By Debbie Teofilo

Special to the Sun

Local residents have been involved for a decade with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ planning process to modify Isabella Dam, but much bigger battles were waged in 1936-44 to get it built in the first place.

Kern River Valley-raised Kathleen Freeland, now a history lecturer at CSUB, discussed the years before the dam was built in presenting her award-winning master’s thesis on “Reclamation, Flood Control, and Farming: The Battle Over Isabella Dam” to the Kern River Valley Historical Society at its monthly lecture series at the Museum Annex on January 13.

We are all aware that controlling water from the Kern River was what drove the need for Isabella Dam, but surprisingly, it was weather patterns that ultimately determined when it would be built, which government agency would construct it, and what primary purpose would drive its design.

Kern County experienced a prolonged 18-year drought from 1917-1935 when the lack of water created critical irrigation problems for farmers. An increasing number of water wells needed to be drilled at deeper and deeper levels to protect crops as surface and underground water resources became depleted. During this period, nearly 50,000 acres of farmland had to be abandoned when wells went dry.

The goal during these years was to find a less expensive way to get a stable water supply rather than by drilling wells. Attention focused on building a dam for irrigation purposes which could store water during floods, provide irrigation water when needed, and replenish underground reserves for future uses.

An early study in 1893 by a land developer proposed creating a reservoir from the Kern River, but it was determined that the project was too costly for private enterprise to undertake. A government entity needed to take the lead.

The State of California devised a water plan in the 1920s that would move water from the northern Central Valley, where two-thirds of the Central Valley’s rain supply was generated, to the drier southern Central Valley. The Central Valley Project was approved in 1933 and included the building of dams; the dam on the Kern River was added to the plan in a later year.

Since the project was approved during the Great Depression, the state could not implement it without help from the federal government. Negotiations began between them, and in 1935 the US Bureau of Reclamation (“Bureau”) took over the Central Valley Project. The Bureau was the federal agency that provided irrigation and water power for economic development of the West.

Everything changed the next year when the 18-year drought ended. The next decade from 1936-1947 were flood years, so attention shifted abruptly from irrigation needs to flood control.

Destructive floods caused extensive damage west of Bakersfield that destroyed crops, drowned livestock, damaged oil-producing facilities, and submerged roads. Bakersfield’s city boundaries had been rapidly expanding outward from the influx of the Dust Bowl migrants, so city residents were also being threatened.

Since one of the purposes of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) was to reduce risks from disasters by building and maintaining infrastructure, Congress directed the Corps to conduct a new study to address flood control in the region.

The Corps proposed the Kern River Project in 1940 with federal flood control being the primary purpose of the dam, while local irrigation and power generation were considered to be secondary benefits. This meant the federal government would pay the majority of the construction cost, and the local farmers would repay a minority share.

The Bureau submitted its own revised plan, but since it still concluded that local irrigation was the primary function of the dam, farmers would have to repay a majority of the construction cost. The Bureau also established a water allocation limit of only 160 acres of irrigation to any one farm, which was not enough to irrigate the many large farms in the area. Local agribusiness understandably favored the Corp’s plan.

Legislators listened to their constituents before voting on the two options in Congress. As might be expected, the Corps prevailed, and won the right to build Isabella Dam when the Flood Control Act of 1944 was passed. The groundbreaking occurred on May 29, 1948 and the dam was completed in April 1953.

Freeland’s search of articles and other archived resources indicated that nearly all of Kern County was in favor of building Isabella Dam due to its diverse benefits. There was even an absence of public opposition from Kern River Valley residents and businesses directly in the path of the dam’s construction.

The dam provided farmers with a reliable water source, Bakersfield was able to protect its citizens and industries from destructive floods, and the Kern River Valley became a tourist destination with new recreational opportunities.

Freeland concluded, “Regardless of the advertised primary purpose of the dam as a flood control work, it seemed clear that the primary beneficiaries of the project were the farmers who got the best of both worlds with irrigation and flood control.”