Coastal San Luis Resource Conservation District

CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS (CCC) IN 1935

SOIL CONSERVATION Work done in Rural Arroyo Grande                                                                                                                                 

 By Ella Honeycutt

The devastation caused by erosion, floods and the dust storms of the 1930’s, led to the passage of the Federal Soil Conservation Act of 1935. The Federal legislation enabled states to act locally, and to provide conservation assistance and introduce new farming methods to ranchers, farmers and other landowners. The history books teach about the Dust Bowl in the Midwest but few people today realize the extent of erosion damage to the hillside farmland on the central coast of California.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the WPA were very active in Arroyo Grande in 1935 at the bottom of the Depression.  A Soil Survey Report prepared by the USDA Soil Conservation Service (SCS) describes the conditions of the eroded land in the Carpenter Canyon-Poorman Canyon area. The CCC was brought into the area to stabilize the hills, which had lost their fertile soil due to erosion and poor farming practices. The CCC camp was located where the Arroyo Grande Women’s Club is today.

       “ WPA depression–era workmen had camps in Corbett and Carpenter Canyon. Hundreds of men worked in the hills in the 1930’s, near Noyes Road and east of Printz Road, building drainage ditches and terraces to control runoff- water from the hills when it rained. They planted trees for reforestation and grasses for pasture improvement once the land was stabilized,” wrote John Dunlap in the Los Angles Times on July 27, 1961.

LOCATION

The Arroyo Grande sub-project, as it was described in the SCS Survey Report, was located in the west central portion of San Luis Obispo County about midway between Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo. “It occupies an area roughly square in shape, at the southern tip of which lies the town of Arroyo Grande. Bounded on the north by the divide between canyon number 1 and Pismo Creek from the Coast Highway inland. The line gradually swings south, taking in the headwaters of canyon number 1 and canyon number 2, and near Arroyo Grande, through which passes the Coast Highway (U.S. 101) which closes the western boundary,” the SCS Survey reports.

      Today a few of the drainage ditches and terraces built by the CCC and WPA workers remain in working order and control run off-water from the hills when it rains. The rest have been destroyed when homes were built. Today the hills are covered with homes and new vineyards are being planted in and around the project area.

HISTORY

“The early history of agricultural development of San Luis Obispo County is intricately interwoven with the story of the missions, one of the most influential of which was established in 1772 at San Luis Obispo, some ten miles north the project area. With the secularization of the missions, the Spanish Crown granted large portions of their lands to various subjects. Agriculture as fostered by the Padres fell into decline, and the raising of cattle, sheep, horses and mules became the dominant industry. Only sufficient wheat, corn, beans, and fruit were grown to supply the needs of the ranchers,” continues the report.

“With plenty of water and native pasture available, the raising of great herds of cattle flourished so that, at the time of the entrance of California into the union, the ranges were stocked to capacity. Settlers were moving into the area and they installed fences and it resulted in an overcrowding of the remaining range. “Yet, in spite of this, extensive cattle ranging in all probability would have continued longer in its dominance over large portions of the state had not the severe drought of 1864 seriously crippled the industry,” according to the Soil Conservation Service document.

 Eventually the farmers were able to restock their herds and then they were faced with a drastic change in the fencing law. In 1870 the law was amended to include the entire state. The law stated that all animals found trespassing on private lands, open or enclosed, might be detained and sold for any damage they might have caused.

“The fencing off of range, the drought of 1864 and the expanded fencing law forced the cattlemen into better management of the range. Soon the stock ranch gave place to the stock farm, a move from extensive to intensive management of the oldest industry in California. At the same time on a smaller scale with the rise and decline of the cattle industry was the rise and decline of sheep raising and dairy farming,” according to historical records.

       “Geologically speaking, this area is young, being contained in the coastal plains that mark the low-lying southern extension of the San Luis Range. This hilly area is an ill-defined lowland of possible marine origin, underlain by less resistant rocks than those in the more elevate, rugged Santa Lucia Range to the North and east,” according to the SCS Report.

      “This is definitely indicated by the wide, flat valleys draining the area. These include the watersheds of Canyons number 1 and 2 which on the western half of the area join just above the highway and meet the ocean about one half mile west of Pismo Lake. Corbett Canyon drains the eastern portion with its tributary canyons, Carpenter and Poorman, the three joining about one mile northeast of Arroyo Grande. The combined flow from these three canyons join Arroyo Grande Creek to reach the sea at Oceano,” continued the SCS Report.

GROWING SUGAR PEAS

          The report states, “Previous to the development of present day (1935) agriculture, the land occupied by the project was part of a large stock ranch and devoted mainly to cattle grazing. In the immediate project area, location, relief and soil were such that extensive wheat raising was not profitable.”

          “Frosts are rare occasions, even in the valleys. The average dated for the earliest and latest frosts are December 16,and February 3, giving an average growing season of 365 days. The Oak Park section comprising a major portion of the (project) area is reputed to be frost-free,” is written in the report.

          “Growing sugar peas on the hills near Arroyo Grande started about 1910. During the First World War a boom in agriculture took place on the central coast. High prices caused the available hillside land into use. The mild climate was just right for growing early winter peas for eastern and foreign markets and the high prices reached a peak in 1927–1928. Many small farmers made big profits without a large capital investment. They grew small beans and peas year after year and did not rotate the crops with sugar beets or barley. The decline was very rapid and many fields were left without a cover crop. In 1910 they harvested 500 crates per acre and twenty years later they were lucky to harvest 100 crates per acre,” according to retired SCS District Conservationist, Clark Moore.

         “This form of agricultural suicide soon led to decreased soil fertility, poor crops and small profits. No thought of erosion control, even indirectly or through cultural practices has been contemplated until recently (1935). The typography has been altered and landforms severely marked by recent accelerated erosion. The light textured, shallow surface soils underlain by softly consolidated parent materials tend to flow wide drainage ways where the surface runoff concentrates. This had a profound effect on the watershed relief. All of the main drainage ways shows the characteristic saucer-shape,” according to the SCS report.

“Erosion is that remarkable destructive and rapidly accelerated removal of the surface soil following the disturbance by man of one or more factors involved in the natural equilibrium. Locally the removal of the native winter cover meant an actual physical destruction of the soil itself. A definite reduction in fertility and there is a definite lowering of the producing capacity of the acres, perhaps permanently, “ was written in the SCS report.

The Gularte Wilson Farm from Carpenter Canyon Road

      “There is a natural formation, a normal, rejuvenating and beneficial influence in the life cycle of the soil when the profile is allowed to develop under the natural balance of slope, cover, and precipitation. Types of erosion are intricately interwoven with the stage reached. This is equally true of the shallow light textured primary soils developed on consolidated sandstone as well as heavier textured, more maturely developed members with cemented or impervious subsoil layers,” wrote the author.

According to Clark Moore, there was a definite reduction in fertility and a definite lowering of the producing capacity of the acres had taken place and permanent damage had been done. Soil movement, in actual yardage was very heavy in the project area, three and four feet of detritus being deposited during a single storm. Large, deep, gullies developed and their depth was limited on the more steeply sloping soils by the depth, to bedrock.

“Due to the light textured soils undercutting and caving of gully banks accelerated the deepening and widening of these channels. It is not uncommon to see these fields first deeply riled or gullies then in rapid widening and then failing the narrow walls between, leaving no trace of the former feature. Thus the pattern of gullies was woven into the area of erosion. It is not uncommon on some fields to see telltale spots of light colored material showing through where the parent sandstone is exposed. Profitable agriculture in these fields is at an end for many years. Sheet erosion was dominant and the destructive progression was geometric,” according to the report.

      In the winter of 1934-1935 over 22 inches of rain fell which was about 8 inches over normal. Almost 6 inches of rain fell on January 4^th and 5^th. From the steeply sloping clean cultivated fields of light textured, shallow soils, tons of detritus buried crops, roads, fences and even equipment left out during the night, on the fertile valley lowlands adjacent. In many cases the crops of early winter peas just maturing was a total loss, the yield being insufficient to replace the invested seed,” concluded the SCS report. 

   Hugh Bennett organized the USDA Soil Conservation Service. On page 857 in his book on Soil Conservation, he wrote, “Continuance of improper land use takes its toll and the abandoned field and farm house are all that remain of a once productive farm near Arroyo Grande, California.” He continues, “The erosion problem cannot be wholly solved by protection of range land alone. Cultivated land will require the use of such measures as cover crops, contour furrowing, tree planting, and mechanical structures in order to provide defense for the varying types of land use for various crops.

            Grapes and sugar peas are being planted up and down the hills again in the year 2000.  Are we heading for another disaster like farmers faced in the 1930's if we do not heed Hugh Bennett's advice?

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