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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (April 5, 1959)
t 14 MAIL TRIBUNE. Medford, Oregon, Sunday, April 3, 1959 Interest Develops After Severe Water Shortage in 1934 (Editor's note: The following article, in which the work of the mow surveyor is discussed, was prepared by R. A. Work, Portland. The article explains the southern Oregon federal-stale-private cooperative snow survey activity.) By R. A. WORK Head, Water Supply Forecast Section Soil Conservation Service. U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Professor of Irrigation Water Forecasting Oregon Stale College To focus clearly on the beginnings of snow surveys in southern Oregon, some little-known history covering estab lishment of the Medford Irrigation Experiment Station ought to be related. , The Fruit Growers League, then under leadership of Eddie Carlton, Alfred and Leonard Carpenter, and Albert Burch, with collaboration from O. O. (Ole) Alenderfer and others, had created an Experiment Station committee in the late 20"s for initiation of research . and near Droduction problems The work planned for the Medford station was intended to supplement the outstanding work in pear breeding, blight control, fruit keeping quality, entomology and so on which was then being carried on at the Experiment Station near Talent by Professor F. C. Reimer and Louis Gentner. The committee secured federal appropriations to the bureau of agricultural engineering in 1929 and later, in 1931, also to the bureau of plant industry for this cooperative work. M. R. Lewis and the writer were lin, then chief of the division Oregon State college, with the cultural interests at Medford. Aldrich joined us. The initial studies of '29 and '30 were directed towards orchard drainage problems, although in 1930 Lewis and I undertook some duty of wa ter studies, made possible by generous cooperation from Chester Fitch and from Dave Wood of the Palmer corpora tion. . In 1931 the committee rec ommended establishment of the irrigation experiment sta tion. After an extensive search for a suitable and available orchard, the com mittee selected a 20-acre par tition of the old Billy Budge tract just south of Medford. In those days dollars really were dollars and not easy to come , by either. In conse quence, some fascinating fi nancing took place. The coun ty court, headed by Judge Alex Sparrow agreed to budg et $3,500 annually towards the total agreed purchase price for the orchard, provid ing the government could meet the operating and re search expense, and assum ing necessary buildings would be provided from some source. Attorney's Ruling The whole proposal nearly dead - centered when the state's attorney general ruled that no county court could commit any future court to meet annually continuing pur chase obligations. However, through the good offices and energy of Raymond Reter and Pinnacle corporation, who agreed to escrow the property, in a way of speak ing, without any charge for interest on deferred payments and without obligating any future county court to con tinue the payments, George Codding, then county attor ney, worked out an accepta ble agreement. ' The building site and part of the entry road then was acquired from Pinnacle cor poration on a deferred pay plan. Under the plan the in terest-free payment could be deferred for several years un til the orchard transaction was completed. The wizardry which followed involved, the floating of a private 6 per cent loan from a fourth party to pay a contractor of first part for erecting biuldings on land which belonged to a third party and was mort gaged to a second. A further small difficulty with maintaining buildings then owned neither by county nor federal government soon was solved, and the station was fully operative and in pro duction by early 1932. The crop returns, credited to OSC, were ploughed back to meet the operating costs, In 1934, a severe irrigation water shortage developed at zr. . fSSi is "f. asli&S&r est?. SNO-CAT USE-Tucker Sno-Cats were first used in snow surveys during the war years. Above an early model is shown at the rim of Crater lake. E. M. Tucker, inventor and founder of the Tucker Sno-Cat, is at left, and W. T. Surveys work in drainage, irrigation, on "sticky soils assigned by W. W. McLaugh of irrigation to cooperate with Fruit Growers and other agri Later, in early 1932, W. W. (Bill) The final 1959 water sup ply forecast for the Rogue Umpqua area will be given at a meeting in ihe Jack son county courthouse audi torium at 10 a.m. Monday, April 6. W. T. (Jack) Frost and Manes Barton will present the forecast, in cooperation . with managers of irrigation districts, forest service per sonnel, national park serv ice and other agencies. Medford as well as in most parts of the West. We at the station had begun to realize by then the importance of learning all we could about the sources of vital irriga tion water supplies for the Rogue valley, and especially as to the amount of water that could be dependably re lied upon to flow out of the surrounding 'mountains each summer. It was generally recog nized that in years of short water supply, cover crops should be turned under ear lier than usual. Heavy thin ning could be practiced, and early flood water could be fully used. Release of water held in reservoirs could be altered until somewhat later in the season when highly available soil moisture is most effectfve in increasing fruit size and tonnage. On non-orchard lands' certain cropping changes could be made, to save seed and labor. We had heard of the snow surveys established by the Oregon state engineer in 1928 but found that the measure ments had not all been con tinued in 1933 nor in 1934. The state engineer was anx ious that the surveys be con tinued. Apparently he had proposed this unsuccessfully a year or so earlier to one c.f the federal agencies. However, In 1935, follow ing the 1934 drought, Con gress concluded that the many small and independent snow survey networks of the West should be coordinated so that all water users on inter state streams could be in formed of snow conditions on far away watersheds, even in other states. 1 Staff .at the Medford station made its first technical snow survey in 1935. Marion Smith of the local watermaster's of fice, Harry Lindgren, and the writer hiked into Park head auarters from Ft. Klamath on Feb. 6. The snow course at Annie Springs was surveyed the next day. A two-day layover there was needed to doctor Smith's toes, most of which on one foot had severely blis tered from a poorly fitting SOIL SAMPLE-Early efforts by Oregon cooperative snow surveys to improve accuracy of seasonal water supply fore casts included physical collection of soil samples from earth beneath snowpackl The samples were weighed, oven-dried and reweighed, and the moisture percentages computed. This picture was' taken about 1938 in Crater Lake National park. Left to right are R. A. Work, R. W. Childreth and G. F. Sturdevant. SAMPLE SOIL-Soil moisture sampling today by SCS snow surveyors through improved electrical resistance method is shown above. At left is J. N. Washichek, assistant snow sur vey supervisor for Colorado, and R. T. Beaumont, water supply forecasting section, SCS, Portland. The picture was taken by the SCS at -Jackson, Wyo., in 1957. snowshoe harness. Two mem bers of that party snowshoed, but one traveled on an eight foot pair of ash skis. By 1937 the southern Ore gon snow survey network had become well established. In that year the first numerical forecasts for the irrigation season were published by Oregon State college and bu reau of agricultural engineer ing. However, the Rogue val ley Pear-O-Scope, in March 1935, published an assess ment of the water supply out look for Rogue River valley jointly prepared by Olin Ar nespiger, Clinton Smith, and the writer. There were interesting ex periences in those days of the earlier snow surveys. It scarcely qualified as a "fire side forecast" method. One such event involved Alvin Copeland and another snow surveyor in the winter of 1936. Copeland and his compan ion, with some assistance, had hand-logged and split-shaked a little snow survey cabin on the north shore of South lake at the head of Rogue river's middle fork. For winter en try, a gable entrance was pro vided under the ridge pole 7 or 8 feet above the ground surface. Travel Light Early in 1936 these two snow surveyors skied, from Ft. Klamath into the Seven Lakes basin to measure snow. They were traveling light and fast with only a hand axe, (Jack) Frost, snow survey supervisor of Oregon, is at right. The Sno-Cats were shipped to Medford from Grass Valley, Calif. Later Tucker moved his plant to Medford. (Soil Conservation Service Photo.) some rations, and a snow survey outfit, expecting to use the cabin that and the fol lowing night. ' After a fruitless search for the cabin, the snow survey ors dismally concluded that it must have burned. Actual ly they had' no really accu rate idea of the snow depth, so as a last chance shot in gathering dusk and storm, they assembled 12 feet of sam pling tube and poked around a bit at the cabin site. You can imagine their satisfied looks "when the sampler struck wood at a depth of 10 feet. It was the cabin ridge pole. . The hole they dug in two hours time with hatchet and hands equalled 11 feet in ver tical depth to the little gable door entrance. Subsequently, on -this old cabin a "Santa Claus chimney" was erected to provide ready entrance through deepest snows. Skillful Surveyors . W. E. (Bill) Childreth, Jack O. Miller, and G. F. Sturde vant were three of our most skillful and experienced ear ly-day snow surveyors. Bill liked to tell about the time Jack fell into a deep tree melt hole and hung there head down, swinging vocifer ously from his skis bridging the gap. Bill claimed that Jack had to remove his pants in order to get his skis untan gled and then had to take his skis off in order to get his breeches back on. Several men now promi- Ism nent in Medford business cir cles engage in snow surveys, most for free and all for ex-perience-Aub Norris, Dwight Houghton, Arnel Butler, John Day, Bob Norris, John Nei dermeyer, Paul Culbertson, and others, numbered among the finest of' companies. About 1937, Ralph Steven son, Moore Hamilton and oth ers interested the Oregon state legislature in providing funds whereby the Oregon Agricultural Experiment sta tion could participate in snow survey research, not only around Medford but else where in Oregon where the water users were looking for the best forecasts of runoff that could be provided. Continues Cooperation The state has continued its dependable cooperation all through the years. In fact, the list of longtime local coopera tors in the field work of the Oregon Snow Survey in cludes importantly the Cali fornia Oregon Power com pany, the Medford, Rogue River valley, Talent, and Grants Pass Irrigation dis tricts, the county watermas ters, the forest service, park service, corps of army engi neers, U.S. geological survey, Indian service, fish and wild life service, as well as many others. Some provided funds and others provided - assist ance or facilities. In 1939 the bureau of agri cultural engineering ceased to exist. Its functions were dis tributed to other federal agen cies. Its snow surveys were assigned to the Soil Conserva tion service, where the activ ity continues. That shift brought some disassociation of our particular group from the Medford Branch station, although it was possible to maintain headquarters there until another reorganizational shift sent the Western States Snow Survey headquarters to Portland and centered admin istration of SCS state activi ties under the respective state, conservationists. In 1941, during the conduct of some basic research work with snow by the Medford station, W. T. (Jack) Frost, then park ranger at, Crater lake, became greatly inter ested in the work. Jack trans ferred over to the snow sur veys in 1942 and subsequent ly became well known in southern Oregon as the snow survey supervisor and water supply forecaster for. Ore gon's federal-state-private co operative snow surveys. Bob Beaumont, a meteorol ogist and ex-Navy command er from University of Wash ington, joined our Medford staff in 1949 and Manes Bar ton, a crack statistician, came to us from the Forest Service flood survey group in 1951. No Sideline Activity . Recently a casual acquaint ance commented, Juy, you folks must have a big turn over of people in that snow survey job. Looks rough to me." The record shows quite to the contrary. In our opinion,- it would be difficult to find a professional group with greater stability or esprit de corps. The Western States snow survey supervisors with whom it is my privilege to associate aggregate about 160 man-years experience in snow surveys for their small group of 11 men. This is not a sideline activity with these men. The job has somewhat ex panded since 1935 along with the needs. There were then but four of us full-time engi neers to supervise snow sur veys in the West. It was Mr. McLaughlin's policy to ap point as collaborators officials of state agencies conducting snow surveys in -various states. George D. Clyde, now gov ernor of Utah, but then in charge of the snow surveys in Utah, once held such an hono rarium appointment with our group prior to his becoming chief of the irrigation divi sion of the soil conservation service. In the opening days of Governor Clyde's adminis tration, he faced an extreme ly serious prisoner rebellion at Point of Rocks State prison. Governor Clyde with characteristic decision met that situation quickly and forcefully by applying a pre cept which all snow survey supervisors live by "Never ask any man to do that which you yourself have not done or are not willing to at tempt." He personally went into the prison grounds and settled the matter. Manpower Shortage Shortage of manpower dur ing the war years stimulated our efforts to find over-snow machines whereby fewer men could do the work of many. I recall having a letter from E. M. Tucker in 1944 who asked if we could help him in some fashion to bring a ma chine to Medford from Grass Valley, Calif., to test it on Crater lake's snow. Start li SHELTER CABIN -The old snow survey cabin built by the department of agricul ture in the Seven Lakes Basin area in 1935 was used by Oregon cooperative snow sur vey field snow surveyors until about 1943, when a replacement cabin was provided at a lower elevation. The cabin's "Santa Claus Chimney" was added in about 1936 because He came, and snow survey ors later, including Antarcti ca's Fuchs and Hillary, came to reckon his Sno-Cat as old reliable itself. The first Sno-Cat used in Oregon's snow surveys was based at Medford. We named her 'Chinook," which means "snow eater." That particular machine stayed in service for 11 years and traveled more than 15,000 - miles on snow surveys and in rescue . work. "Chinook" was one of the two Sno-Cats used in the Na tional Geographic 1948 win ter conquest of the Oregon Cascades from Green Springs summit to the north toe of Mt. Hood. About this time in the rec ord, E. P. Leavitt, then super intendent of Crater Lake Na tional park, reckoned the an nual value of Crater lake's "white gold" at one million dollars per season. Annual Snow Crop The snow surveyors who kept the snow survey books that year on that million dol lar crop were no end im pressed, but even so, carried on at the same old rate of pay. Crater Lake park's annual snow crop and that of the ad jacent National Forests now is without doubt far more val uable in view of the steadily increased water use of recent years. A further basic use for snow survey data' came to light in 1949. Rogue valley water users had reacted quickly to Langmuir's and Schaefer's announcement of measurable effects observed from seeding the atmosphere with artificial nuclei. Robert Kent, then manager of TID, and Copco were the first to recognize the poten tial to irrigators and power companies for use of this scientific tool. After two sea son's work, the TID project was terminated, as the dis trict felt the results were not encouraging. Copco's carefully consider ed and well-planned snow pack project followed imme diately in a differing part of the watershed. Different pro cedures were used for seed ing. Group Collaborates The Medford snow survey group collaborated with the Oregon Agricultural Research foundation from the begin ning to provide objective eval uations of results of the TID and Copco projects. Bob Beau mont, and later Manes Bar ton, found evaluation . proce dures which are now widely used. Copco and TID pioneer ed what may now well be the longest continual record of colud seeding for snowpack increase anywhere on the globe as that activity is now in its 10th consecutive sea son. The original seasonal run off forecast formulae at Med ford were based on the strong relationship between the April 1 snow survey and re sultant runoff, with adjust ment for precipitation depar ture from normal during April and May. After accumulating a few years of March 1 surveys, those were found even more dependably related to the runoff in the short water years. Still later, in 1943, the forecast procedure for Ump qua river was qualified to recognize the annual river base flow factor. This factor allows the forecaster to con sider water stored under ground which sometimes shows up months later as riv er flow. This procedure also was adopted in the Klamath basin. Valuable Tool A valuable tool for such as- j sessment is found in measure ments of flow from deep-seat ed springs. About 1944, the formulas incorporated an evaluation of the fall soil priming factor as deduced from rainfall records. How ever, use of the rainfall data is necessarily quite restricted due to scarcity of reliable records from stations actually located in the water-producing areas of the upper water sheds. Jack Frost and the rest of us spent a good many hours through the years with Harry Olsen and Ernie Price, Cop co's veteran water authori ties, in studying these and other relationships and ex changing views as to their meaning. In fact, the South ern Oregon Water Forecast committee first constituted in 1936 has never missed its an nual spring meeting. This group, although spon sored by the Snow Surveys, took its strength from the ir rigation district managers, watermasters, foresters and other technicians who brought jjjjj" " Jinest Bef ore-Need Program . ill il l Designed, without pressures, to consider and adequate! l lll l m''y neeC'S' 'n Conger-Morris ' I Killcrest Chapel j j jlLLfflEST-MSS j tSSSSi Bill Driscoll, manager North Phoenix Road l! Phone SP 3-6162 or SP 2-7111 JJi DO the cabin could not be found under the snow the first trip made into the basin after the cabin was built. The inset, a picture taken by R. A. Work, shows J. O. (Jack) Miller entering the cabin. The picture of the cabin, taken in about 1938, was taken by the Soil Conservation Service. in their data, observations and interpretations for a general good "picking over." Needs for Forecasts Needs for seasonal water supply forecasts are so clear ly defined that we snow sur veyors sometimes tend to overlook explanations needed to keep public supporters ful ly mfbrmed of our activities. By seasonal water supply is meant, of course, the dry summer period beginning April 1 and terminating Sept. 30, this being the period of greatest agricultural water need, and of least runoff. There are now more than 24 million acres of irrigated land in the west. Probably not less than 80 per cent of this acreage relies directly or indirectly for water supplies upon winter snow quietly sifting down in secret forest aisles. Power lines hum and the spinning wheels of indus try reflect each melting flake. Growing municipalities' ab sorb the runoff from snow melt. Competition between the uses of water for farming, rec reation, power generation and other beneficial purposes is growing "steadily, but is more evident now than a quarter century ago. Natural Resources Development and use of the natural resources of the west, has come to the point where water, the limiting factor in these developments to begin with, has become of greatest concern. To satisfy all of these needs now and in the future, calls for the greatest skill and cooperation possible1 Dmi in water management. Water management is fun damentally based on fore knowledge of the flow expect ed during the irrigation sea son from year to year. This, then, is the basis for need of the snow surveys and result ant forecasts of streamflow yet to come. Seasonal runoff forecasts are not directly comparable to those for the "water-year." A few of the latter type have been provided in southern Oregon since 1950 from non agricultural sources. Such a comparison would be difficult to attempt since the seasonal and water year flows are for different periods which lack a fixed relationship, one to the other. Anyone dealing with events of the future would be gifted indeed to estimate precisely the exact magnitude for each of a series of events. This is more especially true with the forecasts of river flows, wherein much of the success rests with a cooperative cli mate and watershed. Heavy Rains Suppose heavy rains occur in June-greater than before recorded? This produces much more water than ex pected. Likewise, a long vir tually rainless period with at tendant' pronounced evapora tion and transpiration mark edly reduces the river flow below that foreseen from the snow survey. There follows the snow sur vey record of accuracy in pio neering the forecasting of the irrigation season flow each year for North Fork of Rogue river. This is the fork which tributes most generously to wards the down river flows of the main river for irriga tion, power and recreation. Values fo each year express the "error of the forecast as per cent: 1937, 32.2 per cent; 1938, 12.2 per cent; 1939, no fore cast; 1940, no forecast; 1941, 7.8 per cent; 1942, 23.7 per cent; 1943, 4.8 per cent; 1944, 7.3 per cent; 1945, 13.7 per cent; 1946, 13.4 per cent; 1947, 15.6 per cent; 1948, 8.4 per cent; 1949, 0.4 per cent; 1950, 1.4 per cent; 1951, 1.3 per cent; 1952, 6.7 per cent; 1953, 6.1 per cent; 1954, 4.8 per cent; 1955, 2.5 per cent; 1956, 7.3 per cent; 1957, 5.3 per cent; 1958, runoff record not available; average 1937- 1951. 9.4 per cent. Naturally, we'd as soon forget 1937, but the moving finger, having writ, leaves the record forever. It could be conceded that snow survey records then were scanty and of short projection . on that watershed. The record in the . most recent decade is notice ably .better, with no error greater than 9 per cent. This is one of the more re liable rivers to forecast; thus, the snow surveys errors ' of forecast are somewhat great er on some other local streams. However, the water users of southern Oregon can be assured that Oregon State college, the state engineer's office and the soil conserva tion service will mutually continue to seek improve ments in techniques and prac tices for improved forecast accuracy, . and for continued effort to establish topflight cooperation, so far as avail able "resources and situa tions will permit and encour age.
