OPINION: A life fighting to get water means it is a precious resource
Water, water — what a problem!
In 1928, when I was a young boy, the Baldwins bought 160 acres of Egan homestead with a handshake and a 30-year federal land bank loan.
Tollison, the previous owner, agreed to drill a well on the farm. He drilled down 400 feet, finding no water, and ran out of money, so Ed Baldwin bought two 55-gallon wooden barrels, built a so-called stone boat to put the barrels on, and with a team of horses and his milk pail to drip water, he hauled the water to the house for drinking and household use. We hauled water that way until 1948.
Many people witch for water. My friend Henry found a small stream about 22 feet deep. My neighbor Leonard helped me dig a well. We found water, but it was too strong with alkali, so we could not use it. With my shovel I covered it up.
Next spring I hired McElroy and Wilken and Bob Calbick with their backhoe to dig again. From the top of the riverbank, we dug a trench 550 feet out to the river. When the river was at its lowest in the spring and then when the river came up, the end of the pipe would be a third of the way across the river for good water.
At the top of the hill, I built a pump house, bought an electric piston pump, and 650 feet from there, we dug a trench up to the barn from the pump out into the river with a 2-inch galvanized pipe. Then from the pump to the barn, we used 1 1/4-inch galvanized pipe from the barn to our old house, which was 300 feet. We used an inch pipe and got water into the kitchen sink and hot-water tank, which we used from 1948 until 1971.
How nice to have water in the house, but opening the water spigot too much would drain the air out of the pressure tank. I would have to re-prime the pressure tank — what a big job.
About 1958 Lawrence Sonsteli and the people from the Yellow Bay biological station came up the river testing the water at each house. There were about 25 homes using river water. Lawrence said he would rather drink water out of the end of my sewer than drink out of our kitchen sink.
The city of Kalispell’s sewage treatment plant overflow was dumped into Ashley Creek, which was half a mile from our place, being the first place below the Ashley Creek outlet. The end of our water system was in line with the flow of Ashley Creek. That was the end of our drinking water from the river.
From 1959 to 1960, we built a new house and, spending more money than I had, I hand-dug a trench from the old house to the new house, laid the pipe and covered it up with a shovel.
After Liberty drillers came to the valley, I had a lady that did professional water witching. She used a copper welding rod, and it would quit bobbing at 60 feet. She said, “I think we have water way down, how far I don’t know. With no water, no pay — if you get water later I will charge you then.”
Bill Osborne at Liberty drillers drilled down 375 feet with an 8-inch pipe. We got 65 gallons a minute. Water came up to six feet to the top of ground, much better than artesian well.
Thank you, Bill, to have our first drink of fresh clean water.
Things to know:
Not many people know what it’s like to have to go to an outside toilet when it’s 20 degrees below zero and sit on a cold-wooded seat or melt snow to get water in the winter to take a bath in a galvanized bathtub. Also, because wooden barrels would freeze in the winter time, I had to go to the river, cut a hole in the ice and get our water for household use as well as for drinking.
After going through so much work to get water, you believe we are very, very protective of our drilled water well. We definitely will not have anybody misuse our water system, so we are definitely against the water bottling company, as we are a mile and a half west of it.
Merle Baldwin has been a Creston area resident since 1928.