District Size: 32,000 acres Year Formed: 1957 Projects: The district is nearly all irrigated agriculture and consequently the resource priorities revolve around water. Increasingly perched high water table in the fine textured soils have created subsurface drainage problems for land managers. Surface drainage is a community wide problem including the routing of winter flood waters, draining of low lying pockets in fields, locating suitable outlets for drain water and the proper handling of summer irrigation drain water. Overview: The district is located in the north westerly portion of Fresno County with a small acreage In Merced County. It embraces the lower portion of the Little Panoche Creek and an unnamed drainage from the Panoche Hills. The Delta-Mendota Canal crosses the Northwest portion of the district, then roughly parallels the northern boundary. The San Luis Canal runs along the west border of the district and delivers water by gravity to surrounding agricultural lands.
The district lies west of the trough of the San Joaquin Valley and extends westward to the first low, foothills of the Coast Range. The lands are level to nearly level with a gradual slope to the northeast of 20 to 30 feet per mile along the fall line. Elevations vary between 148 to 390 feet above sea level. Soils are fairly uniform throughout the district and fall within the 7 or 8 Soil Series. Soil productivity is complicated by high water tables, saline-alkaline conditions, and stratification. Water for the irrigated lands is obtained from the Delta-Mendota Canal, the San Luis Canal and by deep wells. These waters are distributed to farmlands by the Panoche Water District.
