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BENJAMIN DUMLER

My name is Doug Clapp. I am interviewing Mr. Ben Dumler, an ex-manager from the North Poudre Irrigation Company. The interview is taking place on March 24th, 1993 at the North Poudre Irrigation Company's office in Wellington, CO.

Dumler - My senior partner and I were in the business of putting in concrete ditches and canals which was my first big association with working for the irrigation company. My father being an irrigation farmer, irrigation was no secret to me. My first association with the PDIC came in the summer of 1957 when I put in some concrete ditch for the guy who was president at that time, Harlan Seaworth. And he's the man I'm going to want you to see. He is a virtual. . . He's a library full of information. And he's been over here with the North Poudre Irrigation Company since approximately 1946. And very shortly after that he got on the board of directors and became President of the board. And he was president here for over 30 years. And like I say he's a library full of information. I used to check out his remembering abilities. For example, when we have our annual meeting, I'd have a girl from one of the temporary services come in and take notes. And I wouldn't write up anything until almost a year later. And I would discuss it with him, and he'd remember every damn detail. That's right. "No, wait a minute, it wasn't that, it was kind of like this And I checked him out on that a number of times. Finally I just realized, when he said something, that's the way it was. He didn't forget. He has one of those kind of memories.

Knowing his abilities and his involvement with the company and having him president as long as he was, I think he. . . He'd meet you once and ten years later he'll, "Hi Doug."

Know you right away, see. There is no question there, no problem, he'll know immediately

who we are. I've met three people that are that way. One waE my mother. But very few

people have that power of remembering. Anyway, I was lining some ditches for Harlan

Seaworth and he liked what he got so about the following year I put in some ditch for North

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Poudre Irrigation Company. I was a contractor, my senior partner and myself. We never used my name. I never did. Even after I bought him out I didn't use my name in the company. But I put in some ditch for North Poudre Irrigation Company and then I put in some more. Then I worked for a couple more directors. Put some ditches in for them. So I learned to know this area just simply because of working in here. So that was my first association with North Poudre Irrigation Company. And my knowledge of prior

predecessors is not too great. The man who was manager here ahead of me, a young fellow, and he was only here about 2 years and his father was manager ahead of him, and had also worked as secretary. And that's where they derived what they call secretary manager.

While I was here, I was still secretary manager. They changed that after I left and Bob Steven came in there, and then they separated that. Why is the secretary involved as the manager? One of the things that I noticed when I first came to work here. First of all, we took a tour, a big tour, and I was reluctant to come to work here. We took a big tour of the system, and we have over 200 miles of laterals and canals. So that is spread out pretty good. So I looked the whole thing over, and I didn't really care to come to work here. It was a funny thing. I was over here with Woodward Governor, and my wife told me that I'd had a call, Harlan Seaworth. And I said "No." She looked at me kind of funny. She says,

"Ben, he wants to talk." I says "No, no, I don't want to talk to him." We had dinner, and she says, "Well, I told Mr. Seaworth that you would call him back." And I said, "I don't want the job." She says, "What Job?" I says, "They have problems up there, and I don't want to go to work up there." She says, "How do you know that's what they want?" I said,

"I know, that's what they want." "Well, I told him you would call." I said alright finally,

"If you said I'd call, I'll call." So I called Harlan, and yes that's what he wanted. And I

was reluctant to meet with him. I finally met with him on a Friday afternoon. I was

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working the early morning shift there at Woodward and I got off about 3 O'clock, so my wife and I came up here to see Harlan. And we went over the system. I took about a week and a half to think about it before I met with the board. I finally decided it was so bad that it was a challenge such as I hadn't met before, and I love challenges. So I took the job. I started the middle of August of 1975. One of the toughest things I had to do was to get the system back in shape that winter so that we could run water in the spring. And we didn't have really anybody that was qualified on concrete or on very much other stuff, and of course, I had worked with concrete so darn much it was just a piece of cake for me. So I got the men organized in this respect. All the ditch riders worked. We were working on A's ditch for example. He was the foreman. Worked on B's ditch. He was the foreman and so on down the line because they all knew what they needed, and I had gone over it all with them. [PAUSE] Now let's see, where was I at here? Oh yes, and• getting this thing together, I realized very early that we had reservoir problems and we had ditch problems and we had many problems. Those seemed to go together. We finally did something as far as making a lot of changes. I'd recommend to the board and then the board could do whatever they wanted to. The way we work here--I don't know whether you know what the pecking order is at North Poudre--the stockholders elect the directors, the directors are responsible then for making the important decisions in the company. The directors appoint a president and vice-president. They also appoint a manager and secretary and whatever else. So the board works for the stockholder, the manager works for the stockholders and the board, and the men beneath him, they work for him and they work for the directors and the

stockholders. So, in other words, the stockholder, really supposedly, is at the top of the

pecking order until after the voting. Then the president is the big man in charge there. It

just kind of works that way, and it works out pretty good. The big significant changes, you

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were wondering about that. While I was here, and this was something that the board already had in the works, we built some flood control dams up on the east creek that came down into the North Poudre system--what we call Boxelder No. 5. You've got a map. It should be on there--B-5, B-6, B-2, B-3, which is on Coal Creek and B-4 which is on Indian Creek. They got those all completed. We re-built, not quite in this order, but we rebuilt them. Maybe I'd better try to give them to you in order. We did some rebuilding on North Poudre No. 5.

We rebuilt North Poudre No. 3. Hinckley Reservoir we rebuilt. We rebuilt Fossil Creek Reservoir and No. 15.

Clapp - What type of effort does it take to rebuild them. I mean is it the whole thing or. . Dumler - No. 5 we just added to that, put in a different outlet structure, added to the outlet structure and put in a lot of rip-rap. No. 3, we completely rebuilt the dam and rip-rapped it.

I had a problem over there. Having worked with dams and with rock I got into a big argument with the engineering company. They wanted a 3 to 1 side slope. I wanted a 4.

Or they could even go with 2-1/2 to 1. Well, on No. 3 they finally put in a 3, and because it was going to cost more money to have more slope on there, the board decided to go with that. But it wasn't very long after that we had the scarfs in there in the dam. The waves would come, the wind coming right from the west and blowing that water against the dam there, and I had to do a lot of rip-rapping there. Also did changing a lot of rip-rap up on Partrick Reservoir. That was a pretty good sized undertaking there, and I had to stop when I

was about 75% of the way through because we ran out of money. So, we stopped. When I wanted to continue with it, one of the directors was. . . he didn't want me to spend any more money on it, and I finally did convince him that it had to be done. He says, It's good the way it is." And I says, "Yes, and that's the way I want it to stay, I want it to stay good."

And it was a good thing to do that. Meanwhile we had to go ahead and do a lot of. .

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.Harlan did a lot of talk with the directors at the annual meeting, and we did manage to change the assessments. When I came here they were $15.00, and we went to about $20-25, then we jumped to $100.00. There was a pretty good jump in there, but everyone agreed that the work needed to be done, and we just played poor too long. You know, let's keep everything down because the farm income wasn't at its greatest. And when it was is

probably when they should have had the assessments higher, but you know, we all have that good old 20-20 hindsight. But it's the foresight that we're looking about. Now the CBT water, Colorado Big Thompson Water, coming over into the North Poudre Irrigation Company. Now Harlan can tell you all about that in fine detail, whatever detail that you want. That's the Colorado Big Thompson Project. The technological advances and all that sort of stuff. You see I dealt with the operation of the company. This is where I was. The board's relationship with the stockholders, it's great. You asked, "How important is the company lawyer?" Well, that's up to the board of directors to decide. I always felt this way, evidently they must be pretty important because while I was there, we weren't involved in any lawsuits of any size, and that sort of thing. So I would say that they're pretty

important. The North Poudre having so much land and water so close to the City of Fort

Collins and so many people wanting, "I'll buy this little tract and build a house here and

build a house here." I had some of them that built right on the edge of our ditch. We had

taken care of that earlier, this is kind of a funny situation, we had taken care of that earlier

and marked out where our boundary was and all that. This guy came along, bought the

piece of ground and built right on the edge of the ditch, put his barn there. I came out there,

I looked at it, introduced myself, and I said, "I'm just kind of wondering what you want to

do with that barn." "What do you -mean?" I says, "Well, you've got half of it sitting on our

ditch, on our property. Now, there's a couple of things I can do, we can take a chain saw

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and cut that back half off and get rid of it, or we'll just come along with the weed burner and burn our half, I was just kind of wondering what you'd like to do there, maybe you want to move it." He says, "Do I have to move it right away?" I says, "No, I wouldn't expect you to move it right away. Let's give you some time." He says, "I'll tear it down and rebuild it. I says, "Okay, that way you won't be losing any lumber." "How much time will you give me?" "How much do you need?" He thought he needed about 60 days. I said,

"I'll give you 90." One of the things that goes with a job like this, and it's not necessarily always the way you'd like to have it, but you have to deal sometimes with a little bit of an iron hand, even though you don't really want to. But you have the board's support, and the board has the stockholder's support, and as long as you are doing your job and doing it properly, you've got everybody elses support too. Any questions?

Clapp - No, not really, other than the pictures thing.

Dumler - Okay, now that's the way the office used to look. Okay, then we rebuilt this thing entirely. Let's see where there is any. . .

Clapp - On some of the reconstructions, what roughly is the time frame? I know money is involved, but how long does it usually take when you were rebuilding?

Dumler - Alright, let's say that we were going to rebuild No. 3 Reservoir. They had this

thing about $50,000 worth of engineering on a number of the reservoirs. And then we got

that into the making, then you get in touch with the state water engineer, the state engineer,

and he's going to tell you a few things about what you can and what you cannot do. And in

those cases I'd say that you'd better listen to them. This fellow here used to be my caretaker

down at the Fossil Creek Reservoir. He died some years back. This is some of the first

equipment that we bought. Let's see, it seems like. . .Bill and I are over here at the Back

Hoe Rodeo. I used to pick him up and we'd spend a day down in Denver. That's what they

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actually called it was the Back Hoe Rodeo. This picture over here, when I started, they had also started this foreign student exchange, and they were bringing these foreign students over here, and I'd lecture them. And I had usually about 3 or 4 classes, and there would be several sessions a year. These are. . .see that's the back of my head there.

Clapp - Where are roughly the students coming from, do you remember?

Dumler - Most of them came from Asia and India, Bangladesh, Srilanka, some came from China, and I even had some from Japan and Pakistan. I've had them from Egypt, Turkey, Spain, Honduras, Brazil,

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Had them from all over, and most of them could speak English fairly well. I was really surprised. I had to take my hat off to them because they were smarter than me. I can't speak three or four languages. But I would do, I would get them all together, we'd go into different cars and I'd show them the system, and then I'd lecture them on different things, and there was a big question-answer period. This was one of our wash-outs where one of the inlet structures had completely gone to pot, and it didn't surprise me because the damn thing was in bad shape to begin with. But in a matter of a few days I had everything back in' business again. Knowledge of the system—there is a picture of me in one of my old pick-ups. It wasn't old at the time. Knowledge of the

system and what--this happens to be on the Monroe Canal coming--I don't know whether you even know any of the canals or not.

Clapp - I know a bit of them.

Dumler - Okay, this is the one that comes from the Poudre River and is twisting around and finally joins our main over here, west and north of here. Fossil Creek Reservoir. Yes,

Windy Gap pipeline. Yes, I went over there to Windy Gap with some of the board, and we

saw what they were all doing over there at Granby. Knowing the system, knowing its weak

points, knowing what it needs, is all a big help to help you decide what it is that you need to

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do and what you're going to do. This is Tunnel #4, this is on the Monroe Canal here. Most of these places, I can pick them out real quick. But after all I did have a lot of time. This is part of the Cheyenne Frontier Days, how about that? Most of the pictures that I took, the board paid for the film and they paid forgetting them developed, and here they are. And what I tried to do is get along with all of the voting clubs and the water users. And it's not too easy to get along with everybody. As a matter of fact, sometimes you're by far better off to stand your ground and not try to get along with them so good. I had a class in here in the board room one day and I hadn't room to sit down, everybody else was sitting down or sitting on the floor or whatever. Some were standing. This one guy was blabbering to the guy standing beside him, and I was answering a question. A little bit later he asked me the same question I was answering. I said just a little bit ago I was answering that question. He says, "Well, I didn't hear you." I says, "I know you didn't hear me and neither did your neighbor because you were busy blabbering at the time, and so that's why you didn't hear me and that's why he didn't hear me. For his benefit I'm going to answer this one more time." But I said, "If you talk out of turn here in class one more time, you're going out on the sidewalk." Now that's a hell of a way to talk to somebody who is busy trying to learn, but on the other hand if he was trying so hard to learn, he shouldn't have had his mouth open. Later at the end of their season the professor had a little evening party, and this guy was waiting for me at the door. And I thought, "Well, this ought to be interesting." He stuck his hand out, and he says, "Mr. Ben, I want to tell you something, I learned more in your class than I've ever learned in anybody's." He says, "I felt a little bad about the way you talked to me," but he says, "I started learning something then." So sometimes, you see.

. . this is one of my classes here. I'm adjusting my cap there it looks like. It was fun, it was different. Let's see I'm preaching again there. This is the old Halligan Reservoir here.

,

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There going to be doing some work on that particular thing. Have you looked through these books at all?

Clapp - No I haven't had an opportunity.

Dumler - Some of these are just plain, just shots of what was going there. This is plaque on Fossil Creek Reservoir right there. The officers, etc. are all named on that plaque. Then we had somebody try to take the damn thing off of the. . . it's concreted in there. . .trying to take it off. Yes. I see my name is on there too. Recognition of Harlan Seaworth. Yes you will find Harlan to be quite interesting. This is the guy who is president right now.

Have you met him, Manual Pineda?

Clapp - No I haven't.

Dumler - That's Manual up there. Manual knows the system real well.

Clapp - What type of educational background do you really need to be effective as a manager?

Dumler - Well, I'll tell you what. There are several things that you can do. It's kind of like

being penny wise and pound foolish. The one thing that I think helped me. Well, of course,

having been a contractor and working with concrete and having to make the decisions. I had

a fairly good business knowledge. I didn't finish college. I had a fairly good business

knowledge and my banking abilities were very good. I say this because I'm about the only

person that I know of that would sit there across from his banker for 45 minutes and wind up

getting his interest less on money he was going to borrow, and go beyond the limit of the

bank and them agree to do it. There are not too many people who can do that. One of the

things that I have found really, really helpful, and as young as you are, you're going to find

this to be also a very helpful thing if you follow it. One - you must be able to get along

with people. Now I don't mean that you've got to say, "Yes, yes, yes," underdog. You've

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got to have the ability to make up your own mind and have your own decision. But you've got to be able to get along with people. You have to be able to tell people what you want done. And you have to also be accustomed to having people say, "Well, no I can't do it that way." "Well, I'll bet you can, and if you can't, gee I hate to tell you this, but if you can't do it, I'm going to have to get somebody who can." You have to be firm about your decisions. So for me knowing construction, knowing concrete, and knowing people. I've had lots of people working for me. When I was contracting, I didn't ever hire too many. I think the biggest of my crews that ever worked was around 65. But when you have 65 people working for you, you better know what you're doing. And it's easy to have that

many people working for you when you have the work for them. You have three men, and you have nothing for them to do today. That's harder to take care of than it is 65.

Understand equipment. I know construction equipment pretty well -- trucks, pickups, back hoes, motor graders, bulldozers. For quite a while I was a bulldozer operator and a motor grader operator. Hey, I wanted to know what the heck those things could do. Noone is going to tell me what I can or cannot do with a motor grader or a bulldozer. I knew what I could do with it. I know what can be done. I know what can be done with a cubic yard of concrete and how to handle it. So it's not book learning that I would say is all important, it is important. You don't want somebody in there that can't add 2 and 2, but as the manager,

your past experiences, what you have had, and your abilities to think out a problem is what

is important. When I met with the board of directors the first time before I was hired, we

had one guy on the board, and I had put in a lot of ditches for him. Harlan Seaworth

mentioned the fact that I was accustomed to doing this and that and so on and so forth--

construction work, concrete, had a lot of men working under me--and that helped. You

learn to speak to them. And you learn to speak to customers. Like here you would speak to

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the stockholders. You're going to speak to them very nice. And this one old guy was saying, "We don't need somebody that knows construction, we need somebody that knows the decrees." I was thirteen and a half years and still don't know them. I didn't have time to learn all the decrees. I was busy on something else. So I hope that partly answers your question.

Clapp - Yes, more than answers.

Dumler - That's Manual Pineda's pickup there. He's still driving that pickup. And

everybody in the country knows his pickup. It's known here, it's known in Denver. We did a little stucco job on the. . . you'll notice it looks a little bit different here. We changed the office. But out on the street here a ways, we had an old garage for a shop. We couldn't hardly get the equipment in there. And it was dangerous. They'd back out of there in the mornings. It would be foggy on winter mornings, you know, it didn't get light until about 8 O'clock. And that was dangerous, some kid running into one of the trucks with his bicycle.

And I finally persuaded them to. . . Have you been up to the shop?

Clapp - No I haven't.

Dumler - Alright, this is 62-1/2. You go right down here to the cafe, go north to the County Road, it's a dead end, you have to turn either east or west, turn to the west and it's on the north side. I was finally instrumental in buying a piece of ground, getting the board to allow me to buy it, buy a piece of ground, and then we put a shop up on it and got rid of this one over here. And it's been a good change. The men like it. And if there is work to do in winter time when it's really snowing and blowing. . . these are all construction things here. . . when it's snowing and blowing, they've got a place to work at, standing outside and seeing

how cold it's going to be. This guy is in New York--Mike Wish. He's inside there and so

is Mike Blehm. Bill Macintosh is gone. Yes, we used to have a barn down there plus a big

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reservoir. They tore that down. Just old photos. Construction. And mostly, this is what you have in here. This is a meter, metering water out of Fossil seep water. Water that's coming through that you don't necessarily want to release, but it comes through the drains or something like that. Well, I got a weed beater. And that's Manual taking a picture

[END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE]

[START OF TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO]

. . .Philip Schnore, he's no longer among the living. Philip Schnore was one of the board of directors. This was taken down at Granby. Where you don't know what there is here.

Some of this could be, I would say, not very interesting. Is that about right?

Clapp - No, actually I have a pretty good history. I'm originally from California so I know the importance. I've never been associated with farmers though, so I don't have that angle on it.

Dumler - Farmers are a special breed of individuals so to speak. They like, most of them, like their independence. . .that's Manual from me to there, got his club in his hand,

somebody was going to take over part of our system that particular day, and it didn't work too good. He could be

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character.

Clapp - Did you ever have any problems with farmers?

Dumler - Have I ever had any problems with farmers?

Clapp - When you were manager?

Dumler - Like, what kind of problems are you. . ? Clapp - Their wanting more water or. .

Dumler - You see, they call in for the water. This is a demand system here. If you want

water, you can call in on 6 days a week, but you can't call in on Sundays or holidays. And

there are only about 4 holidays that we had during the summer season. And you order that

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water, and there was always a time, you have to order it before 4 o'clock. It used to not be that way, they would call the ditch riders. I made some changes there. This is our new shop location here. Made those changes there. Tomorrow morning you want 60 inches of water. You call in, the water secretary takes it down, so and so 60 inches of water. You tell her the ditch and everything like that. The next morning the ditch rider comes by and turns it in with the exception of a few where they have long laterals where you have to. . some of them it takes 2 days to get the water down to them. But those are very, very. . .1 think there are about 2 or 3 of those that we have. And it's just very remote headgates. So now you want your water off, so you call in and you get your water turned off. But it won't get turned off or on on Sunday or on those holidays. So it's a demand system. When you don't want the water, you don't get it. When you do want the water, you get it. We had a problem with one of the. . .this is the old guy who used to be down at Fossil Creek, the one I said was dead, he had a tough ending. . . the board had a problem with one of them out here on a, he owned some land around one of the reservoir inlets. And he came into the office to speak to me and I found out very soon that what he actually wanted more than anything else was a nice free crossing. The board didn't go along with that, but we did finally get settled. We were out at the inlet, he was talking to me, and he says, "Well, Ben I guess I'm going to have a hell of a time getting my water now aren't I. I says, "Why?"

"Well, with the disagreement he had with the board." It didn't matter to me whether he was

suing the board, the board was suing him, or whatever it was, and I told him that. It does

not matter to me. What does matter to me is when you have paid your assessments, and you

order water, is to be sure that you get what you have coming to you. And I says, "Believe

me, you're going to get that as long as I'm here, whether you guys can go out and Ell each

other if you want to, but when you order water, you're going to get your water." So with

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that in mind, see, I could not afford to let the little petty grievances, and some weren't so petty, between the stockholders and the board, keep me from doing my job. I had one ditch rider, I says, "You're having a little problem with that one guy up there, he's not getting his water." "Well, at one time had a fast gun, and that's how they got their water." I said,

"Mister, I don't give a damn whether he did or did not have a fast gun, or how he became owner of that water. What I care about is him getting it. He pays his assessments, and by God he's going to get his water delivered. He's going to get the proper amount, or I'll get somebody who will." Before it was over with, I did. With all the people that I've had working for me, you learn to know something aboutpeople. I don't know whether I'm in this picture or not, it's too far away, I can't tell. I don't know whether that's me over there or over there, or way up on the hill here. I had a man who was in the habit of going to work a little bit late. Now when the concrete crew is ready to go out say at 6 o'clock in the morning and there is one guy missing, and it takes 6 guys, the one guy is missing, he hasn't shown up yet. The five of them are sitting there waiting. Now he comes 10 minutes late.

I've wasted a total of 1 hour. I've paid for 1 hour's time that I didn't get, right. So I called him in my office one day, had a little chat with him. And I says, "No more are you going to be late. When the crew is ready to leave, they need to leave, and you are either going to be working here or there is no point in having you here." The next morning he was late.

Now what would you do?

Clapp - Be gone.

Dumler - No, I didn't do that. I called him in my office and I says, "You were late again

this morning." "Yes." "I want to know why you were late." He says, "One guy ran a stop

sign and we had a wreck." Now wouldn't that have been dumb if I'd have fired him right

then and there without even knowing why. I'm trying to get you to do some thinking.

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When you're dealing with people, you have to do some thinking. The unforeseen can happen. And he did have an accident, and he did finally get down there to work and his wife wound up in the hospital. And you know my bookkeeper thought I ought to fire the guy right away. Well, I didn't do it. "Oh God," when he found out he says, "Ben, you did the right thing." Well, yes, I did the right thing. But you know I didn't know that

unforeseen that may have happened. You tell the guy you're going to fire him or you're going to get somebody else, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to do it. You have to understand the other guys position. And it's important. If you're going to have men who are. . .Well, that's me standing up there, I can tell that. This one is in back because I'm trying to climb a hill here of some type or another. . . when you have a lot of people working for you, they soon know, just like a dog always knows what kind of master he's got. He knows whether to trust you, and he doesn't give a damn about how you treat the grocer across the street or the guy in the filling station. He knows how you treat him. And they can see through you real quick. They are either very, very fond of you or they would just as soon you didn't ever come home in the &ening. People learn to know that about you

too. You back them, and I've always felt this way, you back your employees, and you know what, there is going to be a time maybe when the chips are down, and by God, they all back you. It's important. I've had people do things for me when they says, "We ought to get rid of such and such and so and so." I had one guy who was never going to do something, and he was a concrete finisher, and he was a good form setter. And he wasn't ever going to do something like that, and I had a job, by God I needed him bad. Hauling rock on one of the dams here. . . This seems to be kind of a little tank, railroad tanker, they cut it half into and put wheels under it. . . this guy said he was never going to do anything like that again.

Now here I had this job. So I called my foremen and superintendents together, and I got

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him in there, and I told them what we had to do. I says, "You know, Joe and I have talked about this a number of times, and he told me that he would never do such and such and so and so, but you know looking around here," and Joe liked to be recognized. He was an old guy, well at that time I thought he was old, he was maybe in his middle or late 50s. I says,

"But looking around here there isn't anybody here that can do a job like that as good as Joe can, not one of you guys. You know what Joe, if you would go ahead and build that, you take your pick of whoever you want to have work with you," and I says, "and you just kind of foreman the job. Would you consider doing the job for me?" He says, "Sure." Now his chest popped out a little bit more, he picked out 1 or 2 of the guys, and away they went and did a wonderful job. But, hey, he'd have had to have the help anyway, all I did is tricked him into doing it, when he. said he wasn't going to do it. Anything wrong with that?

Clapp - No not at all.

Dumler - So it isn't always what you say either, it's how you say it. Well, there may not be. . .1 don't particularly care whether I see those pictures or not, whether I'm on them or whether I'm not. This is a section of the Monroe Canal. You can see the quadi-cesium it goes through there. They had one of them old, old, what they call the drag, steam shovels or something like that, and they were actually running them with a steam engine, years ago.

See some of this ditch was started as early as, oh, before the turn of the century. This one

here especially. Okay, this is a picture of Harlan Seaworth right there. You won't quite see

him look that way now, but this goes way back. And as you can see going into some of

this, like I said, he was very knowledgeable. And we didn't always agree. We didn't

always agree at all. There were times when we would very much disagree, but in the end

we got along. He was good for me, and I know one thing, I was good for him. Okay, I

don't know as I want to look at any more of these, but I don't see anything here significant,

(17)

and that's what I was looking for, something that would maybe be significant for. . . I don't remember where this was taken, Poudre Valley Canal. I know that used to be a car that I had. Somebody ran into my pickup and tried to kill me, but didn't succeed. Then I didn't know whether I could drive a pickup again. Alright I'll tell you what, I think that perhaps at this particular time we've had a chance, I've talked long enough, you've had a chance to think of some questions that you'd like to ask, and if you do have some, I'll do my best to answer them.

Clapp - Okay. I guess one of the first ones. You mentioned initially that your father was a farmer. What type of farming did he do?

Dumler - Irrigated farming. Yes, it was right over here in Weld County. So he grew sugar beets, he grew beans and potatoes and barley and oats and alfalfa and corn. It later came to my attention that we were doing things wrong. For example, why should we have wheat and barley and oats, sometimes we had spring barley, sometimes we had winter barley,

sometimes we had spring wheat and also winter wheat. Why should we have all these little bitty acres of such and such and so and so. Why diversify that much? Whenever you did, you needed that much more machinery. And when I was a little boy, my father was farming with horses. So you never finished. The work was never finished. You started early in the morning currying the horses and milking the cows and feeding the horses and harnessing them, and then you'd go in and have breakfast and come back out and there was always this and that and something else, always something else. We weren't making very much

headway. My first challenge came to me, I was the youngest. My two older brothers came over to talk to me one day. I was 15 years old. They wanted a tractor, but they couldn't convince Dad. And they figured I could. And I said, "I want you guys to tell me

something, why do you want a tractor? If you can't convince me, I can't convince Dad."

(18)

Hey, I'm 15, one is 21, one was 17, and they want me to go ahead and tell Dad that we need a tractor. So we talked about it. . . The one outlet where the exhaust all junked out, that's what it looked like before it washed out, something like that. . . so we talked about it.

So later that morning I got Dad out in the yard and I said, "I want to talk to you about something Dad, you know there is something that kind of makes sense to me. We do such and such and so and so, we have a lot of livestock, you like to have plenty of feed for them, we've had this corn that we all grind up and everything like that, and we always have to hire somebody to do it. We're always behind in getting our work done because it's being done so slowly. If we were to have a tractor, there are several things that we could do. The first one is we could farm, you and Paul and Fred and myself, we could farm more land. We could also get it done quicker, we could also grind our own feed in the winter, get ourself the hammer mill and use the tractor to belt power the heavy long belts at that time, and to power that thing. And by the time one year is over with, we could raise enough extra crop and save enough money to where we pay for the tractor." He says, "I've got to go to town late this morning." "Well," I says, "Fred and I have to go to town too." We had sandy soil and we would plant rye in fall, and once it was up then it would keep the land from blowing.

I wasn't old enough to drive and Fred was, and I said, "We've got to get some seed." He says, "I'll meet you over there at the machinery dealer, tell me which one." We bought a tractor that day. Yes. Now that taught me something. I didn't have this in mind before I talked to Dad. But here's what it amounts to. You've heard little kids that they want something. "Why?" "Cause." You've heard that haven't you? "Why do you want it?"

"Cause." "Why?" "Oh, just cause:" "Alright you want it because." To me that wasn't

quite enough. There's got to be just a little bit more to it than that. A little bit more. Well,

so I think out a reason. Why do I want to meet with you here this morning in the first

(19)

place? Well, I want you to have something to put in there. After all I am a stockholder here besides being an ex-manager, I'm a stockholder here. And if you get something put together, I'm going to wind up being the recipient of it in one way or another, and be looking at it. And the one thing that I didn't get when I started here, all the records were, they vanished. They didn't have any records at all. So I made sure that didn't happen.

First of all they were going to retire, then I think they hated my guts because I took the job.

Now this is something, "I'm not going to work here anymore, I'm leaving, but the guy that's coming in after me, I'm going to make it as tough on him as I possibly can." My records all stayed here, but I left. They stayed here, and I wanted them to stay here. I want this to be taken care of. If it doesn't benefit me, it will benefit somebody down the line, hopefully.

And if nothing else, maybe at least it will relieve their pocket of some money if nothing else, see. When you tell somebody that you want to do something, you usually have reason or else you need a reason. I'm going to this because of such and such and so on and so on. I used that tactic on Dad and I did the right thing. And I never forgot that. It stayed with me.

We're going to do it because of such, were going to do it because of so. When I was finally manager of the construction company that my partner and I had, there were several stockholders in there, I was a small stockholder in there. Then I became manager of it.

And when we would talk about something, I would always have a reason for wanting to do something, and I would tell him what it was, let him think about it a little bit. Two

redheads, both hot heads, and we never had one argument in 10 years. Now isn't that

something? If he was spoiling for a fight, I didn't have time to talk to him. If I was, he

didn't have time to talk to me. When we were both cooled off, we'd discuss it. It works

that way--knowing your business--knowing people. People are the same as animals, we're

creatures of habit. We get in a certain habit and we follow that. If I'm in the habit of

(20)

listening, just listening, it's tough for me to change around and be in the habit of telling somebody what to do. And you have 2 types of people. You have the leaders and you have the followers. Right?

Clapp - Yes.

Dumler - The leaders and the followers. You help me turn that rule or get the hell out of my way. Help me with the wagon. Determination is necessary. When you're determined to do something, but it must be planned out, thought out. And if it is, chances are you're going to be on the right track. How old are you?

Clapp - 25.

Dumler - 25. Gees, when I was in World War II, I didn't think I'd ever live to be 25.

Clapp - So you were in the service then?

Dumler - Yes, I was a Merchant Seaman.

Clapp - In the Atlantic?

Dumler - Pacific. I never have seen the Atlantic, and chances are I don't want to. No I served in the South Pacific for about 3 years. There again, I learned to know something about people. Your on this little old ship, you know, and you learn to get along with people.

I didn't have any fights. Some of the guys did. Some guys couldn't keep out of fights. But you did your job. At least you'd better do your job. But I learned something about getting along with people, and I got along with people very well. If you didn't know something, be open enough to admit it. "No, I don't know how to do that, but I'd sure like to learn."

Yes, that's been a long time ago, but you know, I'm probably not through looking around yet. It's not up to us to decide. Any other questions?

Clapp - Were any of your family, did they get involved in the North Poudre Irrigation

Company, or was it just you?

(21)

Dumler - No, just me. No, they weren't in it at all.

Clapp - What about problems with. . . I mean nowadays everybody is concerned about water, you know, especially with everything, ground water etc. Have you ever had any problems with conservationists basically who are really tight on that or. . .? Also environmental issues?

Dumler - No, I haven't had any problem with that. A lot of people do have, but I haven't had any problem with that. I've worked with the Soil Conservation Service when I was lining ditches. Worked with a lot of them. And most of the things that they were concerned with, I was concerned with too. For example, I go by your farm and I see a nice stream of water going down the gutter. In the afternoon I go by there and it's still going down the gutter. The next day it's still going down the gutter. I'm going to start making some noise.

You're wasting water, and I don't like that. I'm not what you might say a "conservationist,"

but I don't like to see anything wasted. Where many times they were in a water short situation here. I didn't like to see water get wasted. So I would make some noise about it.

And this happened very, very little. There is also another problem, and it is with us constantly, and you and I talking about it today isn't going to end it. And that is thievery.

That's the important thing. Thievery is very important, and it's got to be looked at and

understood that we are going to have thieves around us. A motor grader operator was out

here, he was grading one of the ditch roads, and he came back in and he told me, "Ben,

there is somebody out there stealing water." I was all hidden. He had a piece of plastic

pipe, and it was buried, and it would come out of the ditch and get it primed just like a

syphon, and then he was irrigating. I says, "Take it out and bring it in." Okay, he did. I

threw it in my pickup, and the guy was, I knew he was going to be home on a Saturday

morning, and I drove out there to his yard. He didn't own any North Poudre water. I just

(22)

drove up in the yard and right up where he was. I never even bothered to get out of the pickup. I said, "How are you this morning?" "Just fine." "You live right here don't you?"

"Yes." "You know you have a very, very nice place, very nice. I only have one problem with that, you're irrigating your garden with my water." The guy didn't know what to say.

I says, "This apparatus here in the back of my pickup, that's yours isn't it?" He says,

"Yes." I says "I don't even want to touch it. You take it out, and if you decide you need to water your garden, we'll get you fixed up. It's going to cost you a few bucks to buy some water, a half a share of water, and get that all taken care of the way it's supposed to be, or you and I aren't going to get along very good. And I don't think you want that to happen."

He says, "No." I says, "So take it out." I gave him my name, told him where the office was, "You want to irrigate your garden, fine and dandy, but don't do it by stealing it.

You've got such a nice place here, and it's below you to do something like that. Well now,

I ridiculed the man without ridiculing him in a sense. And I never heard from him again,

and he didn't ever take any more water either. Another one was in the habit of stealing

water. This was a realtor, owned a place southeast of here. And the ditch rider would come

by in the morning and looked at that, and he told me, he says, "His ditch, I can see the

water mark, it keeps changing." "Okay, I know what the problem is." So my ditch rider

went by the next morning. We didn't lock the gates. We had very few locked gates, at least

when I was here on the system. Ditch rider came by the next morning. Sure as heck he

could see where the water had been running higher, and he checked the water and went on

his way. He would barely go and this guy was up there and opened the gate. And there I

came along with a padlock, shut him down. And I let everybody on the system know that he

was a water thief. And you know what, I didn't have anymore. Hey, if you steal water

from me, everybody is going to know about it. I told my men this, and I meant it, "If you

(23)

steal from the company, I'm taking it personally, I'm taking it personally, as though you're stealing it right out of my pocket. Don't you be stealing from the company. And I catch anybody around here that is stealing, now that is a No. 1 offense. I will not put up with that." And telling them in this particular way, I didn't have any. Okay, any other questions?

Clapp - Where do you see North Poudre Irrigation Company going? I mean is it going to require more water holdings or develop those further, or. .

Dumler - One thing they're going to do and probably in conjunction with the city of Fort Collins, and that the building--I showed you that picture of a big dam structure at Halligan Reservoir up there, and maybe you've been there, maybe you haven't been anywhere in the system, I don't know how much you know about the system, huh?

Clapp - I don't know much, I'm originally from Minnesota, so. . Dumler - I thought you said you were from California.

Clapp - I was born in California, but I've recently lived in Minnesota.

Dumler - You know I went through Minnesota there from, well let's see north of Fargo inside North Dakota, what is the next major city *north of Fargo?

Clapp - That would be Minot.

Dumler - No, Minot is back to the east. This is straight north along the Red River. Great Bend, Great Falls. There is another base there.

Clapp - Grand Forks.

Dumler - Grand Forks. My grandson was stationed there. My wife and I were up there to see him, and then we went from there over across Minnesota over to Duluth. My

granddaughter was down there at Eclair, WI. And there I saw this damn thing going up

there, and I just thought it was kind of an arch like they have in St. Louis. Pretty soon I'm

(24)

driving on this damn thing. Hey, eye things?? never bother me, but I've been away from it so long that it does. I told my wife, "You do the looking," here we're going over this neck of the Superior Reservoir, and I was just looking right ahead. That was Minnesota, yes, Duluth, MN, right?

Clapp - Yes.

Dumler - And I think this next step, as soon as I was. . [END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO]

[START OF TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE]

Clapp - This is the second tape of the Ben Dumler interview, who was an ex-manager of the North Poudre Irrigation Company. My name is Doug Clapp. The interview is taking place on March 24th, 1993 at the North Poudre Irrigation Company.

Dumler -. . . if it isn't for North Poudre Irrigation Company, it will be for the people living in the City of Fort Collins. In other words it's just water that has been made better use of.

The rest of it, rebuilding the reservoirs and making sure that we have a vessel for whatever water there is available, that's about the only thing I can see there. I don't think there needs to be anything else taken care of. We have a place to catch all the rainwater. We have a place to catch the snow. So I think that's been pretty well taken care of. I can see where there is probably going to be more and more of the farmland turned into residential areas.

But the farmland, there is still going to be quite a bit of farming done here in this area as I see it. I could be wrong, but as I see it, that's . . . You know, I don't care what you have, I don't care whether you're the biggest army in the world and have all the mightiest weapons, but you'd better have some food too. And you better have water. I was talking to

somebody, I don't remember anymore who it was, this was sometime back, and I was

making some remark about the importance of water. "Well," he says, "Ben, water isn't that

(25)

important." "Well," I says, "You know you're right. That's why the Sahara is so crowded." Any other questions?

Clapp - Yes. Have you ever had problems with. . . I mean recreational use now is on the rise or people want to use more of it. Have you ever had problems with that?

Dumler - We lease it out. We lease the various reservoirs to various clubs. They have to abide by whatever the rules the board sets down. For example, they have to have provision to let a stockholder or a number of stockholders be members of their club if they want to be.

They have to pay a certain fee, whatever the board decides there. And they have to adhere to whatever rules, clean-up rules and all that. And I have been pretty rough on some of them as far as when they leave their reservoirs in fall in a real stinky mess. And you don't like that. I always felt this way; the North Poudre Irrigation Company stockholders paid a lot of money to go ahead and get those reservoirs built and we're proud of them, and somebody come in there and leave them junky, trashy, I don't go for that. I gave them a choice, either they clean it up or they don't come back, or I'll clean it up, and you're going to pay North Poudre Irrigation Company for it. In one case they had us clean it up and they paid us. We put the reservoir up for bid. Usually, they would have a chance to remove their leases with the board just by meeting with the board without even going on bidding, but that particular reservoir went on bid and they are no longer around. Recreation is important and it's good for people to have a place to go, it is, but you know, some get pretty trashy.

For example, how do you answer this question? If I tell somebody, "So and so said you

ain't fit to live with the hogs." Now if I'm going to stick for them, I'm going to say, "He is

too" or "that's right he's not." It's kind of like that old saying "how are you going to win a

fishing contest with this scum?" Yes, try that, how are you going to win? You know, it's a

(26)

no win situation. But it's important for people to have someplace for recreation. And it also provides a certain amount of income for North Poudre Irrigation Company.

Clapp - Okay, I was wondering if I could get you to. .

[END OF TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE]

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