THE STONY CREEK WATER WARS
Glenn County - Tehama County - Colusa County , California.
(c) 2001, Mike Barkley

• Worse Than Owens River: The North Fork Stony Creek Story
  
  
• MISREPRESENTATIONS AND MISTAKES in the Orland Project -- U.S. Reclamation Service attempts for a cover up lead to the Angle Decree.
  • No problem of "misunderstanding or litigation" with the upstream Riparians , and other broken promises.
  • Reclamation used the wrong rainfall figures for East Park
  • Reclamation expanded the service area in wet years without knowing how little surface stream flow was available in dry years
  
  
• The Angle Decree:
  • Lists of filings [the accumulated record is 10 files boxes in the National Archives in Burlingame, CA plus 9 feet of shelving at the U.S. District Court in Sacramento]:
    • Incomplete, very old one with the Burlingame Archives, many typos
    • Indexes of transcripts
    • Docket book from the Court, 1980 - 1990
    • Docket sheet from the Court since 1990
    
    
  • Initial Complaint, May 28, 1918
  • Amended Complaints, U.S. Reclamation Service launches a sneak attack
    • April 3d, 1919
    • Jan. 16, 1923
    • Aug. 25, 1924
  • Orders, etc., before the Decree
    • Order appointing E. T. Ericksen Water Commissioner
    • October 4, 1919, new parties
    • October 4, 1919, PROCEDURAL STIPULATION
    • Orders pro confesso,
      • May 20th, 1922
      • June 2nd, 1922
      • June 24th, 1922
      • September 15th, 1922
    • Setting hearings in Willows under Geo. E. McCutcheon, as master pro hac vice, June 24, 1922
    • Settlement with the STATE OF CALIFORNIA, June 24, 1922 [ missing ]
    • General Stipulation, January 16, 1923
    • GCID Stipulation (settlement), Apr. 2, 1926
  • Other selected filings:
    • Typical answer of a riparian livestock rancher, but Reclamation replication calls his stock watering use a waste of water.
    • GCID answer, Nov. 22, 1921; replication Oct. 12, 1922
    • Report of Special Master in Chancery, Oct. 13, 1925
    • Report of Master pro hac vice, Nov. 7, 1929
    • Selected transcript pages
  • Filings/papers not yet located:
    • STATE OF CALIFORNIA Settlement, June 24, 1922
    • Any defendant briefs or argument
    • Anything related to discovery by defendants
  • THE PRINTED AND PUBLISHED DECREE BOOK - - some 524+ pages:
    • Plaintiff's Opening Brief, - - 70+ pp: "Destroying the Riparian Menace"
    • Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law - - 273+ pp plus Plate [scan IN PROGRESS]
    • THE DECREE - - January 13, 1930, 178+ pp - There are 3 versions:
      • The 1928 printed version bound in the Decree Book, which has two page 165s and last page number 178, back cover of Court's copy enscribed "filed, April 19, 1928 George E. McCutcheon, Special Master." This seems to be the version that appeared in various public libraries.
      • The 1930 printed version , with print signature of Judge "Frank H. Kerrigan" and date of 13th day of Jan., 1930, with last page number 179 fixing the duplicate page number problem in the previous version. There are other minor changes from the 1928 version, mostly changing the treatment of a few of the defendants, plus filling in some blanks left in the original.
      • The 1930 printed version with inked corrections "corrected in accord with the order of April 14th, 1930", signed by Judge Frank N. [sic] Kerrigan [his H looks like an N ?].
  • AMENDMENTS TO THE DECREE
    • Amendments Made In Printed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and Suggested Decree, 09/18/29
    • [Order correcting certain minor errors in Decree, included in Water Master Order], Apr. 15, 1930
  • Estimated cost to prepare the record for appeal in 1930, _____ or in today's dollars, _______ -- None of these hardscrabble upstream farmers could afford that, let alone afford a lawyer to read it all and press the appeal.
  • Water Master Orders
    • E. T. Eriksen, Apr. 15, 1930
    • E. A. Garland, [Mar 14, 1932]
  • CONTEMPT OF COURT filings/Arrests/Water Master cutting off water, partial list [these are included to suggest to you what the Stony Creek riparians have suffered - meanwhile, downstream users have diverted water far in excess of their rights under the decree]:
    • St.John Outing Club, D. E. Studybaker, Bruce H. Sutliff, M. G. Bedford, Geo. W. Lewis and Frank W. Lewis, 1931, non-payment of Water Master assessments
    • Henry Werth and Mrs. May E. Werth, 1932, diversions, barred Water Master from property, tore down his signs; order for arrest; bench warrant; jail sentence suspended; probation officer requested termination and discharge of probation after one year....
    • Ben F. Provence and Jane Doe Provence, 1933, pumped water out of a ditch onto 3 acres; order for arrest; bench warrant....
    • E. A. Wright, 1947, flushing his toilet without a meter....
    • Gary Gregory, 1985, irrigating outside of his irrigation season but inside OUWUA's season....
    • Joseph M. Castro, 1992, needed a better measuring weir so the Water Master cut off his water....
  • Order CHANGING PROCEDURE for changing points of diversion
  • Order appointing a Watermaster Supervision Committee, and more Water Master orders....
  • Stonyford Municipal Water System Orders/Opinions, the U.S. Attorney on both sides in court?
  • [January 8,1986 requiring county parcel maps/building permits be furnished the Water Master for review by the Water Master Supervision Committee ? ]
  • Wackerman (Hall & Scearce) Orders & Opinions
    • Interim orders
    • Summary Judgment order
    • Order Reversing and Remanding, 9th Circuit Court of Appeal, Opinion, 7 F.3d 891, 1993
    • Subsequent orders/rulings/opinions
  • Recent orders
  
  
• While the case progressed, Reclamation filed Millsite, later Stony Gorge, appropriation application but public notice was "inadvertently" overlooked for years, long after many riparians had been beaten into submission.
• George Clark's registered and perfected water right, trashed by the Reclamation juggernaut
• An upstream riparian gives up her allocation rather than pay the Water Master fees.
• Arrested for using your irrigation water for your indoor toilet?
• Per the Water Master reports, takings over the years by the Orland Project in excess of that authorized by the decree.
• Suffering.
• U.S. Bureau of Reclamation makes war on stock ponds, and warns upstream riparians not to steal its water.
• Army Corps of Engineers takes land for pennies on the dollar for Black Butte because Reclamation stole the irrigation rights
• A Black Butte Dam allocation for Bureau of Reclamation, SWRCB Decision D 1100
• An organized opposition to Reclamation's Black Butte water grab
• Reclamation retaliates, tells the Court anybody with a stock pond is a thief and demands Contempt of Court proceedings.
• Orland Unit Water Users Association offers to pay all the Water Master Costs [which is only fair since they are the beneficiary of the Decree.]
• Hard feeling against the Orland Project.
• Tehama-Colusa Canal completed.
• Orland Project sits on 6.700,000 acre-feet of water in the Stony Creek Fan.
• OUWUA obtains financing to drill 42 deep water wells into the Stony Creek Fan from, Guess Who? Reclamation!
• Fouts Springs
• California State Water Resources Control Board position on their Stony Creek jurisdiction, if any.
• Incomplete list of SWRCB decisions, opinions, resolutions, permits, etc. related to Stony Creek.
• Per the Glenn County General Plan, The Orland Project, a project of hobby farms?
• The Stony Creek Underflow, 6,700,000 acre-feet of fresh water wasted by the Orland Project?
  
  
• Various original deeds, signed by various U.S. Presidents, are on file with the Court in Sacramento. Is yours there?
  
  
• Links:
  • U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's glossy version of "The Orland Project". -- Check out their "Project History" for their failure to acknowledge either their mistakes in The Orland Project or their subsequent vicious attacks on upstream riparians.
  • An Army Corps of Engineers' glossy version of its "Black Butte Dam" Reservoir
  • U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's glossy version of its Sacramento Canals Unit, including "Tehama-Colusa Canal"
  
  
• ALTERNATIVES:
  • Setting Aside the Angle Decree: A Draft Order Outline.
  • Setting Aside the Angle Decree: A Draft Issues Outline.
    
    
  • Forming the "Newville Irrigation District", and petitioning to annex to the Metropolitan Water District to gain sufficient litigatory power to regain our irrigation rights? The water in the Stony Creek Fan is worth $2,700,000,000 (that's "billions") at MWD non-agricultural wholesale rates, and, unlike oil, it replenishes....
    
    
  • Splitting off foothill lands in Tehama, Glenn, and Colusa Counties from Red Bank to Wilbur Springs as a new "Foothill County" and pursuing a "County of Origin" strategy?

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--Mike Barkley, 161 N. Sheridan Ave. #1, Manteca, CA 95336 (H) 209/823-4817
mjbarkl@inreach.com
Member, Newville Irrigation District Association