Senator Thomas. What is the duty of a second-foot of water in California?

Mr. Lehane. I am glad to have that question asked of me, because if you ask that question of a man from San Francisco he would tell you 160 acres of something else; but when Mr. O'Shaunessy said it was 160 acres to Mr. Taylor, of Glenwood Springs, that representative said to him, "Well, Mr. O'Shaunessy, in western Colorado we only estimate for 50 acres."

Senator Thomas. Well, I think that was a little more than twice too much.

Mr. Lehane. It was three times too much. He also said that in the eastern part of the State-I do not know anywhere where it runs up higher than 50, but it is 50 generally.

I have a copy here of Wiel's water law in which the duty of water in the various States is collected. In almost all of the western States it is 70 acres. That is the duty-70 acres to the second-foot.

This year by actual experience we have used the water, and it has run somewhere around 60 acres. In actual practice 60 acres to the second-foot perhaps might be adequate; but I have figured out here on the back of one of these documents how much water you are allowing us under this Raker bill, and it--

Senator Thomas. You are referring to the 6,350 feet provided for in the bill.

Mr. Lehane. Yes. Under the division which we have in accordance with our agreement with the Turlock-Modesto irrigation district, we are entitled to 740 feet of water. The Raker bill says we are to get 2,350 feet. The Raker bill recognizes our right to 2,350 feet and no more. Now, as a matter of fact, I just said that under the Raker bill you allow the Turlock-Modesto district 2,350 acre-feet.

Senator Thomas. And under some contingencies 4,000.

Mr. Lehane. That is in times of flood water and not under ordinary circumstances.

In our agreement with Turlock, the Modesto district gets 750 feet of that. The Garfield permit talked about 850 inches, but, as a matter of fact, the Garfield permit in no way regulates the supply of water between the two districts, which is governed by a contract between us. At the present time we divide it roughly about two to one. They take two-thirds and we take one-third. As a matter of fact, however, they have shown their teeth a little, and I suppose that before long we will be getting only what we are entitled to under our agreement. If under the Raker bill 2,350 feet of water was turned out, this year we had a little over 700 feet in our canals. Therefore we have 700 feet in our canals, and we would be able to get around with that just once a month and irrigate; where is the balance going to be irrigated? We will have the magnificent sum of 24 second-feet of water to do that with.

Senator Thomas. Will this 2,350 second-feet constitute your sole supply?

Mr. Lehane. It will.

Senator Thomas. You have no other source of supply?

Mr. Lehane. No, sir.

Senator Norris. Have you used more than that in the past?

Mr. Lehane. We have not used more than that in the past, and I will tell you why we have not.

Senator Norris. What I want to get at is the local situation. I do not know what your law in California may be on that. I do not think we can take away from you anything you are entitled to under the law, even though we said you are going to do it. Does this bill permit you to take that to which you are entitled under the law? That is what I want to get at.

Mr. Lehane. Here is what we think: We think that when we get there under a bill that gives us 2,350 feet of water and says that that is enough, and if we accept it we think we will have a mighty hard time to go into any court and convince them that amount of water is not enough for us.

Senator Norris. Have you filings?

Mr. Lehane. We have filings; yes, sir.

Senator Norris. Is there any contest over those filings?

Mr. Lehane. There is no contest over those filings. As I was saying, here is what I think would ordinarily happen. Suppose this Raker bill passes. Out of the dam they will turn out to us 740 feet of water. We are enlarging our ditches and we have been enlarging them for five years by little dinky annual taxes, with which we construct a flume at a time, you might say. It is just like the little dinky farmers handling of all those things. They just do it by piecemeal. They cut off the dog's tail a little at a time so it won't hurt him. Every year we put in a new flume or a new improvement, however. We make a fill, and then we concrete it.

This new ditch is big enough to carry fourteen to fifteen thousand second-feet of water, and it is just halfway down from the La Orange dam to where it ought to be. We water users have been working for years for bonds, but we have never been able to get them up until this year. However, I must say that we have developed our water supply at a reasonable rate. The board complied with the law and our filings are good.

Senator Norris. How much water do those filings give you?

Mr. Lehane. They are filings on all that we could beneficially use.

Senator Norris. How much would that give you?

Mr. Lehane. If we used 70 inches, which is the statutory amount in a great many States-six or eight States-it would be 1,177 second-feet. Now, then, that would leave us, say, 417 second-feet. In other words, if we use the water just as we are using it now, we have to have over 400 more second-feet than we are carrying in our canals how to give us the same service we are now getting. We are not getting the same service now. As a matter of fact, I was talking with a very intelligent farmer over there and he agrees with everything I have said. We have extreme heat in the summer, as you know, and the soil is poor. I have been in Idaho where you can put on heavy land and it will not soak through. In our country we are subject to fairly high winds through the Golden Gate and down that way. You can put water on land and a fresh wind springs up and dries it down several inches before you know it. We lose water very rapidly, and it takes more water than it does in those northern sections.

Senator Thomas. What is your construction of section 11 of this proposed bill? I would like to hear you on that.

Mr. Lehane. I have no doubt it was put in with the best of intentions, but if any living human being can tell me where it will do us a particle of good, I will be tickled to death to hear it.

Senator Thomas. That is what I want to hear you on now.

Mr. Lehane. Tell us how the Raker bill is going to work for our advantage. They have the water in the Hetch Hetchy; they start downstream with it; it is their stored water, and they have filed on it, and will you tell me how we can take it away from them? At the present time we have no statutory method of defining our rights. We have a conservation law, held up by the referendum. The general impression is that it will not carry. However, it is a start in the right direction; but it is going to fall by the wayside, I guess. The result will be that we are going to be thrown into the courts, and we will fight and fight and fight with San Francisco over that water question. I know what that litigation means; I can look ahead and see no finish to it at all. This is what it will do: One ditch will litigate the next ditch; the next ditch will litigate the next ditch. And they will take that up with each other right around he ring, just in a circle.

Senator Thomas. Yes; I have been all through it.

Mr. Lehane. When they get through with that, some fellow on the ditch will start in with his neighbor. Maybe 300 farmers will be litigating all the time on this.

Senator Thomas. And they are apt to enforce their rights with a shotgun and a revolver, too.

Mr. Lehane. Yes; and every man will have a revolver and a shotgun.

Senator Norris. What I would like to get is your idea on this subject. Let me illustrate: Suppose instead of this being a San Francisco filing, some other water district filed on this water San Francisco is going to take. As between you and them he would not get it under your law. Have you any legal claim?

Mr. Lehane. We have absolutely no legal claim to the water in the Hetch Hetchy, and San Francisco has absolutely no legal claim to the water in the Hetch Hetchy.

Senator Norris. That is true.

Mr. Lehane. But we have the moral right to the water in the Hetch Hetchy, because we are on the Tuolumne watershed and it is a universally conceded matter that the water should go to the people on the watershed of the streams where they live.

Senator Norris. That looks like a reasonable proposition, but I want to call your attention just to this now. I think you have been represented here before the committee of the House and the Senate. You had a representative there. As I understand it-I have not seen the records-but the balance of the committee felt that way; your people whom you represent here were satisfied with the provisions in this bill.

Mr. Lehane. I wonder if that looks as though they were satisfied-these telegrams to which I referred.

Senator Norris. I want to ask you now is or is not that true? Has not this delegation represented your people before the committee?

Mr. Lehane. I suppose I will have to explain it. That takes time, and valuable time, but I will do the best I can. In short words, this is how it happened. We sent down here last spring our representatives.

In the first place a number of us were very much exercised over this Hetch Hetchy question. We started in early on it to get our people wakened up to do something on the Hetch Hetchy question, because we knew the disposition of the San Francisco people, and we figured they would be here. You know what a farmer is. Actually the going off of an ordnance will not wake him up. He does not get good and busy until the thing has happened. You could not take any of those farmer people wake up at first. Finally they woke up, and they found that San Francisco was here.

A committee was rushed to Washington, and on that committee we had a new member for the Modesto irrigation district, and a new man does not pretend to be familiar with the water conditions. He said so. We have no engineer. We have been having revolutions out there in the water business; we had a new engineer; we came down here with an engineer. The engineer who represented us was Mr. Corey, from San Francisco. Mr. Griffin represented the Turlock irrigation district, and he is the champion handshaker of our country. They were supposed to represent both factions. They came down here, and this is what they did: Mr. Needham was employed by the districts. Mr. Church was on the ground, and I guess I will not be violating any confidence when I say this. At any rate the telegrams and letters were published in the papers out home. Word came home that San Francisco had an air-tight cinch on the Hetch Hetchy down here and that she had it all nailed down and copper riveted; she had it fixed.

Very well, what were we going to do? They suggested that we get together and compromise with the San Francisco crowd on this bill. See how many thousand miles we are away from Washington. No noise that we ever could make on the west side of the Rockies would come this far, unless it might be the Japanese question. It never gets to you. Very well. We wired back that we would decide when they got home. Then they started out on a trip up by Hudsons Bay or somewhere and did not get home until the first week in August. All this time we were champing on the bit to get at them, but we had to wait out of courtesy until they got home. We went out into the country with those fellows and debated this with the farmers. When they debated it they never got a farmer who was so favorable to the Raker bill that he would stand up and be counted. They could not get a single one.

The Chairman. Mr. Lehane, your time is up. If you want a few minutes more, I will grant it, but I hope you will try to conclude your statement in as short a time as possible.

Mr. Lehane. I was asked a question, and I have been answering it. The question is now, What are we going to do? I would have to say this-of course, irrigationists will understand this. When they first organized the Modesto district the town of Modesto was included in the irrigation district because those old hidebound California grain growers would rather have seen the water coursing down the river than to have seen it on the land. They just wanted to drive 10 mules and hire a man to follow the plow. Now, the town took them in and the irrigation district goes right into the town. They districted things so that a corner of two or three districts ran right into town, and then the fellows in town held the control of our district. The fellows in town did not get the benefit; the farmers were the fellows that got the benefit, but still the fellows in town had something to say about it. I could name one man who has practically dictated the policy of our board for 10 years. I go into his office and have a talk with him and I know that when he tells me something that I won't have to bother about spending any of my time with the board. I know what to do. All the water users were claiming that water and wanted to get water. How were they to get the water? Suppose to-morrow we put $20 an acre into this Hetch Hetchy business. Suppose we fellows in the town there vote for the bonds. Can you not see that when we vote $20 for bonds that that does not improve that town property. They have just twice that much to pay and they do not get a nickel for that unless their town property increases. The farmers get the benefit; the farmer gets the water.

Senator Norris. If they refuse to vote the bonds, you can not handle the proposition.

Mr. Lehane. This is what we are doing now. We tried to recall one of those fellows who was opposed to any movement of this kind. That took us over two years. Finally we did recall him; then they undertook to recall our fellows. They could not do it, but they kept us tied up so that we could not get this election on. It came on down to the election last November and then we wiped them up. There was nothing to it.

Now, what is going to happen to us? The man who has stayed up there all these years, the man who went in there with us, within 60 days after the general election last spring he faced around and was with the enemy again. And there we were. And there we were with no water and no water ditches and no nothing; and I tell you, Senator Thomas, talk about the man with the shotgun to settle the irrigation dispute-it was only the second last meeting that they had the marshal in there to preserve order when the board met. Oh, yes; a man who does not betray his constituents does not need any marshal to protect him; but the man who does betray his constituents does need several marshals to protect him.

What could we do when we went back? Our people were unanimously opposed to this Raker bill. We had to wait six months for the recall, and that time only elapsed only a few weeks ago, but just as quick as the six months were out we went after them, and as I said we were unanimous and we are unanimous, and if this committee here will give us a little time we will come down here with an official board, with official attorneys, official engineers, and we will make a showing to this committee and to this Congress that will put you on the right track. But if you give Hetch Hetchy to San Francisco now without any hearing of our claim you will have cut us right in two in the middle.

Senator Thomas. Does this 2,350 second-feet of water represent the filings of these two districts which antedate the filings of San Francisco? In other words, are there any priorities of rights in respect to the water filings? What I would like to know is if there is any priorities of right up to that time or whether there are priorities in excess of the 2,350 feet?

Mr. Lehane. I will say that I can not say positively-I know that our filings antedate the San Francisco filings.

Senator Thomas. I know, but I am speaking beyond the 2,350 feet.

Mr. Lehane. Oh, yes-5,000 feet. On page 102 of the hearings it gives the date [reading]:

The notice of appropriation filed June 21, 1890, and January 5, 1890, by the Modesto and Turlock district were in the usual form.

They started in to post these notices about the time they built their big dam.

Senator Norris. Beyond those two filings which you have referred. San Francisco would have the right to the water upon which they have filed, would they not, under your California law?

Mr. Lehane. They would.

Senator Norris. Would they only have the right to take additional water and give you more water in the territory already protected?

Mr. Lehane. The House committee in its generosity permitted the district to increase their area. You will appreciate the magnitude of the generosity when you realize that they did not furnish them any water for the increased acreage.

Senator Thomas. I would like to know how many feet you claim you have a vested right to in there?

Mr. Lehane. Under the law of the State of California, if we develop within a reasonable way our water system, we could, for instance, file on 5,000 acre-feet. And then we could develop right up to 5,000 acre-feet if we could get any reasonable conditions. We are actually using at the present time a little over 700 acre-feet, and under our written agreement on file with the Turlock irrigation district we are entitled to only 740 feet. We have been constructing by piece-deal this big ditch which will carry water for 1,400 or 1,600 second-feet. There was a dispute between our superintendent and the man in charge of construction as to the exact amount.

Senator Thomas. You say this section, Mr. Lehane, does not mean anything to you? Would it mean any more if we designated the number of second-feet of water to which you would be entitled?

Mr. Lehane. Here is the danger we are in. It is not an imaginary danger at all. We are in danger that if we come in before Congress and consent to that bill and consent to 2,350 second-feet, we will be placed in the position of admitting that is sufficient for us.

Senator Norris. Of course, you are taking into consideration the fact that your rights are all secured to you, are you not?

Mr. Lehane. If we come down here and say that is enough, how would we show that it is not enough? I say it is not enough. I say that, as a fair-minded man, or anybody else, that we are now using within 24 second-feet on 48,000 acres, and what are we going to do with the other 33,000 acres?

Senator Norris. I understand that you have enough for that which you are now irrigating.

Mr. Lehane. We do not have enough, or even enough now, for our land. For instance, take the Government project up in Oregon, where they wet their ground every two weeks. In our country we have intense heat every summer. You must irrigate the ground frequently. When we have an irrigation problem of this sort we have to have a larger ditch,and as it is now it takes 30 days to get around. It takes them 30 days to get to my land. When they got to my alfalfa this spring it was as dead as a doornail. When the water was put it revived somewhat, but it did not do well at all. Now, on my land-on that fine land-I only got just 3 tons of hay to the acre. We have a little strip of subirrigated country right in here [referring to map]. In there, where the roots of the alfalfa touch the water, they get seven crops, and they average 7 to 8 tons to the acre; whereas I only get three crops, and I will always have three unless I can get some water out of the Hetch Hetchy. But we are not scared because we can not get the Hetch Hetchy for ourselves, but we are scared because when San Francisco gets that water it is going to put us in such a position that they will have it forever. We will never get it.

Another thing I want to say in that connection is this: Water and power are synonymous. Up there before the water conservation committee in Sacramento I heard a friend of mine who is not as popular in San Francisco with some people as somebody else might be, make an argument in favor of the conservation bill.

Senator Norris. You are referring to Francis J. Heney?

Mr. Lehane. Yes. I refer to Frank Heney. He made a talk on the beauties of water power as the power of the future. It was true, every word of it. There is no question but that in 25 years we will be using electricity for every power use in the State.

Senator Norris. That is just the point. Have you made a computation to ascertain how much per acre you would have to bond yourselves in order to build a dam at Hetch Hetchy and bring that water out to you?

Mr. Lehane. Now, I do not think that that can be computed accurately. But there is no question about that, that that is the cheapest water power in the Sierras, and there is no question but that the cost as estimated by Luther Wagner gives approximately what it will cost. We can bond ourselves for $65 an acre. Frank R. Davis, chief engineer of the Reclamation Service, says that it will cost about $8 or $10 an acre in the Carson-Truckee project. Of course things are not nearly so favorable there as with us. All we want is 2 acre-feet of that. That would cost us $12 an acre. If we doubled that, if the Hetch Hetchy cost was twice as much as they say it will cost, it will be $24. It would not cost any more than that. It would not cost us any more than it would cost private individuals to do it.

Senator Norris. I wanted to get an idea about that because I want to know whether it is a practical proposition for you. How much will your land stand you now?

Mr. Lehane. Land right alongside is standing $56 an acre, and they are glad to get it.

Senator Norris. If you went up $2.50 how much money would that bring on the amount of land you have?

Mr. Lehane. If the Hetch Hetchy is as cheap as we think it is, and as everybody else thinks it is, it would give us 6 acre-feet of stored water and all we are asking for is 2 acre-feet. That would be $30 an acre.

Senator Norris. I do not know the number of acres you own.

Mr. Lehane. We have 80,000 acres in the Modesto alone. Just a word there, in connection with the West Side. The West Side has 100,000 acres of land. All they want is power. Power synonomous with water. Here is what they intend to do and what they can do. They can go down to the lower end of the San Joaquin River and the Sacramento, put in a pumping plant at what they call Old River. They will pump that out at the San Joaquin and run it down to the West Side and raise all the crops they need.

The Chairman. I do not like to call time, but you have now existed your time by about 15 or 20 minutes.

Senator Ransdell. If we give you all the water you need how much would be left for San Francisco?

Mr. Lehane. If we had all the water we need for our country in there there would not be any of it left in Hetch Hetchy. I want to call your attention to the fact that Lake Eleanor and Cherry Creek are good for 200,000 acre-feet of water. If you give us Hetch Hetchy to-morrow, San Francisco would have nearly the same amount at Lake Eleanor and Cherry Creek and they could get an additional supply sooner or later.

As I suggested before, it is possible for this Senate to appoint a committee and go out there and make some kind of an equitable division of that water, in which we would not be yoked up to San Francisco in any business partnership. We do not want to see you let San Francisco take so much and at the same time leave our country a permanent arid waste.

Senator Ransdell. As I understand, you claimed to have filed now on 5,000 feet of water. That will take up a good deal of the water in the Hetch Hetchy, will it not?

Mr. Lehane. Yes. In our district there we need that water. For our own district, for the Modesto and Turlock districts, comprise 250,000 acres of land. In our district we have 20,000 acres that have no water. East of the Turlock district is 25,000 acres more without water. It is all level land. I am not talking of the rolling land. In time all that rolling land will be under cultivation. On the west side of the river is 100,000 acres of land. If you give us the Hetch Hetchy we would have adequate water for the full season on our two districts of 250,000 or 260,000 acres of land, and we could reclaim 100,000 acres of new land.

Senator Ransdell. That would consume all the water of the Hetch Hetchy, would it not?

Mr. Lehane. It would consume all the water of the Hetch Hetchy; and yet San Francisco would be getting from her present sources all the water that is necessary from Cherry Creek.

Senator Pittman. As I understand it, what you are really asking is that we do not permit the building of this dam to enable San Francisco to carry out its appropriation of this water?

Mr. Lehane. Well, this Congress has in its power absolutely to say.

Senator Pittman. I understand.

Mr. Lehane. This Congress can say where that water shall go. You have to choose between us and San Francisco.

Senator Pittman. Whatever vested rights or whatever inchoate rights you have there which you may perfect can not be diminished or taken away from you by any act of Congress.