Then and Now… A Look Back in History
Before Anderson
A
nderson Dam and Reservoir
were completed in 1950 after
an energetic construction
schedule that took advantage
of the dry months of that year. A bond
issue and the preliminary surveys were
initiated in 1949, and then rapidly given
the go-ahead. According to the Santa
Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD),
in its book “Water in the Santa Clara
Valley: A History,” because there were
no federal or state funds involved, local
control of the project allowed for an
expedited timetable. Lexington Reservoir
was actually in the pipeline to be built
before Anderson, but a number of
legal challenges regarding the proposed
new Los Gatos to Santa Cruz highway
pushed out that project until 1952.
Residents of Morgan Hill and San
Martin, though, were so distressed about
the potential of loss of water rights
from the Coyote Creek watershed that
they formed a short-lived Central Santa
Clara Valley Water Conservation District
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Written By Mike Monroe
led by Ed Acton, Joe Chiri, and Judge
Harold Holden, among others. Just as in
North County, groundwater levels were
dropping and land subsidence was a real
concern, so an accommodation had to
be achieved. In 1954, the 14,000 acres
comprising the Central District, extend-
ing from Coyote into San Martin, were
annexed into its northern neighbor, and
shortly thereafter the Main Street perco-
lation ponds came online.
Leroy Anderson was a leader in
the first efforts to develop water
conservation districts during the
1920’s, long before the formation of
the SCVWD in 1968. While none of
our major dams were built until the
mid-1930s, farmers and orchardists
realized that something had to be done
about the worsening water supply
situation. It was decided that the most
effective method of water conserva-
tion was to capture creek flows and
allow our natural underground basins
to be replenished through a system
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
MAY/JUNE 2017
of sack or check dams. These tempo-
rary and inexpensive practices were
intended to spread out the winter runoff
across large acreages so that the water
could percolate back into the aquifers
instead of flowing into the Bay. Although
Leroy Anderson passed away before
the dam was finished, his key role in
advocating for water conservation led to
the dam and reservoir being named in
his honor. Anderson was also the first
president of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in
1902 and a professor of agriculture.
Let’s back up and take a quick tour
of our local water history—before
Anderson. Before all of our amazing
engineering and water management,
before all of the dust and grading for
dams and channels, before all of the
heavy equipment and blasting: What was
this place like where Coyote Creek spills
out from the Las Animas Hills of the Mt.
Hamilton Range into the gently sloping
plain of open grasslands and oaks we’ve
come to know as the Santa Clara Valley?
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