The Lake of the Sky Part 36

Supplementing the timber supply the water from Marlette Lake, a tributary to Lake Tahoe, was diverted by a remarkable engineering achievement for supplying Virginia City and the deep mines. Marlette Lake lies several hundred feet above Lake Tahoe on the Nevada side, and half a century ago its waters were taken through flume, tunnel and pipe line across the dividing mountain range and out into the desert valley of the Carson River for sustaining the gold seekers of Virginia City. This work of the pioneer engineers was scarcely less bold in its conception and wonderful in its execution than the famous Sutro tunnel which drains the underground waters from the Comstock mines.

About 1870 the first use of Lake Tahoe for other than navigation purposes was made by building a log crib dam at the outlet for the purpose of storing flood-waters to be used in log-driving in the Truckee River below the Lake.

The outlet of the Lake was in a land grant section belonging to the Central Pacific Railway Company, and one of the earlier lumber companies procured a charter from the State of California and proceeded to build a dam and operate it for log-driving purposes.

In the course of time the development of water-power in the Truckee River below the Lake became of considerable importance, both for saw-mill and other manufacturing purposes. The dam at the Lake's outlet was pa.s.sed from the possession of the Donner Boom & Lumber Company into the hands of other interests who were making a larger use of power.

Eventually, in the last decade of the century, the water-power plants were converted into hydro-electric plants and began to furnish electric current for power and lighting in the city of Reno and as far south as Virginia City.

About the year 1908 the owners.h.i.+p of the several hydroelectric plants was pa.s.sed to the Truckee River General Electric Company, under the management of the Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation, of Boston, one of the very large public utilities corporations of the country.

This company has enlarged and improved the plants and is now furnis.h.i.+ng a large amount of electric current for all purposes in Reno, Virginia City, Carson City, Yerington, Thompson, Minden and various other towns and mining camps in the State of Nevada, forming a group of communities which are wholly dependent upon this power for their various purposes.

In 1903 the United States Reclamation Service filed an appropriation of all surplus waters which had theretofore gone to waste from Lake Tahoe, and under this appropriation, with others covering waters in the Carson River, the Truckee-Carson Reclamation Project in Nevada was commenced.

By this irrigation project it is proposed to cover an area of about 206,000 acres, of which 35,000 acres are now being irrigated and about 500 families have their homes upon productive lands, which were formerly a part of the great desert which was traversed with much suffering by the pioneer gold seekers.

In 1908 the Reclamation Service entered into negotiations for the purchase of the real estate and dam controlling the outlet of Lake Tahoe, but before the purchase was concluded the reorganized power company secured possession of the property.

A condemnation suit was then brought by the United States to acquire possession and control of the Lake's outlet. A contract was entered into with the power company for the joint building of a new dam with gates for controlling the outlet from the Lake. This dam was partly built in 1909, replacing a portion of the old timber structure. Owing to various complications this new cement dam has stood in an uncomplete condition until the fall of 1913 when arrangements were made for its completion, and now the structure is entirely done and is well adapted to control the outlet from the Lake so as to hold the waters at satisfactory levels according to the various uses for which the water is required.

There have been confusing statements made in the public press and otherwise concerning the intentions and actions of the Reclamation Service and of the power company. The gist of the whole matter is that both the Reclamation Service and the power company have proposed by means of the new dam to regulate the Lake within a range of six feet vertically, this being well within the limits of fluctuations which have occurred during the past 40 years when the Lake has been partially controlled by means of the old logging dam, and during which period the navigation and resort interests have taken the place of the lumber business in the commercial aspects of the Lake.

The records show that during these 40 years the Lake has fluctuated to the extent of a little more than eight feet between low and high water marks.

The landowners around the Lake are princ.i.p.ally interested in its esthetic qualities as a basis for the commercial interests involved in the tourist traffic and summer resort business.

These interests would naturally desire the Lake to be held at a fixed level.

Likewise the navigation interests which operate a large number of boats of various sizes would be best pleased with a stationary level of the Lake, in order that their wharves and boat routes might be built and maintained for a single level of the water.

On the other hand the natural conditions and the use of water for power and irrigation, which are among the older vested rights, require the Lake to be used to some extent as a storage reservoir, which implies a fluctuating level.

The whole problem is to reconcile these various interests so as to derive the greatest possible economic advantages while maintaining the great beauties of the Lake for those whose interests lie mainly in that direction.

There has been suspicion on the part of some of the riparian owners that either the power company or the Government, or both, have been entertaining ulterior motives with the purpose of drawing down the Lake to unprecedented levels and of extracting from the Lake an amount of water greater than the average annual inflow. It may be stated once for all that there has never been such a purpose and that all calculations of the available water in the Lake have been based upon a long record of seasonable fluctuations which prove that the average annual outflow from the Lake is about 300,000 acre feet.

All plans have contemplated the use of _only_ this average amount of water annually.

The Lake has an area of 193 square miles. The elevation of its high-water mark has been at 6231.3, whereas its low-water mark is recorded at elevation 6223.1 above sea level.

Should the Government be successful in acquiring the outlet property from the power company by the condemnation suit now in court, it is proposed to operate the gates of the dam at all times so as to maintain the Lake at the highest level consistent with the maintenance of a desirable sh.o.r.e-line and the conservation of water for the public utilities. It is proposed never to draw the Lake below the previous low-water mark or to allow it to rise as high as the previous high-water mark, at which low and high limits damage in some degree was done to one or another's interests at the Lake.

The regulation proposed by the Government provides for recognition and protection of all rights in and to the waters and sh.o.r.es of Lake Tahoe, including the rights of the general public and of the lovers of natural beauty everywhere, and it is believed that the charms, as well as the utilities, of this paragon of lakes can more safely be entrusted to a permanent government agency than to any single private interest.

A few additions to Mr. Cole's lucid statement will help the general reader to a fuller comprehension of the difficulty as between the States of Nevada and California. It will be recalled that Lake Tahoe has an area of about 193 square miles, of which 78 square miles are in the counties of Washoe, Ormsby and Douglas, Nevada, the remaining 115 square miles being in Placer and El Dorado Counties, California.

Because of this fact, that nearly two-thirds of the superficial area of the Lake is in California, the people of California claim that they have the natural and inherent right to control, even to determining of its disposal at least nearly two-thirds of the water of the Lake.

The situation, however, is further complicated by the fact that the only outlet to the Lake is in California near Tahoe City, in Placer County, into the Truckee River, which meanders for some miles in a northeasterly course until it leaves California, enters Nevada, pa.s.ses through the important city of Reno, and finally empties into Pyramid Lake, which practically has no outlet.

In response to the claim of California, the people of Nevada, in which it appears they are backed up by the U.S. Reclamation Service, contend that Nature has already determined whither the overflow waters of Lake Tahoe shall go. That, while they do not wish in the slightest to restrict the proper use of the waters of the Truckee River by the dwellers upon that river, they insist that no one else is ent.i.tled to their use, and that every drop of superfluous water, legally and morally, belongs to them, to be used as they deem proper.

In accordance with this conception of their rights the Nevada legislature pa.s.sed the following act, which was approved, March 6, 1913:

That for the purpose of aiding the Truckee-Carson reclamation project now being carried out by the Reclamation Service of the United States of America, under the Act of Congress approved June 17, 1902 (32 Stat. p. 384), known as the Reclamation Act, and acts amendatory thereof or supplementary thereto, consent is hereby given to the use by the United States of America of Lake Tahoe, situated partly in the State of California and partly in the State of Nevada, and the waters, bed, sh.o.r.es and capability of use for reservoir purposes thereof, in such manner and to such extent as the United States of America through its lawful agencies shall think proper for such purpose, and as fully as the State of Nevada could use the same, provided, however, that the consent hereby given is without prejudice to any existing rights that persons or corporations may have in Lake Tahoe or the Truckee River.

At the present time (winter of 1914-15) the matter is in the courts awaiting adjudication, which it is to be hoped, while being satisfactory to all parties to the suit, will fully conserve for the scenic enjoyment of the world all the charms for which Tahoe has been so long and so justly famous.

APPENDIX

CHAPTER A

MARK TWAIN AT LAKE TAHOE

Early in the 'sixties the immortal Mark made his mark at Lake Tahoe.

In his _Roughing It_, he devotes Chapters XXII and XXIII to the subject. With the kind consent of his publishers, Harper Bros, of New York, the following extracts are presented.

Later, when in Italy, he described Lake Como and compared it with Tahoe in _Innocents Abroad_, and while his prejudices against the Indians led him to belittle the Indian name--Tahoe--and in so doing to make several errors of statement, the descriptions are excellent and the interested reader is referred to them as being well worthy his attention.

Chapter XXII, _Roughing It_.--We had heard a world of talk about the marvelous beauty of Lake Tahoe, and finally curiosity drove us thither to see it. Three or four members of the Brigade[1] had been there and located some timber lands on its sh.o.r.es and stored up a quant.i.ty of provisions in their camp. We strapped a couple of blankets on our shoulders and took an ax apiece and started--for we intended to take up a wood ranch or so ourselves and become wealthy. We were on foot. The reader will find it advantageous to go on horseback. We were told that the distance was eleven miles.

We tramped a long time on level ground, and then toiled laboriously up a mountain about a thousand miles high and looked over. No lake there. We descended on the other side, crossed the valley and toiled up another mountain three or four thousand miles high, apparently, and looked over again.

No lake yet. We sat down tired and perspiring, and hired a couple of Chinamen to curse those people who had beguiled us.

Thus refreshed, we presently resumed the march with renewed vigor and determination. We plodded on, two or three hours longer, and at last the Lake burst upon us--a n.o.ble sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the sea, and walled in by a rim of snowclad mountain peaks that towered aloft full three thousand feet higher still! It was a vast oval, and one would have to use up eighty or a hundred good miles in traveling around it. As it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole earth affords.

[Footnote 1: The "Brigade" to which the distinguished humorist here refers was a company of fourteen camp-followers of the Governor of Nevada, who boarded at the same house as Mark, that of Mrs.

O'Flannigan. They had joined the Governor's retinue "by their own election at New York and San Francisco, and came along, feeling that in the scuffle for little territorial crumbs and offices they could not make their condition more precarious than it was, and might reasonably expect to make it better. They were popularly known as the 'Irish Brigade,' though there were only four or five Irishmen among them."]

... After supper as the darkness closed down and the stars came out and spangled the great mirror with jewels, we smoked meditatively in the solemn hush and forgot our troubles and our pains. In due time we spread our blankets in the warm sand between two large bowlders and soon fell asleep.... The wind rose just as we were losing consciousness, and we were lulled to sleep by the beating of the surf upon the sh.o.r.e.

It is always very cold on that Lake sh.o.r.e in the night, but we had plenty of blankets and were warm enough. We never moved a muscle all night, but waked at early dawn in the original positions, and got up at once thoroughly refreshed, free from soreness, and brim full of friskiness. There is no end of wholesome medicine in such an experience. That morning we could have whipped ten such people as we were the day before--sick ones at any rate. But the world is slow, and people will go to "water cures" and "movement cures" and to foreign lands for health.

to Three months of camp life on Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor, and give him an appet.i.te like an alligator. I do not mean the oldest and driest mummies, of course, but the fresher ones. The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be?--It is the same the angels breathe.

I think that hardly any amount of fatigue can be gathered together that a man cannot sleep off in one night on the sand by its side. Not under a roof, but under the sky; it seldom or never rains there in the summer time.

... Next morning while smoking the pipe of peace after breakfast we watched the sentinel peaks put on the glory of the sun, and followed the conquering light as it swept down among the shadows, and set the captive crags and forests free.

We watched the tinted pictures grow and brighten upon the water till every little detail of forest, precipice, and pinnacle was wrought in and finished, and the miracle of the enchanter complete. Then to "business."

That is, drifting around in the boat. We were on the north sh.o.r.e. There, the rocks on the bottom are sometimes gray, sometimes white. This gives the marvelous transparency of the water a fuller advantage than it has elsewhere on the Lake. We usually pushed out a hundred yards or so from the sh.o.r.e, and then lay down on the thwarts in the sun, and let the boat drift by the hour whither it would. We seldom talked. It interrupted the Sabbath stillness, and marred the dreams the luxurious rest and indolence brought. The sh.o.r.e all along was indented with deep, curved bays and coves, bordered by narrow sand-beaches; and where the sand ended, the steep mountain-sides rose right up aloft into s.p.a.ce--rose up like a vast wall a little out of the perpendicular, and thickly wooded with tall pines.

So singularly clear was the water, that where it was only twenty or thirty feet deep the bottom was so perfectly distinct that the boat seemed floating in the air! Yes, where it was even _eighty_ feet deep. Every little pebble was distinct, every speckled trout, every hand's-breadth of sand.

Often, as we lay on our faces, a granite bowlder, as large as a village church, would start out of the bottom apparently, and seem climbing up rapidly to the surface, till presently it threatened to touch our faces, and we could not resist the impulse to seize an oar and avert the danger. But the boat would float on, and the bowlder descend again, and then we could see that when we had been exactly above it, it must have been twenty or thirty feet below the surface. Down through the transparency of these great depths, the water was not _merely_ transparent, but dazzlingly, brilliantly so. All objects seen through it had a bright, strong vividness, not only of outline, but of every minute detail, which they would not have had when seen simply through the same depth of atmosphere. So empty and airy did all s.p.a.ces seem below us, and so strong was the sense of floating high aloft in mid-nothingness, that we called these boat-excursions "balloon-voyages."

We fished a good deal, but we did not average one fish a week. We could see trout by the thousand winging about in the emptiness under us, or sleeping in shoals on the bottom, but they would not bite--they could see the line too plainly, perhaps. We frequently selected the trout we wanted, and rested the bait patiently and persistently on the end of his nose at a depth of eighty feet, but he would only shake it off with an annoyed manner, and s.h.i.+ft his position.[1]

[Footnote 1: These extracts are made from Mark Twain's copyrighted works by especial arrangement with his publishers, Harper & Bros., New York.]