STORIES FROM THE PAST

50 years ago

At 4:58 p.m. yesterday giant silver C-141 transport planes loomed over a ridge north of Seeley and a bright green puff of smoke blossomed from the desert floor.

Within a minute the first of 18 planes released a stream of parachutes at about 1,100 feet above us and a large square platform began to sway downward.

This was the beginning of what military officials called “the biggest and most successful exercise of its kind” in history.

The large square platform was one of 34 Jeeps weighing 3,500 pounds apiece which were successfully dropped within a 250-yard radius of the center of the target — the aeronautic equivalent of William Penn hitting the cores of all the apples in a tree in the center of an orchard.

40 years ago

The question of whether the U.S. Congress meant what it said or meant what it specifically left unsaid in 1928 in the key to the federal court case arguing whether the 160-acre limitation for irrigation water should apply to the Imperial Valley.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals ruled Friday morning that the limitation does apply to the Imperial Valley, after 10-year in litigation. But none of the parties involved denies that an appeal of the case before the U.S. Supreme Court will probably be sought.

According to Reginald L. Knox Jr., the El Centro attorney for the Imperial Irrigation District in the case, the question on the limitation is hinged on an interpretation of the 1928 Boulder Canyon Project Act.

That act shows some conflict in what it actually said and what the Congress apparently intended it to say, according to Knox.

In that year the House of Representatives passed one version of the bill that would later authorize the construction of the Hoover Dam and the All-American Canal, while the Senate passed a second version.

The House version of the act apparently specifically stated that all lands to be irrigated with water from the Boulder Canyon project should comply with the 160-acre limitation as written in the Reclamation Act of 1902.

The Senate version of that same bill did not include the 160-acre limit.

Knox said when the bill came out of the joint conference committee between the two houses, however, it simply stated the construction, operation and maintenance of all facilities constructed under the legislation should be in compliance with existing reclamation law — of which the acreage limit is a small part.

30 years ago

Kenaf International, a California-based joint venture company, is considering the north end of Imperial Valley as a possible site for a $300 million newsprint mill.

The mill would employ a mechanical process to turn fiber from kenaf, an annual hibiscus plant, into newsprint similar in quality to that now being made from wood pulp.

The company is currently planning construction of a $200 million kenaf plant in the lower Rio Grande Valley, Hidalgo County, Texas. It is expected to be in full production by 1990.