Basic HTML Version
27
Chapter 5: Creating Water Companies
According to historian Carl
Courtemanche,
the battle over water acquisition was
controlled by political
machinations that
completely confused the city’s population.
The power elite believed the common people
could not be entrusted with decisions about
water development, but they could be
entrusted with paying for the projects.
19
In 1924, after a long and confusing
debate, the city chose Spreckels' project
at El
Capitan over Fletcher’s at
Mission
Gorge. By then, the city of San Diego
was involved in another long battle with the
Cuyamaca Water Company over its pueblo
rights to the San Diego River. Fletcher
made several offers to sell the Cuyamaca
Water Company to the city, but again and
again Spreckels discouraged the purchase.
In the end, Fletcher sold the company to the
La Mesa, Lemon Grove and Spring Valley
Irrigation District. The Irrigation District
acquired ownership of 10,000 acre-feet of
water per year in the El
Capitan Reservoir,
allowing it to abandon the expensive mainte-
nance of the old flume line.
20
In a sense, all
parties were winners.
The true losers in the Spreckels/Fletcher
dispute were the Capitan Grande Indians,
who had little power to affect the outcome.
They had moved to the El
Capitan area from
earlier territories and were granted land under a
trust patent enacted in 1891. Now they had to
move again as their land once more became
valuable to others. The land was flooded
under the reservoir and they were relocated
to areas without water rights.
UNIFYING THE COUNTY
Fletcher may have lost the battle for the
Mission Gorge Dam, but he learned something
i
mportant. A county with such li
mited local
water resources needed to rise above warring
water companies. He became a state senator
and in 1943 he introduced a bill that had been
proposed by Phil
D. Swing to create the San
Diego County Water Authority. Swing also
co-authored the Boulder Canyon Project Act,
which would eventually bring Colorado River
water to San Diego County.
The County Water Authority Act enabled
the county to acquire water outside its
boundaries and distribute it throughout the
county. The San Diego County Water Authority
was formed in 1944 with nine member
agencies. The Water Authority now has
24 member agencies.