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<br />. <br /> <br />~ <br /> <br />001881 <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />The Central Val1ey runs some 450 miles from Northern to <br />Southern California, making up a third of the state's land area. <br />The idea of the reclamation project is to take water from the <br />north, which has less fertile soil, to the dry but fertile south. <br /> <br />Through a canal and giant pumps, water is sent from the <br />Sacramento River in the north to the San Joaquin Valley in the <br />south. In turn, the San Joaquin River is diverted to other uses. <br /> <br />The waters of the San Joaquin are impounded by Friant Dam. <br />Sixty miles farther downstream, at Mendota, the waters of the <br />Sacramento enter the San Joaquin to replace what has been held.back <br />by the dam. <br /> <br />But the sixty miles of the San Joaquin riverbed between Friant <br />Dam and Mendota are too high above sea level to make pumping of the <br />Sacramento water into that stretch practicable. It is this area <br />that has been involved in the lawsuit. <br /> <br />At issue altogether were 325,000 acres of land that had some' <br />claim to water from that stretch of the San Joaquin. <br /> <br />The case was large-scale in every way, with a trial of more <br />than 200 days, 30,000 pages of record and hundreds of court orders. <br /> <br />The suit was filed against officials of the Federal Reclamation <br />Bureau, the Federal Government itself and some irrigation districts <br />that benefited from the diversion of the San Joaquin. <br /> <br />2 <br />