43 



CHAPTKR IV 



A SALT WATER BARRll-.R AS A 

 PROPOSED REMEDIAL MEASIRE 



Thi.- period w lu'ii tin- iip-strtam ])t'iH-trati<in of salt wattT into tiif lower Sacra- 

 mento river was being augnienled by so unusual a series of years with light run-ofT, 

 witnessed accelerated Marine Piling Committee acti\-ity due to its serious aggra\ation 

 of the damaging results of teredo in\asion in the upper Bay region. At about that time 

 the effort to combat thi- unfa\'orable condition also recei\ecl powerful aid from a cpiite 

 unforeseen source. 



CoincidentalK' with the industrial de\elopnu'nt along ("arcpiinez Strait, there had 

 taken place the larger part of the greatly increased irrigation draft ujjon the waters of 

 the Sacramento ri\-er to which reference has been made. In this irrigation de\eloiiment 

 a large factor was rice growing in the Sacramento x-alley, while a second important 

 factor was the reclamation and agricultural de\elopnient of large areas in the delta 

 region above Suisun Bay. The united effect of the reduced ri\er flow and its attendant 

 up-stream penetration of salinity was an increasing interference with the use ol the 

 river water for irrigation, as well as for industrial and domestic purposes in the lower 

 river reaches. By 1920 this had become so serious as to pr(mipt legal action by the 

 owners of delta lands and waterfront |)ropert\' of the lower region, under the leadership 

 of the City of Antioch, against the up-ri\er users of water, particularly the rice growers 

 who were consuming such great quantities of water in the late summer and fall. This 

 case, which thus became known as the Antioch case, was tried before the courts of 

 California in that year. 



While it was shown in this case, that under natural conditions ot small low-water 

 output in such years as 1920, there would be considerable up-stream jienetration of 

 ocean water, it appeared also that the irrigation acti\ities, l)y decreasing the low 

 water flow- of the ri\-ers, particularh- of the Sacramento, would contribute in some degree 

 to the increase of salinit\' of the waters in the upper part of Suisun Bay, anci therefore, 

 also, to the distance up-stream to which ocean water penetrates. To this condition the 

 delta landowners, by their large use of water on some 400,000 acres of cultivated lands 

 in and adjacent to the delta, are, of course, themselves contrilnitors. It was contended 

 in the Antioch case that the owners of land along the lower reaches of the rivers were 

 entitled, under the doctrine of riparian rights, to have the river water flow past their 

 kinds as it did originalU', unimpaired in (iu<ility. Enough water, in other words, should, 

 according to this contention, be allowed to remain in the rivers to provide a barrier 

 against the encroaching ocean w'ater which is brought up from the bay on each high 

 tide at the ri\'er's low stages, and to pre\'ent that water from getting any farther 

 up-stream than it did under natural conditions. 



To restore natural conditions it would obviously be necessary also to let the floods 

 or freshet flows come down to the bays as they did under natural conditions, so that the 

 waters of Suisun Bay would lie kept fresh late in the season. It should be recalled in 

 this connection that before lands were reclaimed in the Sacramento and San Joaquin 

 Valleys there were large overflow basins in these valleys, notably in the Sacramento 

 Valley, which were filled b>' the freshet waters through high water outlets from the 

 rivers or by overbank flow; and the discharge from these basins into the lower reaches 

 of the rixers continued long after the ri\-er would have fallen to a low stage if these 



