The herald., 1893-01-29
THE PRECIOUS WATER.

The Famous Hemet Dam and Reservoir
and It's Wonderful Storage Capacity.
But in enumerating the advantages of
any section of Southern California the
most important feature to be discussed
is the water supply. The San Jacinto
valley can boast of the possession of o
dam which, for stability and dimen-
Hions, has no parallel in the world-the
Hemet dam.
The Hemet water system furnishes
water for 1000 acres now, and when
additional laterals are put in, that
acreage will be increased to 10000.
The masonry of the Hemet dam,
which forms the reservoir for the water
system above referred to, has now
reached the height of 115 feet above the
base. This gives the reservoir capacity
of 3,100, 100000 gallons. That eminent
authority, Mr.. James d. Schuyler of
San Diego, estimates that when the
ae dantgp ntp cabbasciR9 TBS ~ tant t6afn thss hsYs smths ths
Sweetwater dam in San Diego county.
MIR. Schuyler. in writing about the
Hemet dam, eai:
'The class of masonry of which the
dam ia built is certainly the finest
ever saw, and doubt if it has any su-
perior in America in works of that
character. Blocks of granite weighing
5to 10 tons are set close together, in
beds Of Portland cement concrete, thor
oughly rammed into all joints. 1t ia
the finest dam on the continent, strong,
safe, solid and secure for all ages to
come. From my observations of the
flow of the stream / have no hesitation
in saying that in my opinion the water
supply from winter storms is sufficient
to fill the reservoir to the height of 100
feet every year.
"In addition to the flood waters of
winter, the summer showers of July
and August furnish no inconsiderable
volume. My observation of several of
these showers, which were of almost
daily occurrence for several weeks, was
that for an hour or two the stream
would flow at rate OF 250, ,000, 600 to
300 900, 900 gallons daily, diminishing to
the normal low water flow of about
100000 gallons daily, in Is to 20
hours. l think the reservoir would
receive an addition OF 50,O00,OO0 to
150,000,000 gallons from each of
these showers, and sometimes con-
slderably more. This source of
summer supply, which is resource
peculiar to the Southern California
mountain region, is likely to afford an
effective increase in the duty Of the res
ervoir of 10 TO Is per cent. The con-
Btant flow of the stream in summer is
more than sufficient to Offset the loss by
evaporation on the surface of the lake."
OTHER WATER SYSTEMS.
Then there is the San Jacinto and
Pleasant valley irrigation district. which
adjoins the Hemet tract on the south
and west, extending two miles down
the valley, past Winchester, including
1S,6OO acres and taking in the heart and
cream of the valley.
The irrigation district has two valu-
able water systems, the Griffin f1ume
plant and the Fairview Water company
plant, not to speak Of 1000 inches OF
water taken from the San Jacinto river
and its tributaries.
Within three weeks the water will be
turned on in the district. All that is
lacking now is fume three-quarters of
q mile long. The contract for Is miles
OF main and lateral bitches has already
been let. In addition to this it must be
remembered that there is an unex-
hausted supply of artesian water for de-
velopment.