Stories from the past
50 years ago
The long-sought formation of a countywide humane society began with a small but enthusiastic group of Valleyites last night in El Centro.
Bill Virdin, director of the San Diego Humane Society, explained the functions of a humane society and the ways and means to promote it to an audience of more than 30, which includes housewives, veterinarians and cattle ranchers.
He explained that the primary functions of the group would be to provide shelter for unwanted animals, to give people an opportunity to adopt these animals and to educate residents on the proper treatment of animals.
“If you start with goals that give you the reputation of being little old ladies in tennis shoes, you won’t succeed. Although a humane society has legal authority to punish animal owners who are cruel, it does you little good.”
40 years ago
El Centro residents in a two-block area north of Adams Avenue were evacuated for an hour and a half Saturday afternoon as a leak in a railroad car sent propane gas fumes over the area.
In a similar incident, a tanker car in Calexico was reported to be leaking gas near the railroad depot at Third Street and River Road.
The leak which occurred shortly after the El Centro leak, was reported at 5:18 p.m.
One Calexico Fire Department engine responded and the tanker was cooled and moved to Fifth Street and Railroad Boulevard where there were better water facilities.
Firefighters continued to cool the tanker. The entire operation lasted about an hour and a half.
In El Centro, over 90,000 gallons of water was poured about 4:30 p.m. on a Southern Pacific Railroad tanker car sitting near the railroad intersection at Adams Avenue. Two El Centro Fire Department engines were used to cool down the car to prevent it from overheating.
30 years ago
Already overcrowded Central Union High School lost four classrooms Friday when a fire swept through the school’s industrial arts building. Damage was estimated at $225,000. No one was injured.
El Centro Fire Department Capt. Stan Armstrong said today the origin of the fire was a room housing a kiln used for firing ceramics. The kiln was unattended at the time of the blaze.
“The operator fired it Friday morning” Armstrong said, “and when lunch time came, it was turned to low. There was no one in the room when the fire started.”
Armstrong said the damage estimate included $100,000 to the building and $125,000 to the contents.
After surveying the charred joists of the building’s collapsed roof and heaps of soggy, singed insulation, Assistant Principal Bill Schrist said the ceramics, art, driver’s education and drafting classrooms would probably be unusable for the start of the new school year.
20 years ago
Drilling rigs can range from small groundwater rigs that drill shallow wells to tap into the freshwater table to large drilling rigs like those used to drill wells as deep as 10,000 feet below the Imperial Valley’s surface.
The deep-well drilling rigs used in the local geothermal industry, when fully assembled, tower 168 feet above the Valley’s flat agricultural landscape.
Several basic functions of a deep-well drilling rig are to use its 1 million pounds of lifting power to raise and lower drill pipe (often thousands of feet of it), and to spin the drill pipe, which in turn spins the drill bit at the bottom of the hole. Drilling fluid circulating through the drill and pipe clears the debris from the drill bit and carries it to the surface, where it is filtered and reused. This process literally chews a hole in the earth.
As reported in this newspaper in April, two geothermal mud pots had formed behind the Vulcan power plant, one of eight power plants northwest of Calipatria owned and operated by CalEnergy Operating Co.