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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - North Fork Water Company - 06/14/1974 (Trip Along NF Canal with Horace Hinkley)June 14, 1974 TRIP ALONG NORTH FORK CANAL WITH HORACE HINKLEY Following is a memorandum of a continuation of a trip along the North Fork Canal with Horace Hinkley. The date of this portion of the Memorandum is June 10, 1974. The first part of the memorandum are statements made by Horace Hinkley in answer to questions posed by Rowe and Rickert as they pertain to a story of water diversion from Alder Creek made by the East Highlands Orange Company in early years. The first part of his statement was not recorded, however, the following was recorded: They spent a year or so measuring the water of Alder Creek and the orange company had Mr. Perry, whose daughter is Alice Van Bolden, and she has written this up and it appeared in the County Museum quarterly publication on a serial about East Highlands. Anyway, when she was a girl for two summers she lived up on Alder Creek because everyday her Dad had a couple of weirs and had to measure the flow of Alder Creek; that is, how much the Orange Company was diverting and how much was staying in the stream of Alder Creek and how much reached the Bear Valley System, the Santa Ana River. Who was he working for? He was working entirely for Mr. J.S. Edwards. As I understand it, the receiver for the Bear Valley Land and Water Company and Bear Valley Irrigation Company employed Isaac Ford and he went up there and confirmed or went over the measurements with Perry and submitted a report. I have never seen the report, but anyway he had enough data and then they went to court and the court transcript of that case, we have a copy. It is mostly pages of exhibits, you know, the flow, the time and all of the weir. But the upshot of the thing was that the court said that the water of Alder Creek belonged 100% to Bear Valley and so from that day on inasmuch as Mr. Edwards and the orange company had gone to this great expense and had this miles and miles of pipe. line that was diverting the water from Alder Creek into Plunge Creek and ~ then picked it up from Plunge Creek at the upper diversion and brought it into the high point of the East Highland Orange Company Ranch, then that diversion was simply treated as delivery on Bear Valley Stock, and SO that is the way we have run all these years until 1965. You didn't get any Bear Valley stock for it? Oh, no, no, he owned Bear Valley stock. It was delivery on the stock he owned. Instead of taking delivery out of the North Fork box he'd get and it would run oh, 30 inches then drop down to 10 inches. We've got all the figures in the office there. What's the deal? I assumed about 35 inches. All right 35. He got the 35 inches bit it was delivery on Bear Valley stock and every month we used to charge it out to delivery. If he didn't take it from Alder Creek, he would have taken it directly out of the North Fork system. That still goes? No, about 1965 flood why his pipeline went out. Section of it. Oh, couple of hundred feet. I went up there once to see just what it was and subsequent storms of '69, also along some of the pipe ~ show that at least a portion was taken out. For the past 10 years no diversion has occurred. It was too expensive to maintain the pipe- line and so they take the delivery out of the North Fork. What they have really done in effect they have transferred their Bear Valley shares that originally went with the East Highlands Orange Company Ranch over to the Sunrise Ranch; the Greenspot Ranch. See? Well, thats been going on for 30 years. But that briefly is the story of Alder Creek as it relates to the East Highland Orange Company property. Below the Orange Company intake on Alder is an intake used by the Edison Company and between the intake you would get rising water in that stretch. Well, now what happens if the Orange Company doesn't pick it up for most of the time there is too much water there for Edison to pick up. They pick up the capacity of their 8-inch pipeline. Their capacity is roughly, oh, let us say, 100 inches that Edison can pick up but most of the time like last year, there was at least 150 to 200 inches flowing out of Alder Creek all the time so that what is lost comes down into the Santa Ana River. The Edison has dried up the river at No. 1 powerhouse and so it never gets down here to the mouth so it just goes underground. Everyone benefits from the orange company or from the upper Alder Creek diversion. I can't conceive anybody that would fuss. The only thing you'd do you'd decrease some of the transpiration. But you would have no objection as far as Bear Valley is concerned. '" Oh, no! Do you suppose Edison Company would? How about North Fork? Would North Fork. ? No, because I assume... How about the underflow? Is it the underflow that shows up down the river? Well, it contributes to the underflow which helps out the Redlands tunnel down here at the mouth of the canyon, but it is so remote that I can't conceive if you want to put back on Alder Creek pickup. I don't see why Bear Valley should object. It was certainly done for almost 70 years. It was done - that practice, that right to obtain water. The map I have in the office shows two lines coming down Alder Creek; one way above and come down the West side and curves to Plunge Creek. That's right. Another one comes down the East side of Alder Creek and then drops just down about where the gauging station is. The old U.S.G.S. station'" on Alder Creek. Now is that the gauge? NOW, I don't know if that's the line. This map was made in 1902 or 1909. This is the end of Horace's statement re~ardin~ Alder Creek This is Belt No. 2 and we are still in the car Horace and Harold and myself. We are right now arriving at the mouth of Oak Creek. We are now starting at the mouth of Oak Creek where the North Fork canal crosses the creek in a concrete covered section on the west side of which commences a steel pipe. We're going to be walking along the steel pipe. The old tunnel on the west side of Oak Creek is plugged with concrete. The tunnel still exists but the tunnel is not used. Below the Oak Creek crossing is the Upper Savage box where water can be diverted from the pipeline into the box. This is Weir No.5 on the books, the markings of the canal. North Fork Weir No. 5 that is. It's on the station sheet for North Fork. The area westerly of the box is newly planted to avocados. As you pass through the avocado grove you come to a newly planted citrus grove. On the side of the hill, oh, maybe 20 feet above the planted area are remanents or a bench which contains the old North Fork Canal. As you walk westerly the young citrus grove again turns into young avodados and at that point the steel pipeline turns and goes up the hill to the North Fork canal. Right north of Weir Box No. 6, which is located right at the west edge of the newly planted avocados and about 50 feet east of an old citrus grove is a vent pipe on the steel line and north of it about another 100 feet is an adit to the old North Fork tunnel. The tunnel is about 75 feet back in the mountains from the face of the adit. This is known locally as Savage Canyon where the adit is located. From this point on the steel pipe is laid in the old North Fork Canal on the bench. The vent referred to above is the high point on the line between the mouth of Oak Creek and the area of the Savage Weir. The tunnel collapsed in 1969 and the Company decided to abandon the tunnel and use the pipeline instead. There is a point along the canal where to the North you can see an adit into the tunnel. The tunnel isn't very far below the surface of the ground at this point. The pipe replacing the tunnel is 30" 12-gauge steel welded joints. The pipe is wrapped with felt and most likely dipped. In many of the draws and north of the old canal line you can still see portions of the tunnel the top of which was about level with grade of the draws. Percy Hicks surveyed the tunnel in the early '20s and gave a line and grade. The old canal alignment was the 1885 or earlier canal and it was abandoned because of the fact that summer storms would come down and wash material into the canal thereby blocking the flow of water. East of Plunge Creek is a little draw with a lot of eucalyptus trees and up in that draw is the west portal of the tunnel that had been abandoned. The steel ~pe which replaced the canal empties into the canal about 150 feet southwest of the tunnel portal. Around from where the canal section starts there is a concrete trestle, a rather imposing structure~ over a _ small canyon. The trestle was built many years ago, at least Horace can't remember when it was built. The trestle is 82 feet long. It shows up in the stationing of the North Fork Canal. On the East side of Plunge Creek the canal section comes into a rather large box, then goes through a grate and into an inverted siphon across Plunge Creek. The siphon is a 36-inch steel pipe laid in 1913. On the West side of a large box is a receiving channel of some kind with a weir and a USGS gauge. The upper end of the channel is connected to 69 the Plunge Creek lower intake by means of a pipeline. Ail the water that comes into this pipeline or to this section is a North Fork diversion of Plunge Creek and it is below all of the diversions of the Orange Company. The Orange Company has all rights above the North Fork intake. The North Fork intake receives all the waters that are not diverted by the Orange Company. The diversion line is a 12-inch pipe that runs about a quarter of a mile picking up the water in the bottom ~ of the streambed. The intake has washed out and has not been repaired since the '69 floods. Horace says the last time water was actually picked up for North Fork from Plunge Creek was in 1968. The right that Erwin claims that he had in Plunge Creek apparently was associated with the North Fork diversion and not a separate diversion by Erwin. We should check this out and review the notes with Erwin when we talked to him some time ago. Horace also suggests that we talk to Johnny Poppet about the Plunge Creek diversion. The USGS gauge for Plunge Creek is about 25, or 30 feet above the inverted siphon. Presently there is a trickle I guess maybe a couple of inches flowing on the surface at the mouth of Plunge Creek. Since the first of June Bear Valley has been drawing about 10 second feet from Bear Valley Lake however starting June 10 about 6 second feet is being drawn out of Bear Valley Lake. It takes about 8 hours for a change of flow at the dam to be effective and felt at the North Fork Box. The Bear Valley arrangement with M.W.D. in Big Bear was that Bear Valley Mutual would spend $60,000 a year for pumping and after they reach that amount Bear Valley had the option of allowing a withdrawal from the alke or paying the additional pump bills. This arrangement terminated last year. The siphon across Plunge Creek was cement mortar line in about ~ 1967. The Plunge Creek Weir is westerly of Plunge Creek, it has a No.7 on it and is a 132 inch wide rectangular weir. The flow in the North Fork canal is reported to be about 600 miles at this time. The water flowing in the canal is a little turbulent, possibly caused by algae from the release of water from Big Bear Lake. Leon who was with us reported approximately 2400 inches of usage off of the Bear Valley system, entire system. North Fork Well NO. 3 pipe discharges into the box at Weaver and Baseline. The pipeline is the most western line sticking out of the box about one-third down from the top. Horace,reports that the pipe is very thin and doesn't hold water and suggests that if you want to pump North Fork No. 3 it should be discharged into the pipeline coming from North Fork No.4. No. 4 comes into the canal about one-quarter of a mile East of Weaver. It follows a street that has rock walls on each side of it. The street is not named at this location. The Weaver Street trestle was designed by Horace and has a date of 1932 stamped on the side of it. The trestle pipeline is also cement mortar lined. This was done about 1967. Before the canal gets to Bledsoe Gulch, there was a pipeline which extends from the East Highlands Orange Company Post Office Well at Third Street. Below the East Highland Lake there is a small pond in Bledsoe Gulch and downstream of that pond is a railroad bridge that spans the canyon and on the railroad bridge is placed a steel pipe, quite an impressive structure. The bridge terminates at a box which then goes into a tunnel on the west of Bledsoe Gulch. The little pond below the main lake is completely covered with algae to the extent that you can't see the water. It looks like a green carpet covering that area, approximately 250 x 100 feet, maybe half or could even be an acre in size. The pond consists of recaptured water from their irrigation operations. Water is released and used for the roves below and it terminates right near the west end of a grove. The tunnel might be 5 or 600 feet long. The canal is now in a ditch section that runs in a westerly direction to Church Street. The shack South of the canal on the east side of Church Street contains a booster pump that takes water from the canal and boosts it to the Old Arnold or Doc Sprague's grove. About 10 feet east of Church Street on the south side of the canal is a gate which can be opened and allow water to run to Dr. Pleasant's place. The same gate can serve the Roberts place down on Baseline. The Mullins booster is a little house on the south side of the canal that boosts up to Mullins grove. The house can be seen from Highland Avenue. West of the booster station the canal goes into a 48-inch steel pipe that was put in by the County so they could widen Highland Avenue. The 48-inch pipe ends right by the Seat residence. At the east end of the 36-inch pipe in the Fiscalini tract on the south side of this section which connects with the old flume has not been completed. This must be completed together with putting in concrete where the sacks exist on the South side of the ditch. This was part of the arrangement that was made when the 36-inch pipe was allowed through this area. We are at the box on the East Side of City Creek. There is a provision to put some flash boards about 25 feet from the grading to permit water to bypass the box and flow directly into City Creek. We are now at the weir which is on the East San Bernardino County Water District property west of City Creek. Horace called this the City Creek Divide. It is where the water can go into the North Fork Canal on Highland Avenue or it continues in the Highland Canal to the West. From the Snake Ditch ditch box there is a tunnel terminating in the state highway on the East side of Boulder Avenue south of Highland Avenue. This point is protected by a series of markers around a steel lid. Westerly of this point a pipeline extends westerly under Boulder Avenue to the canal section on the south side of Highland Avenue.