[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 20]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 27005]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  HONORING OAKDALE IRRIGATION DISTRICT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. GEORGE RADANOVICH

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, November 5, 2009

  Mr. RADANOVICH. Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the 
Oakdale Irrigation District upon celebrating its 100th anniversary.
  In 1853 miners built a small diversion dam off of the Stanislaus 
River, upstream from Knight's Ferry, and began digging a canal along 
the right bank of the river to their gravel works in Knight's Ferry. In 
the late 1850s, David Locke built a flour mill at Knight's Ferry. The 
mill was destroyed by a flood in 1862, but was rebuilt by David Tulloch 
in 1866. Charles Tulloch, David's son, assumed management of the mill 
and purchased the miner's canal and water rights so he could extend the 
canal and sell the water to irrigate six thousand acres near Oakdale 
and Valley Home.
  In 1887, the Wright Irrigation Act was approved by the California 
State Legislature and signed into law, giving water districts eminent 
domain rights, authority to issue bonds and to tax properties for the 
construction, maintenance and operations of irrigation works. In 1890, 
the Oakdale Irrigation Company began to work on an eleven mile long 
canal near Knight's Ferry. A few years later the Stanislaus Power and 
Water Company, headed by Mr. Tulloch, took over the irrigation company 
works. In 1909, Oakdale citizens held a town hall meeting to demand 
their own irrigation system; the land was surveyed and the district 
boundaries were established. With this completed, the Stanislaus County 
Board of Supervisors authorized an election in Oakdale; the people 
voted 849 to 27 to create the Oakdale Irrigation District. On November 
1, 1909, the Oakdale Irrigation District, OID, was formally 
established.
  In 1910, the OID partnered with the South San Joaquin Irrigation 
District (SSJID) to jointly purchase the ``Tulloch System'' for six 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The two districts agreed on equal 
water rights, totaling over nine hundred second-feet of natural flow 
diversion. Since 1912, the OID and the SSJID have jointly constructed 
five dams on the Stanislaus River. The first was Goodwin Dam 
constructed at a cost of $325,000.
  The Melones Dam was completed in 1926, providing 112,500 acre-feet of 
water storage. Completed in 1957, the Tri-Dam project, including the 
Donnells, Beardsley and Tulloch Dams, added 230,400 acre-feet of 
storage capacity to the watershed and a combined power generation 
capacity of eighty-one thousand kilowatts. Along with these storage 
facilities the OID built approximately three hundred and fifty miles of 
canals and laterals to supply water to users throughout the district. 
Completed in 1984, the Sand Bar Hydroelectric powerhouse added over 
sixteen thousand kilowatts of power for the district.
  In 2004, the OID launched a major Water Resource Plan to study means 
to repair, rebuild, and modernize the old and outdated system. The 
plan's overall goal was to protect the OID's water rights while 
enhancing the system and improving services. The Plan has led to major 
rehabilitation efforts that continue today.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend and congratulate the Oakdale 
Irrigation District on 100 years of development and service within its 
region. I invite my colleagues to join me in wishing the Oakdale 
Irrigation District many years of continued success.

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