When I came to Umatilla County a half century ago, its assessed valuation was about $6,000,000.00. Irrigation invaded the county the same time and now its assessed valuation is $66,000,000.00.

That doesn’t mean that it and I made over a million a year working together, or contemporaneously, but we did meet each other often at the tax counters; and we meet each other here today to try to further the cause of irrigation and increase the wealth and affluence of Umatilla County.

I came to Pendleton on St. Patrick’s Day in 1898 and bought a daily newspaper which I published nine years, then going to Hermiston. In 1903 I was pounding the boardwalks of Pendleton for news items when I ran on to a small meeting of prominent citizens discussing irrigation. When this meeting ended, I found myself secretary of the first county irrigation association in Oregon. Soon after we formed the first state irrigation association in Oregon, founded in Portland, and through it we secured the first irrigation project, the Hermiston of the first U.S. Reclamation Service, now Bureau, of this nation.

I have known all the irrigation directors since and for 35 years I have known scores of the Corps of Engineers. I have also known all the senators, congressmen and governors interested in irrigation and dams, water, and power and politics for the half century.

Now isn’t that something? And I have proofs of the same. But the whole point of this history is to qualify me for what I am about to say about the present and future of our own irrigation.

Lying westerly of our meeting place is the Mid Columbia Basin, consisting of 800,000 acres of 14 projects of arid and semi-arid land in the center of which are a half dozen smaller developed projects of long years’ “laboratory” farming experiences.

Of prime importance is the so called Pendleton project -including the Paradise, Teel, and Stanfield extension projects. In a well prepared and comprehensive report issued in February, 1954, these projects are made almost ready for authorization subject for appropriations by congress.

It is now up to grassrooters to press further action, and let me say that grassrooters are a powerful force if they choose to exert themselves publicly and politically.

(1) Mission Dam should be built at once.

(2) Flood control to protect the wealth and people could be thereby attained in the most secure manner possible.

(3) Water now wasting to the sea could be applied to 30,000 acres or more of arid land of high quality, at economic costs under modern proposed methods.

(4) Farms along the valley between the dam and mouth of the river can be protected at light cost from further damages by flood storage.

(5) Return flows, or seepage from all these lands, from 30 per cent or more, can be used in canals and Cold Spring Reservoir, at reasonable profit, except cost of drains, and flows in some areas a third time.

(6) These lands lie between the present irrigated projects and good wheat lands and would provide opportunity for greater diversification in the crops of Umatilla County. For instance, cattle, hogs, turkey, and chickens as a market for wheat, barley and oats, creating volume that would aid marketing.

(7) This project is ready to go and should be used now to start the much greater development of the Cold Springs project, the John Day and others in the Mid Columbia Basin near McNary Dam and Lake.

Other considerations in this development are as follows:

(1) Water: Plenty of water.

a. Columbia River and Umatilla River.

b. John Day River

c. Other small streams under consideration by conservationists.

d. Underground water and artesian flows.