valley, a place in his words where `Italy is not more genial; France not more fruitful; Spain not more sunny; Egypt not watered by a more enriching river.` For once, corporately-fueled braggadocio reflected reality, as the valley is home to a variety of climatic and natural features from the different corners of the globe. Orland`s growing season lingers over 262 days from March to November. January is the coldest month with an average of 45 F, and July is the warmest at an average of 80 F. Average rainfall is 17.99 inches, most of which is measured between the first of November and the first of April. With hardly any snow, winter runoff occurs almost immediately after precipitation. The project has an average annual runoff of 410,000 acre feet.(3) More than the seasons and its soil, Orland is best known for a climatic peculiarity. Protected by mountain ranges to the east, north and west, Orland, and the Sacramento Valley, is warmed by a thermal belt. The belt`s moderate breezes mean white frosts are rare, and Orland has fewer frosts than other citrus growing zones in the state. Deadly frosts in 1913, 1922 and 1924 destroyed much of the citrus groves of southern California, but left untouched Orland`s crops. Additionally, the thermal belt allows Orland`s oranges to mature four to six weeks earlier than those in Southern California. The race from tree to table was important in the days of shipping by rail. Orland`s citrus often commanded `the high prices of the holiday trade,` when oranges were a special treat for Christmas.(4) The project`s soil is a variety of sandy, gravelly, silt and clay loams with no hardpan or alkali, and is considered some of the richest and most productive in the country, despite damage caused by dry-land farming during the late nineteenth century. The opportunity for Reclamation to revive the land to again match the splendid surrounding climate came after decades of reckless abuse by a coterie of dryland farmers.(5) The struggle of two classes locked in a land reform battle is usually associated with the French and Mexican Revolutions. But during the nineteenth century, a similar scenario festered in the Sacramento Valley. A change came about, not by bloodshed, but peacefully through irrigation. Argonauts, as gold seekers were called in the 1850s, passed through the western half of the valley, but a select few newcomers soon made their fortunes with ox and plow rather than pick and pan. In the early days of American occupation, a few men made quick fortunes as wheat or cattle barons.

Plan

The project plan provides for storage of water in East Park and Stony Gorge Reservoirs. Rainbow Diversion Dam and Northside Diversion Dam are the main diversion structures of the project. Rainbow Diversion Dam diverts water from Stony Creek through the East Park Feed Canal to East Park Reservoir to furnish a supplemental water supply for that reservoir. Northside Diversion Dam diverts water from Stony Creek into the North Canal for lands lying on the north side of the creek in the vicinity of Orland. Originally Southside Diversion Dam, located at the site of the present Black Butte Dam, diverted water into the South Canal for lands south of the creek. Since Black Butte Dam and Reservoir were completed in 1963, this diversion has been made directly from the reservoir. Black Butte Dam and Reservoir are not a part of the Orland Project. They were constructed by the Corps of Engineers primarily for flood control purposes in 1960-1963. By Public Law 91-502, October 23, 1970 (84 Stat. 1097), Black Butte is financially integrated and operationally coordinated with the Central Valley Project by the Bureau of Reclamation. Physical operation and maintenance of Black Butte Dam and Reservoir are retained by the Corps of Engineers. East Park Dam, on Little Stony Creek about 33 miles southwest of the town of Orland, was completed in 1910. The reservoir has a storage capacity of 50,900 acre-feet and stores surplus water for irrigation purposes. Releases and spills from the reservoir flow down Stony Creek 18 miles for re-storage in Stony Gorge Reservoir. The dam is a curved, concrete thick-arch gravity structure with a height of 139 feet and a crest length of 266 feet. The dam contains 12,200 cubic yards of concrete. A circular conduit 20 feet above the riverbed constitutes the main outlet. It is controlled by two 4 X 5 foot sluice gates seven feet apart. The outlet works are made up of a pagoda shaped control house, gate tower, four slide gates and a 24-inch-diameter cast iron sluice pipe. The spillway is about 2,000 feet away from the dam in a natural saddle and holds 1,090 cubic yards of concrete. The structure features nine vertical, semi-circular arches and has an effective length of 414 feet, with a capacity of 10,000 cubic feet. The East Park Dam was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places in the mid-1980s. Stony Gorge Dam, completed in 1928, is on Stony Creek about 18 miles downstream from East Park Dam, 5 miles west of Fruito, and 20 miles west of the town of Willows in western Glenn County. The reservoir, which has a storage capacity of 50,380 acre-feet, regulates flows along the lower reaches of Stony Creek and stores surplus water for irrigation purposes. Releases from the reservoir travel 22 miles down Stony Creek to the project`s diversion points. The dam is a concrete slab and buttress structure with 46 bays, a height of 139 feet and a crest length of 868 feet. It is one of the earliest examples of an Ambursen-type dam, which uses contraction joints between all face slabs and buttresses to help protect the dam against earthquakes. The outlet works at the base of the dam are designed to pass a little over 1,000 cubic feet per second through 50-inch diameter pipes. The spillway can discharge up to 30,000 cfs controlled by three 30 by 30 feet gates mounted on the upstream face of the dam. These overflow gates are operated by stems connected by electric hoists located in the spillway gate house on top of the dam. Stony Gorge Reservoir has a storage capacity of 50,200 acre-feet and a surface area of 1,280 acres. It extends upstream from the dam for five-and-a-half miles and stores the run-off from a drainage area of 275 square miles. Releases from the reservoir travel 22 miles down Stony Creek. A rehabilitation and betterment program in the late 1940s replaced rotting timbers on diversion structures, opened corroded spillway gates on Stony Gorge Dam, and restored lining on the North and South Main Canals. Rainbow Diversion Dam is on Stony Creek about 3 miles west of the town of Stonyford. Its function is to divert part of the high flows of Stony Creek into the 7-mile-long East Park Feed Canal and then into East Park Reservoir to supplement the natural inflow to that reservoir. The dam, completed in 1914, is a concrete arch structure with a height of 44 feet and a crest length of 271 feet. Northside Diversion Dam is on Stony Creek about 5 miles northwest of Orland. Its function is to divert water into the headworks of the North Canal. The dam is a concrete gravity structure with a height of 15 feet and a crest length of 375 feet. It was completed in 1913 and partially replaced in 1954. The rest of the dam was replaced in 1956. The canal and distribution system was designed to deliver water directly to each 40-acre unit in the project. It contains 16.9 miles of canals, including the East Park Feed Canal, 117.6 miles of laterals, and about 2,000 concrete control structures. Concrete lines 120 miles of the canals and laterals, and 5.6 miles of the laterals are in pipe. The Orland Unit Water Users` Association has operated the project since October 1, 1954.

Contact

Title: Public Affairs Officer
Organization: Mid-Pacific Regional Office
Address: 2800 Cottage Way E-1705
City: Sacramento, CA 95825-1898
Fax: 916-978-5114
Phone: 916-978-5100

Contact

Title: Public Affairs Officer
Organization: Commissioner`s Office
Address: 1849 C Street NW
City: Washington, DC 20240
Fax: 202-513-0575
Phone: 202-513-0305

Contact

Organization: Elk Creek Community Service District
Address: PO Box 117
City: Elk Creek, CA 95939
Fax: 530-968-5317
Phone: 530-968-5249

Contact

Organization: Orland Unit Water Users` Association
Address: 828 Eighth St
City: Orland, CA 95963
Fax: 530-865-7631
Phone: 530-865-4126

Contact

Title: Area Office Manager
Organization: Northern California Area Office
Address: 16349 Shasta Dam Boulevard
City: Shasta Lake, CA 96019
Phone: 530-275-1554

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