Building the Foundation - Eastern Municipal Water District

Building the Foundation: 1928—1948
An Audacious Plan
Up until the late 19th century, southern California was seen as little more than the “cow
counties.” Northern California had grown up rapidly, driven by the gold rush of 1849, but
in southern California things went along much as they had for decades, with a scattering
of towns dominated by the old Mexican ranchos. It was not until the 1870s, as the ranchos
were broken up and the Southern Pacific railroad arrived, that southern California really
began to grow.
By 1890, Los Angeles had established itself as the metropolis of southern California.
In 1902 the city formed the Los Angeles Water Bureau (now the Department of Water and
Power). Its chief engineer was a transplanted Irishman named William Mulholland. As the
city grew, Mulholland and others began looking further and further afield for new sources
of water. Eventually, Los Angeles laid claim to the waters of the Owens Valley, east of the
Sierra Nevada, and in 1913 completed a 240-mile aqueduct to deliver its waters to the burgeoning city.
Still Los Angeles grew, and the search for water continued. By 1923, Mulholland and
his compatriots were looking east to an even larger water supply—the Colorado River.
It was an audacious plan: to dam the Colorado River and carry its waters across hundreds of miles of mountain and desert, a plan too big even for Los Angeles. So in 1924 the
first steps were taken to create a different sort of water agency, a metropolitan water district, made up of various cities throughout southern California. It took two years to push
a bill through the legislature in Sacramento that authorized the creation of the district.
Then in 1928 the people of Anaheim, Beverly Hills, Burbank, Colton, Glendale, Pasadena,
San Bernardino, San Marino, Santa Ana, Santa Monica, and Los Angeles voted to form
the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) was incorporated on December 6, 1928, and
in 1929 took over where Los Angeles had left off, planning for a Colorado River aqueduct.
But which aqueduct? The MWD engineers and surveyors carefully studied eight principal routes starting from as far north as the proposed Boulder Dam to as far south as
Picacho. In January, 1931, the MWD board of directors selected the “Parker Route”—
though the San Jacinto Register preferred to call it the “Massacre Canyon Route”—that
The San Jacinto Register
published this fanciful map
in 1930 to announce the
selection of the Parker Route
for the Colorado River
Aqueduct.
5
began just above Parker, Arizona. Here a new dam would be built by the Bureau of
Reclamation, paid for in part by the MWD. From there the aqueduct came across the
desert to Chiriaco Summit, through the Little San Bernardino Mountains into the
Coachella Valley, and then 13 miles under Mt. San Jacinto from Cabazon to Gilman Hot
Springs. The aqueduct would be 242 miles long, with three pumping plants and 29 tunnels totaling 92 miles underground. Above ground, the aqueduct would be ten feet deep
and 55-feet wide at the top. The terminus was at Lake Mathews. From there another 156
miles of distribution lines (and eight more tunnels) would be needed to deliver the water
to the member cities.
Disappointed that one of the more northern routes was not selected, San Bernardino and
Colton withdrew from the district that same year. But Compton, Fullerton, Long Beach,
and Torrance soon joined Metropolitan, creating the “original thirteen” member cities.
On September 29, 1931 voters in the new district approved a $220 million bond act by
a margin of nearly five to one. Work on the aqueduct began near Thousand Palms in
January, 1933, and a year later the United States Bureau of Reclamation began work on
the 320-foot tall Parker Dam. Some 35,000 men were hired to work on the aqueduct—a
blessing during the days of the Great Depression.
The San Jacinto Tunnel Seepage Problem
The San Jacinto Tunnel was the key link in the aqueduct; 13 miles long, 16 feet in
diameter, it eventually cost over $23 million, an astronomical sum in the 1930s! Work on
the tunnel began on April 8, 1933. The first project was to bore two shafts down to the
level of the tunnel; one at Cabazon, the other called the Potrero Shaft on the San Jacinto
side. From these shafts, workers could dig in four directions at once.
6
In the early hours of July 1, 1934, a third shift crew of about 45 men was at work in the
tunnel about 800 feet east of the Potrero shaft. Without warning, thousands of gallons of
water suddenly burst into the tunnel. The men scrambled to the shaft to escape, and
watched in amazement as the water filled the tunnel and rose nearly 700 feet up the vertical shaft. The flow was estimated at nearly 8,000 gallons per minute. The Metropolitan
Water District had a problem.
The MWD had expected to encounter some groundwater while building the San Jacinto
Tunnel. In his 1930 report on possible tunnel routes, MWD chief engineer F.E. Weymouth
had noted: “It is impossible to definitely determine from surface examinations all the difficulties likely to be encountered in the construction of any large tunnel project.” He added
however, that the Parker route “involves less risk than any of the other proposed lines.”
Still day after day, more and more water poured into the San Jacinto Tunnel. Two more
major floods followed; the biggest, in November, 1934, sent more than 15,000 gallons per
minute pouring into the tunnel. By the time pumps could catch up with the flow, months of
construction time had been lost. Because the original contractor on the tunnel was not prepared for anything like this, the MWD terminated the contract and took over the job in
February, 1935. More pumps were brought in, a portion of the tunnel re-routed, and the
project continued. A strike in 1937 shut down work for a time, but slowly, foot by foot, the
project went forward—six feet of tunneling was a good average for each eight-hour shift.
In November, 1935, a Hemet News reporter named Alice Nelson was given a tour of
the tunnel work. Traveling a mile in from the West Portal, she wrote:
Work in the west portal of the San Jacinto tunnel is under supervision of E.E. McCabe, whose 40-odd years’ experience in the most
dangerous tunnel work in the country more than qualifies him for
the difficult task of directing the construction of what is admittedly
the hardest tunnel to build in the entire system. …
Before entering the big bore we donned the steel helmet, slicker
and heavy rubber boots that make up the costume of the well
dressed mucker.
Malcolm MacKinley acted as our guide, and since we were anxious
to see everything there was to see he suggested that we walk part of
the way in to the heading, a little over a mile back under North
Mountain. So we started on foot.
The tunnel is lighted by a line of small candle-power electric bulbs
and it took several minutes for our eyes to become accustomed to
the gloom.
Water gushes in at yet
another break-through
during the construction of
the San Jacinto Tunnel in
the 1930s. (Courtesy the
Metropolitan Water District)
7
Tunneling under the San Jacinto Mountains
took six years. (Courtesy the Metropolitan
Water District)
We walked along the ties of the car track because there was a
stream of water running on either side. This water was clear and
cold and looked good enough to drink.
There are 12 pumps located in different places throughout the tunnel which pump water through the 30-inch pipe that runs from the
heading to the portal. The flow at the present time is 3,200-gallons
per minute. From the portal this water is piped through two lines to
a spot [on the San Jacinto River] below Gilman’s Hot Springs.
A stream of fresh air flows into the tunnel constantly through a
large vent pipe leading from a blower house at the portal, except
after a charge of gunpowder has been set off when the air system is
reversed and all injurious powder smoke blown outside.
It is very warm in the tunnel and after walking about a quarter of a
mile we were ready to climb aboard the electric car which came
along to carry us the rest of the way back to the heading.
In a few minutes we came to the 1,000-foot strip of dangerous
[earthquake] fault which gave so much trouble a few weeks ago.
Although it was well braced with cement and 12x12 timbers we
breathed a little easier when we came into solid formation again.
The sound of the drills was becoming louder every minute so we
knew that we were nearing the heading. Finally the car stopped and
we climbed off and walked as close as we dared to the light-flooded
rock wall that was for the time being the end of the tunnel.
The noise of the six air compression drills boring in solid rock
made any conversation impossible.
Miners working at the heading use sign language to communicate
with their assistants, or “chuck tenders” to use the proper term. The
chuck tenders hand the miners drill steels from the “jumbo” or drill
carriage. The miners also stand on the “jumbo” to drill the upper
portion of the 18-foot tunnel.
9
Conditions were hot and humid during the
construction of the San Jacinto Tunnel.
(Courtesy the Metropolitan Water District)
Behind the “jumbo” is the giant Conway mucking machine whose
great iron jaws pick up rock and muck after the blasts and drop it
on a carrier belt which loads the cars that haul it to the portal.
Every day a 35-foot test drill is made to determine the nature of the
ground ahead. The formation in which they are now working is the
best that has been encountered so far. It is a hard, dry granite.
The work in the tunnel is done by three different crews of men
working eight-hour shifts. The daylight shift (8 a.m. to 4 p.m.), the
swing shift (4 p.m. to midnight), and the graveyard shift (midnight
to 8 a.m.).
Each shift consists of a crew of about 34 men, including one engineer, one foreman, one mucking machine operator, six miners, six
chuck tenders, two motormen, one brakeman, one ditchman, one
electrician, one mechanic, one pumpman, one pipe man and helper,
a track foreman and crew of eight or ten.
Because of the water in the tunnel and the heavy loads of rock that
are hauled it is necessary to keep a track crew working all the time.
The god that all connected with the tunnel worship is footage. The
record for one day in the west portal is 42 feet. There must have
been many days when they were working in the fault that not even
one foot was gained. The formation there was so soft and mushy
that it could be scooped out with a shovel.
Since we were standing in what resembled a cloudburst of rain
dripping from the ceiling we were not loathe to start out once again
for the trip to the portal and the warmth of the afternoon sunshine.
After discarding our wet rubber slickers and boots we then visited
the blacksmith shop where men are kept busy sharpening the drill
steel used in the tunnel, and the compressor room that supplies
compressed air that operates the drills.
Initially the water had to be pumped up and out the construction shafts, where it was
allowed to simply run down the mountainside. Once the center section was connected with
MWD’s Colorado River Aqueduct
snakes its way across the desert.
11
the West Portal near Gilman Hot Springs in 1936, the water could just flow out of the
tunnel into the bed of the San Jacinto River.
There was no secret about the “seepage”—as the Metropolitan Water District took to
calling it. The amount of water coming out of the tunnel varied during the construction
years (1933-39), but never dropped below 540 gallons per minute, and was often much
higher—sometimes topping 30,000 gallons per minute. By 1935 people in and around the
San Jacinto Valley noticed that springs were beginning to dry up, and creeks and streams
had less water in them. Then well levels began to drop—digging the tunnel was affecting
the underground water supply around the mountain. There was a rush by many interests
to blame the diminishing groundwater levels and surface flow primarily, or entirely, on the
tunnel. But that was not the case. Increasing water diversions and agricultural pumping
also had a significant impact on the situation. Nonetheless, a lot of groundwater was pouring into the tunnel, then being drained into the San Jacinto River where much of it flowed
out of the valley. Something had to be done.
The first official action regarding the seepage came on October 21, 1935, when the
Riverside County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution calling on the Metropolitan
Water District “to prevent any water entering the said conduit, or being exported away
from the place where it was encountered”. Ten days later, Metropolitan replied:
It is not, and never has been, the intention of the district to augment
its supply of water to be derived from the Colorado River by picking
up any water encountered in tunneling or other aqueduct operations.
During tunneling operations certain water necessarily enters into the
district tunnels and must be pumped or permitted to flow therefrom.
As the tunnels are completed and lined, it is the plan of the district,
to the greatest extent possible, to grout off such water and prevent
the inflow thereof into the district tunnels.
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It is believed that such groundwaters may practically be excluded to
an extent which would reduce the inflow so low as to be negligible,
so far as effect upon groundwaters in Riverside County is concerned.
It is not the intention or desire of the district to deprive the area
which you represent of the natural benefits of its groundwaters.
Private claims and lawsuits against Metropolitan for the loss of groundwater began
shortly after Riverside County took formal notice of the seepage. The MWD settled all but
a few of the claims out of court, paying out over $350,000 between 1936 and 1944. Some
ranches were simply purchased to settle any claims, then later resold by the district. The
largest single payment was $62,500 to the Wolfskill family, owners of the Potrero Ranch.
The owners of the Soboba Hot Springs Resort are said to have received between $60,000
and $125,000 (source information varies) in 1943.
The largest, most controversial settlement was the Poorman contract. The Poorman
family owned a 1,700-acre dairy ranch on the south side of the San Jacinto River, across
from Gilman Hot Springs, along with another 3,600 acres of grain and grazing land in the
upper Perris Valley. The ranches were managed for 30 years by Ed Poorman, who was
well known locally as the founding president of the Ramona Pageant Association. Like
other ranchers, Poorman noticed the drop in groundwater caused by the tunnel, but unlike
other ranchers, his brother, Samuel Poorman, was an attorney for the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power. In 1937, Samuel Poorman negotiated a settlement with
MWD for the loss of groundwater, but instead of taking cash, the Poormans took their
share in water.
The contract was negotiated largely in secret, but before it was completed two other
families were brought into the negotiations. The Pico family had a 3,200-acre cattle ranch
southwest of the Poormans’ San Jacinto property; they also agreed to take water in return
for dropping their claims against Metropolitan. Dairy farmer Clayton Record, Sr. also
agreed to accept a small amount of the seepage water (just five percent) in exchange for a
right-of-way across his property.
The contract was signed on February 11, 1937. It turned over the entire seepage flow to
these three ranches, with the lion’s share (57 percent) going to the Poormans. The pipeline
that would carry water from the West Portal to Lake Mathews crossed the Poorman ranch,
and there was a safety “blow out” (where excess pressure could be released in an emergency) right on the property where their share could be delivered to them.
When the terms of the Poorman contract became generally known, other local ranchers
and water agencies were caught off guard. “[It] was totally against what the county officials had been led to believe,” EMWD founder Irwin Farrar recalled, “and what we in this
valley had been led to believe that Metropolitan would do with this tunnel water.” He later
wrote that “it was simply an easy way out of a complex problem”.
Taken in the mid-1990s, this
photo inside the tunnel during
an aqueduct shutdown shows
seepage at a spot dubbed
“the carwash”.
13
The West Portal pumping plant at the mouth of
the San Jacinto Tunnel, 1976.
The Nuevo Water Company was particularly surprised by the settlement. Nuevo had
been negotiating with MWD since 1936 to have tunnel water pumped higher up the San
Jacinto River where it could be released and allowed to sink back into the natural water
table. The riverbed below Gilman’s where Metropolitan had been releasing water was just
too hard for much of it to soak in. Nuevo thought it was close to a settlement, when suddenly MWD informed it that the Poorman contract had been signed and there could be no
more negotiations.
The two segments of the San Jacinto Tunnel work met deep under the mountain in
November, 1938, and the alignment was found to be no more than a few inches off. With
the digging complete, MWD began grouting the tunnel with concrete, filling in cracks and
crevices and reducing the tunnel to its finished size of 16 feet tall and 16 feet wide. Some
24,100 tons of cement were used in the attempts to seal off the seepage, averaging about
20 sacks per foot of tunnel. But as each hole was sealed off, more and more pressure built
up at the remaining openings. As workers would grout off the top, water would begin to
seep up through the floor. As each side was sealed, water would burst in from the other.
Eventually, the seepage was cut to just 540 gallons a minute, and on October 14,
1939—well ahead of schedule—the last bit of concrete was poured at the West Portal and
the San Jacinto Tunnel was complete. In June, 1941 the Metropolitan Water District delivered the first Colorado River water to its members. It thought the seepage issue was behind
it. It was not.
The underground flow beneath Mt. San Jacinto was still strong. Slowly but surely, pressure built up against the tunnel walls, and the grouting began to give way. Between
October, 1939 and December, 1940 the seepage more than quadrupled. In August, 1941
the San Jacinto Register reported the flow was back up to 8,000 gallons per minute. In
February, 1942 the Riverside County Board of Supervisors renewed its protest against
exporting any local water. The Metropolitan Water District replied that it had settled all
local claims, and that “a substantial amount of water is being released near the west portion of the San Jacinto Tunnel for agricultural use in Riverside County.”—i.e. the Poorman
contract water. MWD further replied:
15
The district stores a large quantity of water at Lake Mathews in
Riverside County, the natural losses from which go to augment the
groundwaters in the general vicinity. There is a considerable loss by
Officials on an inspection trip into the San
Jacinto Tunnel, 1952. From left: Irwin Farrar,
MWD’s general manager Robert Diemer,
Arthur Messelheiser, Floyd Bonge, Warren
Wagner, attorney Earl Redwine, L. L. “Spud”
Tatum, W. M. Kolb, Doyle Boen.
seepage from the hundreds of miles of canal, conduit, siphon, and
dry tunnels within Riverside County.
In grouting, at the completion of the tunnel lining, to the greatest
practicable extent to prevent inflow, and in compensating individual owners of property for unavoidable damages to their several
holdings, the district believes it has fully complied with its stated
[1935] policy.
There the matter stood for several years, as Metropolitan continued to pay private
claims. Average rainfall and wartime demands kept the farmers solvent, and public interest in the tunnel seepage faded.
When completed, the aqueduct
would terminate at Riverside’s
Lake Mathews.
The Solution
In 1944 the seepage issue burst back on the scene. On June 21, 1944, the Water and
Natural Resources Committee of the Hemet Valley Chamber of Commerce called a meeting of concerned ranchers from Hemet, San Jacinto, Perris, Lakeview and Nuevo. They
organized themselves as the San Jacinto River Protective Committee. Its directors were
J.G. Nelson, president of the Hemet Packing Company, T.F. Calloway of the Fruitvale
Mutual Water Company, Floyd Bonge of Perris, Norman Hagen of Lakeview, George
Tinker, president of the Nuevo Water Company, Charles Motte, who farmed thousands of
acres around Lakeview and Romoland with his brothers, and Irwin Farrar of Hemet.
Irwin Farrar (1893-1983) was elected chairman. He had come to Hemet in 1917 “to
stay three years to have charge of a land development project,” he later recalled. He had
practiced law briefly after graduating from Stanford, but after being turned down for military service during World War I because of weak eyesight, he agreed to take over a Hemet
alfalfa ranch as a way of supporting the war effort. “My project called for putting about
1,000 acres under irrigation in the southwest part of the valley,” he wrote, “and I continued in that project until 1946 when I sold all of this holding.” In 1931 Farrar planted his
first experimental crop of sugar beets, and in 1934 he co-founded the Farrar-Loomis Seed
Company which would eventually sell beet seed all across the United States.
Farrar soon became involved in various civic projects. In 1919 he was elected first president of the new Hemet Valley Chamber of Commerce. In 1922 he was one of the founders
17
One of EMWD’s earliest wells, near the
intersection of Sanderson and the Ramona
Expressway, was used to return San Jacinto
Tunnel seepage water to the valley. c. 1952.
of the Hemet-San Jacinto Kiwanis Club. From 1937 to 1941 he served as president of the
Riverside County Chamber of Commerce, and it was during this time that he first became
concerned about the seepage issue.
Charles Motte is the last survivor (as this is written in mid-2000) of the directors of the
San Jacinto River Protective Committee. “We were very, very much interested in the
future development of the area,” he recalls, “and we knew we had to have additional
water.” He admits that going up against Metropolitan “was a big, big, big question mark,
but it worked out real well.”
The San Jacinto River Protective Committee reported to the newspapers that enough
water was being carried out of the San Jacinto watershed to irrigate 3,500 to 4,000 acres
each year. The committee then made two demands of the Metropolitan Water District:
•
Stop all seepage into the San Jacinto Tunnel (then estimated at
4,000 gallons per minute).
•
Return the estimated 150,000 acre-feet of water that had been
carried away since 1934.
The San Jacinto River Protective Committee raised over $9,000 in local donations to
finance its battle with Metropolitan. It hired an attorney and an engineer to study the situation, and in October, 1944 it requested a meeting with the board of directors of the
Metropolitan Water District.
On December 15, 1944, the committee met in Los Angeles with the MWD’s Water
Problems Committee. It stated its demands, saying it had trusted Metropolitan when it had
promised to seal off the seepage back in 1935. It requested a pipeline and pumping plant
from the West Portal to carry water further up the San Jacinto River to the cienega area
above the Soboba Indian Reservation, where it could be spread out and sink back into the
local water table. The Metropolitan officials agreed to study the matter, and thanked the
committee for its concern.
The outcome was unexpected. “It was our understanding when we left this meeting that
we would be asked to consult with the [MWD] board, or a board committee in an endeavor
to work out a settlement,” Irwin Farrar later wrote. In March, 1945, with no word yet from
Metropolitan about any future meetings, the committee decided to turn up the pressure. It
Charles Motte (right) assisting
in a water use survey among
local consumers, 1955.
19
Downtown San Jacinto in the late 1940s.
(Courtesy the Ramona Bowl Museum)
arranged the filings of four lawsuits against the MWD by various water users along the San
Jacinto River. The four plaintiffs were the Nuevo Water Company, the Hemet Packing
Company (which owned a 1,000-acre ranch at Lakeview), the Centinela Ranch near San
Jacinto, and Leland Houk, who had a ranch southwest of Hemet, near Farrar’s property. The
committee and its supporters were prepared to proceed with all four lawsuits, but hoped they
would not ever have to go to trial. “We filed them as a protective measure and as a basis for
negotiations,” Farrar recalled.
Metropolitan maintained that it had acted in good faith. It conceded that there had been
seepage into the tunnel, but only admitted to 21,500 acre-feet, not the 150,000 acre-feet
claimed by the San Jacinto River Protective Committee. What’s more, MWD said, 16,400
acre-feet of that had been returned at the Casa Loma outlet and the Lakeview siphon—that
is, under the Poorman contract.
The committee earnestly went to work to go over Metropolitan’s head. It mobilized the
Riverside County Board of Supervisors, the county flood control district, and various local
agencies to push the California State Senate to look into the situation. State Senator
Nelson Dilworth lent his support, and eventually the Senate Committee on Local Government Agencies agreed to meet in Hemet to hear testimony from both sides.
The senate committee, headed by Senator Charles Brown of Shoshone, met at the
Hemet Woman’s Club on December 27, 1945, with four of the county supervisors, Senator
Dilworth, and Assemblyman Philip Boyd also in attendance. Riverside County counsel
Earl Redwine presented the arguments for the San Jacinto River Protective Committee.
Metropolitan’s representatives said the district would keep the local water out of its
tunnel if it could, and that the district would be happy to cooperate in a solution to the
seepage question. They suggested that there be only one local agency officially authorized
to negotiate.
On April 16, 1946, an election by property owners was held to approve formation of the
San Jacinto River Conservation District, an official government agency which would have
an elected board of directors and the ability to levy tax assessments to fund the ongoing
negotiations. Communities involved in support of the San Jacinto River Protective
Committee were joined by the Moreno area, located at the east end of the Moreno Valley.
Property owners in these areas were allowed one vote for each acre owned.
21
Measuring the seepage flow at the mouth of
the San Jacinto Tunnel, 1952.
The vote carried easily, 66,242 to 14,777. Property owners in Valle Vista unanimously
approved the district, 3,576 to 0. Only Moreno failed to give the district the required twothirds majority, voting 3,013 in favor and 2,622 against.
The directors of the new district were elected without opposition in the same election.
Joining Farrar, Bonge, Tinker, Motte and Calloway from the San Jacinto River Protective
Committee were Glen Brubaker, superintendent of the Hemet Packing Company, and
Perris Valley rancher John Coudures, Sr. Farrar was again elected chairman.
Negotiations in the four lawsuits against Metropolitan resumed with the creation of the
San Jacinto River Conservation District, and it was soon agreed that Metropolitan should
have another go at sealing off the tunnel. Since it meant shutting down the entire Colorado
River Aqueduct, the work was done during the winter months when water needs are lowest. In December, 1946 the San Jacinto Register described the process:
The job consists of drilling holes in the thick concrete lining of the
thirteen-mile tunnel and forcing cement into the rock under a pressure sufficient to seal off the inflow of groundwater from the surrounding mountain formations.
The work is being carried forward under the direction of R.B.
Diemer, Chief Operations and Maintenance Engineer for the
Metropolitan Water District.
After the tunnel had been holed through it was completely lined
with concrete to a thickness varying from 18 inches to 6 feet. In the
course of this lining operation enormous quantities of grout were
forced into the tunnel’s rock walls where water seepage occurred.
Delivery of Colorado River water into Lake Mathews was suspended by the District on November 1 and will not be resumed until the
tunnel grouting job has been completed, some four or five months
hence, it has been stated by General Manager [Julian] Hinds. As
soon as the tunnel had been dewatered in November, engineers and
workmen moved into the bore and began the task of assembling
equipment and materials for the grouting project. The end of
November found preliminary tasks completed and the actual grouting work underway.
From the first, seepage
measurement has always
been a manual process.
23
A simple tape measure or ruler was used
to measure the seepage flow at the mouth
of the San Jacinto Tunnel.
Work on the grouting operation has been started near the east portal
of the tunnel and from that point the workmen will move westward
to the west portal. At present the work is proceeding with a crew of
about twenty men working one shift. Later it is expected that the
work may go forward with two and possibly three shifts a day.
The drilling of the grout holes is carried forward from a portable
drill jumbo on which four drills are mounted. The grout pump and
mixing unit are mounted on a 4-wheel trailer. The spacing of the
holes, engineers pointed out, depends upon the flows of water now
entering the tunnel. As a rule the grout holes are staggered on opposite sides of the tunnel and driven to depths varying from 2 to 15
feet. To seal off the inflow of water grout must be forced into the
tunnel holes under a pressure higher than the water pressure being
encountered.
Air for drilling holes through the concrete and surrounding rock,
and for operating grout pumps, is supplied by two 315 cubic feet
per minute diesel portable compressors with engines of 100 horse
power. Two trucks with short wheel bases and powered with 25
horse power caterpillar diesel engines are used for hauling men,
cement and equipment in the tunnel.
The grouting was claimed by MWD to be “stronger and more impervious to water than
the native rock”, but sealing one hole simply raised the pressure elsewhere, and the seepage continued. The San Jacinto River Conservation District hired experts to monitor the
work, and while the seepage was temporarily reduced two-thirds by May, 1947 what
amounted to around 2,500 acre-feet per year continued to make its way into the tunnel. By
August, the flow had already increased by 40 percent. By the end of the year, the
Metropolitan Water District concluded—and the San Jacinto River Conservation District
experts agreed—that it was impossible to completely stop the seepage into the San Jacinto
Tunnel. Some other solution would have to be found.
In March, 1948 Metropolitan appointed a four-man committee to meet with San Jacinto
River Conservation District directors Farrar, Bonge, and Brubaker to hammer out a compromise. The four lawsuits were put on hold, and the joint meetings went on for nearly
two years. Metropolitan, Farrar reported, was “fair and forthright in its effort to reach a
Accurate measurements of
tunnel seepage have always
been important and have
always been done by hand.
25
Half a century later, there hasn’t been
much change in the tried and true method
of measuring tunnel seepage water. Here,
EMWD’s Greg Millar stretches out to help
take the measurement.
settlement. Both sides have been attempting to reach an equitable agreement that would
once and for all settle the tunnel seepage problems and at the same time give this basin a
needed supplementary supply of water through membership in the MWD.”
27
Members of the Citizens Water Committee
meet to discuss plans in support of EMWD,
(from left) Aleck Brudin, Harry Heffner, and
Ed Searl.