White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1929-02-01
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TRIP into FARMLAND

l WO IdAky oS0liCo hAA0Cl lllC uiot
of news have appeared in recent
issues of the Seattle Post-Intelligen.
Ger. The first with Hanford heading
is dated January rs, and reads:
after eighteen years of litigation
over water rights in this district, a
settlement is under way, under which
the water users of the district will
take over the Black Rock Power and
Irrigation Company and the Consum-
ers' Ditch Company.
The outcome is regarded as sig
nal victory for the water users, who
were threatened with loss of their
properties through lack of irrigation
water"
This is misleading in that the unin-
formed might interpret it to mean that
settlement was being negotiated
between the companies and the water
right owners. No such settlement is
being negotiated. As every one here
knows, the property is now in re-
ownership and is being administered
by Judge Webster of the Federal
Court through Receiver Martin Chase.
At the hearing before Judge Webster
in Spokane in the latter part of last
November, the attorney for the COM
panies informed the Court that his
clients were through and had no
intention of again taking over the
operation and management Of til. prs
ptrties and upon this showing the
Court instructed the receiver to pro-
coed at once with the liquidation of
the assets Of the companies and to
the termination of the receivership.
What happened at that hearing was
covered in an announcement by Re-
ceiver Chase and news story pub
lished il, the Spokesman in the issue of
December 7, which was notice to the
water right owners of the status of
the case at that time so that they
might take such action as they DEEM
ed advisable to protect their interests.
How long it will take Mr.. Chase to
do the things that must be done be-
fore the receivership can be closed
is problematical but it seems fairly
certain now that it can not be done
before the beginning of another irri-
CATION season and it might not be
until well into the summer or possibly
not until the end of the 1929 season.
If in the meantime the water right
owners organize themselves into a
legal entity with standing in court,
they will have a splendid opportunity
of acquiring all of the instrumentalities,
including the irrigation system, the
pumping plant at Coyote rapids, the
power plant at Priest Rapids and the
transmission line between the two
plants, at the receivership sale, which
is the final act of all receiversilips.
There is no short cut by which the wa
ter right owners or any part of them
can acquire the property otherwise. The
law is, definite and plain concerning
the manner Iii which receiversiiip
matters must be handled. ALI claims
Of creditors must be passed on by the
receiver and the Court and all accounts
due the property in receivership must
receive like treatment and, after all
of these matters have been passed up
on, the Court must order the property
sold with all burdens, if any, that the
Court may have placed against it.
The other story in the P. I. which
was published under the heading
priest Rapids Dam Assured" got a
smile from all of those familiar with
the situation. 1t read:
"One Of the principal obstacles to
the long projected construction of the
Priest Rapids dam, with a potential
water power greater even than that Of
Muscle Shoals, has been removed, was
the word brought to Seattle, Saturday
by Lon II. Cook, who has been inter-
ested for the last three years in the
sale Of land in the White Bluffs re-
gion.
"Cook based his opinion upon the
water right owners recent settlement
of litigation in which they have been
engaged for the last eighteen years
with the power interests affiliated
under the direction of the Electric
Bond and Share Company of New
York. Under the agreement which
was reached on January IS, the settlers
will take over the properties of the
Black Rock Power and Irrigation
company and the Consumers Ditch
company and form a corporation to
operate themselves.
This, Cook pointed out, would en-
able those behind the dam project to
deal with single corporation in re-
gard to the water rights involved
instead of small army of individuals.
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