Prosperity of Ceres as an early growing region was tied to water from Don Pedro

Looking back on regional history

The first Don Pedro Dam was in service by 1923 and helped Ceres area farms grow crops. One of the Turlock Irrigation District board members who helped plan the dam was Ceres farmer Fred W. Moffet. - photo by Contributed to the Courier

first Don Pedro Dam 1923 — The first Don Pedro Dam was in service by 1923 and helped Ceres area farms grow crops. One of the Turlock Irrigation District board members who helped plan the dam was Ceres farmer Fred W. Moffet. - photo by Contributed to the Courier

It’s hard to imagine that prior to 1900, the only water available to farmers in Ceres and the Central Valley was what the good Lord provided in terms of rainfall.

That changed when the Wheaton Dam was constructed on the Tuolumne River above La Grange and a series of canals channeled water to a Hatch Road area farm all by gravity flow.

Ceres farmer Henry Stirring, a man on “Lateral 0” was the first man to use water from the Turlock Irrigation District in early March, 1900. Other Ceres farmers were still preparing their land to receive the liquid wealth when Stirring took a full head of water for a field ready for corn planting. The water came in just off Hatch Road, about a mile north of old Ceres.

This was the first time farmers had been provided water from a district organized under a law that made land owners the owners of the irrigation system. In 1901, three years before the

Modesto Irrigation District received its first water, more Ceres farmers had their land checked and leveled and 3,757 acres were irrigated.

The law, passed to enable community development of irrigation, was called the Wright Act after a Stanislaus County legislator. The district had been first organized in 1887, with Ceres’ Clinton N. Whitmore as treasurer.

The dam at La Grange, the first joint project of the Turlock and Modesto irrigation districts (TID and MID), was completed in 1893. Chairing the joint board during construction of the dam was Roger M. Williams of Ceres. The delay of water deliveries occurred due to litigation over water rights, namely opponents from the Modesto farming community.

In another 20 years, a massive dam would be constructed at Don Pedro Bar that would provide ample water supply to farmers. In 1923 the Don Pedro Dam was the highest dam in the world.

The first Don Pedro Dam bore a plaque with the name of Ceres farmer Fred W. Moffet who served on the Turlock Irrigation District (TID) board. A visionary, Mr. Moffet knew that a plentiful supply of water would mean prosperity for farmers in the Ceres area. The dam was a joint project of both the Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts.

But as the area grew and the demand for water to irrigation crops in the Valley increased, a new dam could store so much more water. Engineers decided in the 1940s that an earthen dam about 1.5 miles downstream from the old dam would increase capacity to about two million acre-feet of water. An acre foot is the amount of water that would cover an acre of land 12 inches deep.

Plans for the new plan began in 1949 with cooperative agreements with San Francisco, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Modesto and Turlock Irrigation Districts.

The project would cost $100 million – a pittance of what it would cost today.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission invested $45 million of the 1961 voter approved $115 million water system bond issue in the project, in return for a Hetch Hetchy credit of 740,000 acre-feet of exchange water storage space in the new reservoir. This increased San Francisco’s high mountain storage capability to 1.4 million acre-feet – enough to increase daily water diversions by 190 million gallons, or a total daily delivery capacity of 400 million gallons.

Along with San Francisco’s investment, the Army Corps of Engineers contributed $5.4 million for flood control and dam construction started in 1967.

Building the dam was a long endeavor, requiring large trucks moving rock around the clock for years. When it was finished the massive rock-fill dam rose 580 feet, and created Lake Don Pedro, and inundating the old dam up-stream by 200 feet.

The tremendously expanded reservoir now had a 165-mile long shoreline, extending 24 miles into Moccasin Creek to the doorstep of Moccasin Powerhouse.

On May 22, 1971, some 3,000 persons gathered for the dedication ceremonies and an address by San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto, followed by a beef barbecue hosted by the Turlock Irrigation District.

The electricity generated at the Don Pedro Powerhouse has supplied power to Modesto, Ceres, Turlock and surrounding area.