 |
||||||||||
|
|
 |
|||||||||
 |
||||||||||
Water Investigations Begin The first investigation of California's water resources began in 1873 when President Ulysses S. Grant commissioned an investigation by Colonel B. S. Alexander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Alexander’s report, completed the following year, surveyed the Central Valley's irrigation needs and recommended systematic development of the Sierra watersheds. The state followed with its own study in 1878 when the State Engineer's office was created and filled by William Hammond Hall (sidebar). His comprehensive study, conducted most intensely between 1878-83, produced an impressive body of work that included drainage and river channel investigations with recommendations for flood control and navigation improvements on the Sacramento, Feather, Yuba, and Bear rivers and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Irrigation surveys contained maps; climatic, geographic, geologic, and hydrologic data; soil profiles; well inventories, and summaries of irrigation practices. Also under his direction, a permanent system of more than 200 stream gauges was installed. Overall, Hall's report concurred with the Alexander report that the waters of the Central Valley should be developed for the benefit of the state. The concept of a statewide water development project was first raised in 1919 by Lt. Robert B. Marshall of the U.S. Geological Survey. He proposed transporting water from the Sacramento River system to the San Joaquin Valley then moving it over the Tehachapi Mountains into Southern California. His proposal led to the first plan for a state-operated water project. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
 |
||||||||||
