Shafter Wasco Irrigation District History
The lands within the District prior to 1907 were owned by a large land company and were used for grazing purposes. Due to extremes of climatic conditions, the area was bypassed by most travelers. In the winter, the land was marshy, and in the summer, high temperatures and scarcity of potable water forced the travelers to the foothill areas to the east. In 1907, approximately four hundred farm families from all parts of the United States settled in the local area. The initial settlement was the result of activities of the California Home Extension, which was organized for group colonization. Land was purchased by the original group at an average price of $22.50 an acre for farms of 10 to 40 acres in size.
As a result of the long, dry, hot summers and an average rainfall of 6.53 inches, the first settlers realized the need for irrigation. The District area was one of the first important farm areas in California to have it's crop production based entirely on pump irrigation. The first domestic well drilled in Wasco was to a depth of 66 feet and cost $66. Production from this early well was 2,200 gallons per minute through use of a 50 horsepower gasoline-driven centrifugal pump. The decline in the groundwater table was very gradual until 1921 indicate that the increasing number of pumps to serve larger irrigated acreage created, with few exceptions, a decline in the groundwater table. The progressive lowering of the District groundwater averaged 2.3 feet per year, from 1921 to 1949.
The Shafter-Wasco Irrigation District was organized by Shafter-Wasco farmers on September 21, 1937, after careful studies of the needs and problems peculiar to the area and on the legal advice of James Burke, a Visalia attorney. The purpose of the District was to find the ways and means of replenishing rapidly dwindling underground water supplies. The first groundwater-recharging attempt was a joint venture between the newly formed District and the Kern Water Storage District. The operation of the percolation ponds appeared to be uneconomical because of silting and sealing, so the Shafter-Wasco Irrigation District withdrew its support.
With the start of construction of Friant Dam on November 5, 1939, a future source of water for the District became a definite possibility. Even with supply of supplemental water in sight, considerable agitation for the dissolution of the District occurred in 1941. This resulted in an election on November 12, 1941, to determine whether or not the District should continue its operations. Many of the voters who opposed the District in 1941 are now among its staunch supporters. This in attitude, resulted from the increasing rate of the lowering of the groundwater levels and positive assurance of Central Valley Project water.
The District formally applied to the Bureau of Reclamation for Central Valley Project water to serve the 37,528 acres within its boundaries on February 5, 1946. Service of water to the District was to be from the Fraint-Kern Canal, which passes close to the District's eastern boundary. Many meetings were held with Bureau of Reclamation representatives in an attempt to arrange for a contract providing a supply of water and for a preliminary design and cost estimate for an irrigation system to serve District lands. On February 11, 1955, the Board of directors of the Shafter-Wasco Irrigation District executed a contract with the United States providing for water service and for the construction of a distribution system. The District received its first water under this contrast in 1957. The District's distribution system was constructed for $8,366,979 by the Bureau of Reclamation. The repayment contract for the system requires that this amount be paid back to the government by the year 2002, in 80 semiannual payments of $104,587.24. The District's water service contract expired at the end of February 1995. The District then entered into a 3-yaer interim water surface renewal contract under the Central Valley Project Improvement Act of 1992.
The District, in cooperation with North Kern Water Storage District, installed interconnection facilities between the districts' distribution systems in 1993. The districts then established a groundwater banking water exchange agreement in which surface water in above average water years, the water will be returned to the Shafter-Wasco Irrigation District for delivery to its water users.
The District, in cooperation with Semitropic Water Storage District, constructed an interconnection pipeline and pumping plant to connect the distribution system of the two facilities in 1995. The districts also established a groundwater banking water exchange agreement similar to the Shafter-Wasco Irrigation District- North Kern Water Storage District agreement. The interconnection pipeline and pumping plant project cost $3,790,775. The repayment agreements for the project require that the District pay back its $2,206,395 share of the State of California loan by the year 2016, with annual payments of $136,844.
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