Landowner Delores Cole half jokingly threatened to defend her property with a pitchfork if Oakdale Irrigation District workers came to bore out a clogged pipe on her ranch Tuesday morning.
Cole was continuing her longstanding feud over irrigation water with OID as she addressed Riverbank City Council on Monday night.
A resident of Snedigar Avenue between Patterson Road and California Avenue, Cole became annexed to the city several years ago and has been fighting OID ever since over the loss of her right to irrigation water.
OID will probably break her pipe in trying to inspect and open it, she said, and in the meantime is planning to divert the water through an open ditch that will block off her access to the back part of her property.
"They made a kind of bridge for my horses. But I'll probably fall in the ditch," she said.
But her main concern and that of the Council was the dryness of the land on the east side of Riverbank now OID has cut off irrigation water to the land owners who have annexed to the city or have property of less than 10 acres.
"They do not water at all. It is so dry out there," she said. "Just a spark from a horseshoe on a stone could start a fire. What are they supposed to do? Just burn up?"
Cole was continuing her longstanding feud over irrigation water with OID as she addressed Riverbank City Council on Monday night.
A resident of Snedigar Avenue between Patterson Road and California Avenue, Cole became annexed to the city several years ago and has been fighting OID ever since over the loss of her right to irrigation water.
OID will probably break her pipe in trying to inspect and open it, she said, and in the meantime is planning to divert the water through an open ditch that will block off her access to the back part of her property.
"They made a kind of bridge for my horses. But I'll probably fall in the ditch," she said.
But her main concern and that of the Council was the dryness of the land on the east side of Riverbank now OID has cut off irrigation water to the land owners who have annexed to the city or have property of less than 10 acres.
"They do not water at all. It is so dry out there," she said. "Just a spark from a horseshoe on a stone could start a fire. What are they supposed to do? Just burn up?"
