LAKE ISABELLA, Calif. — If you were to look at Joanie Etcheverry and Nancy Moore’s Property from the hill directly to the east of it, you’d see a clear path of green and brown foliage cutting across their entire property from the north to the south. The foliage is unplanned, and grown wildly. Getting closer, you can see over a dozen varieties of weeds in this foliage, some of them reaching around eight feet in height.
Etcheveryy and Moore say this problem is due to the Army Corps of Engineers dumping water on their property for roughly six months, from April until October of this year.
“They caused it, it’s their water,” Etchveryy said, Moore adding, “It’s their mess, not ours”
Etchevery and Moore are sisters who own a piece of property directly south of the Army Corps of Engineers property at the Lake Isabella Auxiliary Dam.
“We did not want this water. Why did they think they had the right to put it on our property, without talking to us ever?” Etcheverry said.
Starting in April, the sisters say the Army Corps started releasing extracted seepage water into an open ditch on their property because there was more water than they had the capacity to pump back into the lake.
The result -- a constant stream of water that they say caused immense weed growth and erosion.
“This was a clean farm ground where they could farm, they could make a circle and farm and pick up his hay,” Etcheverry says.
The land, which is typically farmed by their neighbor Gerald Wenstrand, was not able to be used this year.
“Farming is seasonal, you can't wait until the corps is ready, you have to be on schedule,” Etcheverry said.
In early October, the Army Corps installed temporary pumps that could transport all seepage water back into the lake.
“We were going to spray thinking they had their water under control the other day,” Etcheverry said.
However, the water started flowing again on October 13 until October 17, after the temporary pumps ran out of fuel.
“If we had sprayed it and not known the water was coming, our chemicals would have gone right on down through Gerry's cattle and the canals and the neighbors and the preschool and whoever else is down the stream.”
The property has been in their family since the 1800’s, and they can recall a time before the dam was there. The Army Corps purchased part of the land, which was used to ranch, for the construction of the dam in the 1950s, and then another parcel from a family member when the dam modification project began.
“My family is buried up here and raised her and then you look at this, and you just have to kind of laugh,” Etcheverry said.
Their main complaint is the lack of communication from the Army Corps of Engineers.
We are a little overwhelmed because we get no answers,” Moore said
In a statement the Army Corps of Engineers say that they have been in contact with Etcheverry and Moore and communicated what they have done to remedy the situation adding that they and other property owners who feel they have been impacted can submit a tort claim.
Ectheveryy says they have not submitted a claim yet because they see the issue as ongoing.
They come from farming families and say it’s important for neighbors to consider impacts they have on surrounding properties.
“You take care of your own water, and the corps is not taking care of their water,” Etcheverry said.
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