The Watchmaster's Stick

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 42, 1974, No. 2

The Watchmaster's Stick

By Lavell Johnson

THE WATERMASTER'S STICK is the most important piece of equipment he carries, even outranking such time-honored essentials as pliers and pocketknife. One side of the stick is marked with the usual twelve inches per foot and fractions thereof; the other side divides the foot into tenths and hundredths. When asked why, the watermaster will probably not smile outright, but he may allow the corners of his mouth to lift and his eyes to twinkle when he answers, "I measure the saints with one edge and the sinners with the other." In the vast semiarid regions of the West there may be almost as much truth as metaphor in that answer.

The watermaster will explain that the water tables in his reference charts are designed to be read in tenths or hundredths of feet in order to arrive at the number of cubic feet per second passing through the measuring devices. One cubic foot of water per second running for twelve hours amounts to an acre-foot, or the amount of water required to cover an acre of land one foot deep — approximately 326,000 gallons.

Contrary to Theodore Roosevelt's advice about speaking softly and carrying a big stick, a watermaster must splash loudly to announce he is around and on the job, and he must carry his stick to maintain the delicate balance between a smoothly running canal system arid chaos. He is the referee, official scorer, and timekeeper in the most serious of all games: personal livelihood.

Without a system of irrigation there never would have been an agricultural base in Utah; without it there would not be one now. Regardless of a farmer's capital, ingenuity, or other resources, his one indispensible ingredient for success will be an adequate source of irrigation water. In its absence, all else will be of no avail. Naturally, the tolerance for error or misunderstanding in the daily management of this system is very low. A breakdown is almost certain to result in bad feeling, threats, or even violence. The watermaster is responsible for ensuring this does not happen, that everyone gets his allotted share but that no one encroaches on the rights of others. Add to his other duties, then, those of whipping boy, sentinel, diplomat, and guardian of the community peace.

The following incidents and observations are particular as to time and place. Their setting is a western Utah community during recent years. Yet they are typical enough of Utah in general that they could just as well have come from nearly any farming community during this or a previous era.

It was mid-July, when crops could make Jack-and-the-beanstalk growth in the long hours of sunlight if they were irrigated or be stunted in the day's heat if left dry, that a stockholder requested two streams of water at the same time for two different farms. Both streams would come from the same company and the same canal. Apparently the farmer hoped to do the two irrigating jobs simultaneously in order to save his own time and, perhaps, reduce wear and tear on his pickup. When the watermaster turned the two streams through the headgates, the farmer was unhappy that one stream was a foot and a half under the size of the other stream. The watermaster suggested cutting the bigger stream a foot and a half to make both streams even, but the farmer complained loudly, "I ordered two streams the same size and that is what we pay you that big, outrageous salary for. Now, you make that little stream as big as the other stream and right now!"

The watermaster put on a convincing act, traveling back and forth between the two headgates, reading measurements, making minute adjustments on both gates, and frequently consulting his little black book's charts. In the course of these dramatics he discretely adjusted the headgates so that three-fourths of a foot was diverted from the larger stream into the smaller, making them equal in size. The farmer, none the wiser, was satisfied. The watermaster, too, was pleased. He had given the farmer his entitled share, but not a drop more, and had avoided an argument.

This incident is not an isolated example of the picayune haggling for an imagined or contrived benefit. Consider the case of a small cluster of farms taking water from a huge plastic-lined canal. Pooling knowledge gained from experience, these farmers had organized watering procedures among themselves without benefit of advice from the watermasters. All insisted that the reservoir-like canal be filled almost to bursting before one of them would allow his own headgate to be opened. Then they would jockey their orders, each hoping to be the last one on that lateral to irrigate. The object was, of course, to receive one or two extra acre-feet of water at no charge for "draining the canal."

An especially brazen practice involves having the watermaster back up the water in the canal to get it measured through the headgate outlet on the highest terrace. Then, usually in the night, the same stream (plus water backed up in the canal) is released onto the farmer's very lowest terrace or level, and all the other farmers taking water from that canal are left high and dry. By releasing such a large amount of water so suddenly, the culprit gets his low-lying ground thoroughly soaked long before daylight. By the time the watermaster makes his dawn checkup, the water is back on the high ground where it started the day before. A high watermark is plainly visible on the ditch leading to the lowest part of the farm, and water still stands on the night-irrigated acres. All this is only circumstantial evidence, however, as there have been no eyewitnesses who could or would testify in court. The victimized fellow-irrigators can vent their displeasure on the watermaster, or they may choose to do the same thing themselves on another dark night.

Sooner or later all watermasters learn tricks with their measuring sticks, and native intelligence dictates what to do to make sharp practices stick out. Certainly by the end of the irrigation season a watermaster knows what has been taking place, and he has probably already made an adjustment or two in his book.

Most large, modern irrigation systems are well equipped at strategic stations with automatic measuring and recording clocks. Experienced watermasters will point with pride to the almost straight, unwavering tracings of the recording pen — proof positive that water in the big canals runs steady and without visible fluctuations. These water recorders often create interesting situations.

One farmer whose land was watered directly from one of the main canals — and was close to the recording gauge — was thought to be tapping a little more water in the after-midnight hours than he was charged with in the daytime measurings. One night, when the watermaster had to make a change of streams about four-thirty in the morning at a headgate close by, he thought he caught the reflection of a flashlight which was soon no longer visible. After completing the change and returning to his pickup truck, he lowered his light briefly to the suspect's ditch, and, sure enough, it was almost overflowing. Next day, with the help of a few others who "just happened to stop by" as the watermaster was inspecting the recording made by the pen, the headgate-changer was also called in to look over the tracing. The watermaster asked, "Did you lift your headgate about four o'clock this morning?" "Gosh, no." "Well, this big wiggle on the tracing shows someone did and right close to the clock." The offender, confronted with the bluff, crumpled and said with awe in his voice, "Now, how the hell did that thing know that I done it at four o'clock?"

The watermaster's challenge is to see that the water going through headgates on canals, laterals, or single outlets does not vary in volume once headgate readings and measurements are taken. Usually more than one irrigator will be taking water from the same lateral and at the same time during periods of heavy demand. When users finish, the watermaster closes their headgates and opens up those of the farmers next on the waiting list for that lateral. Whether this transfer of water is upstream or downstream makes no difference. The watermaster must anticipate the changes by making them gradually so as to compensate for the temporary variation in volume. Carefully done, these changeovers will be recorded as only momentary fluctuations on any measuring device. Watermasters must develop this knack through experience — all of which might not be necessarily pleasant.

In some areas the watermaster has as many as one hundred or more outlets to deliver water through and perhaps twenty or twenty-five streams to manage at one time. At peak irrigation periods, he may run two hundred acre-feet of water through those outlets in a day.

As each stream is turned to a new user, the watermaster must record all of the figures or measurements that show on the Parshall flume staff gauges or those his measuring stick determines on oldfashioned headgates. He enters the same data on specially printed forms which must be turned into the company office every few days to forestall a pileup of big overdrafts.

The watermaster goes through much the same procedure every time a stockholder finishes watering to provide incontestable proof of when a user took a stream, how long he kept it, what the stream was measured at in the morning checkup rounds, and what time it was by the twenty-four hour clock when he gave the stream up. Overdrafts of water are literally water under the bridge and cannot be repossessed in any manner. Overdrafting farmers might be required to rent water from neighbors who happen to have a few water credits to spare in order to cover the amount of overdraft. The key man in this situation is the watermaster with the figures his measuring stick reveals and the promptness with which he gets records and measurements into the secretary at the company office.

On one occassion a water company's board of directors voted to hold up the watermaster's salary until all of his customers squared up their overdrafts. The watermaster soon learned to watch like a hawk to see that when a farmer ordered a stream of water, he did not overdraw the amount of his water credits. A water user could draw out all of the water for which he had water credits on the books, but if he wanted to keep on watering beyond that point he had to purchase or rent additional water credits. He could not even have water turned to him in the first place unless he had water credits on the company books. This "water-on-call" system is like having so much money in a bank and writing checks against the amount on deposit.

Water users' credits are estimates of the water to be available for each share of stock in the water right of the company. Some companies have reservoir storage so that a reasonably firm estimate of the water available for use during the currrent season can be made. Even those without storage rights can predict streamflow rights based on rainfall or snowfall records. Thus, an allocation estimate can be made. In most cases there is cooperation among the companies for the good of all. In some cases, high flows of water might be shared by giving a portion of the water to the storage reservoir in order that such stored water can be used later on in the season.

Originally begun by promoters or speculators, the land and water companies guessed at the amount of water needed to irrigate one acre of the new land and called that amount one share. In most early contracts, the one-share-to-the-acre water right was tied to the land. But before long it became apparent that one share per acre was not enough water to raise all types of crops, especially in dry years. The best farmers at present are likely to own two shares of water stock for each tillable acre of land so that they can plant whatever crops they choose and have ample water credits in reserve.

In dry years, the watermaster's measurements are of special importance to stockholders — especially to those who are short on ownership of water stock. It was at such a time just recently that one watermaster returned home and found on the memo pad next to the telephone the message that a certain user would like the water turned out of the canal for a while. Investigating further, he learned that a party had been swimming in the big pond of the canal and had been tubing where the fall-away from the Parshall flume created swift waters. A diamond wedding ring had slipped from one young lady's finger and had disappeared in the current. The watermaster immediately telephoned his fellow watermaster farther out on the canal and got permission to shut the big headgates for a while to drain the canal and look for the ring. Neighbors came flocking to join in the effort.

After closing the big gates, the watermaster began his search. He had gone but a few feet along the concrete side of the ditch when he caught sight of the diamond ring down in a crack with the sediment swirling around it in the shallow water. He slid down the concrete structure and retrieved the ring with ease. One of the searchers cried, "Old Hebe's found it," and the happy word was passed along to the advanced hunters. The chances of finding a ring lost in swift water in concrete ditches were about as slim as finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, but the experienced watermaster had known exactly where to look. The young lady was the first to come running. She threw her arms around the watermaster and planted a hearty, grateful kiss on his grinning face. This was only part of his reward. The rest was in opening the gates and knowing that the flow of precious water had not been interrupted long enough to make any difference.

Irrigation water flows through gates and a Parshall flume as it enters a stretch of cement-lined canal on the Delta canal system near Sutherland. Photograph courtesy of Mary Lyman Henrie.

CREDULITY AND LAND PURCHASES.

That land agents exaggerate woefully in their efforts to induce settlers and speculators to make purchases, no well informed person will deny. In the "back to the soil" movement now running wild over the country thousands upon thousands are being led to purchase land, laboring under the impression that the work of planting, cultivating, and harvesting of money-yielding crops from the land when they move upon it will prove more pleasurable and no more laborious than the exertion necessary in playing tennis or golf. In fact, in this land matter history is simply repeating itself. . . . (The Deseret Farmer, September 16, 1911.)

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