Hey Steve: Did the Orland sewer ponds used to be at Lely Park?

By Steve Nordbye, Orland.News

Hey Steve is our column where we answer your questions about what's happening around Orland. Got a question? Send it my way: stephen.nordbye@gmail.com or message us on Facebook at Orland.News.

I’ve been asked more than once if Orland’s original municipal sewer ponds were on the site of what would eventually become Lely Park. It might be top of mind because there’s talk of a fruit-drying operation returning to the airport, right next to the current sewer ponds. In any event, like many of you, I grew up hearing the same thing: that the ponds once sat where the park is today. The speculation seems to come in part from  the stormwater basin at Lely Park, which seems like it could be a relic of a sewer operation.

Either way, I wasn’t sure if it was fact or local legend. Time to find out.

Local memory, and the paper trail

First stop: local historians. The answers ranged from “I think that’s where they were,” to “it sure used to smell like it,” to “I’m pretty sure — but don’t quote me.” Helpful, but not definitive.

Online records confirm the city’s current wastewater ponds west of the airport went into service in 1958. Interesting, but they don’t answer the Lely Park question.

Newspaper archives turned up a lot on a “new sewer farm” in the 1910s. For example, an Oct. 13, 1916 Unit-Register piece detailed a bond issue pitched as the project that would make Orland “one of the most sanitary cities” in California.

The stories touted what a great step this would be for the city — emphasizing sanitation, public health, and growth capacity — but they consistently missed one key detail: the location. The closest clue I found simply said the facility would be “southeast of town,” which leaves plenty of room for interpretation.

The deed hunt (1911)

One early clue comes from a July 8, 1911 Orland Register report: the trustees accepted a contract for a deed to 20 acres from Dr. E. J. French—priced at $100 per acre — “a short distance from the southeast limits of the town,” to be used as a sewer farm.

With help from the Glenn County Recorder’s office, I searched the grantor/grantee index from 1905 to 1920. We came up empty — there was no deed transfer that showed where the parcel might have been.

That could mean a few things: the transaction may have been structured differently (as a lease, option, or donation), recorded under another public entity name such as “Trustees of the Town of Orland,” or completed in a later year. But  the paper trail still didn’t pin down the 1911 site.

The maps

That’s where City Engineer Paul Rabo came in. While researching another project, he found two city archive maps — one from 1955 and another from 1957 — that label the “sewer farm.”

The maps confirm the facility wasn’t inside Lely Park but just west of it, on land now used for the Orland City Yard, the County Yard, and what was once the Glenn County Courthouse.

Bottom line

After an extensive search, I can say without a doubt: the sewer ponds were never on the site that became Lely Park, though they were about as close as you could be without being there. By the time Lely Park opened in May 1980, the sewer ponds were farther away, in their current location out by the airport — although not quite far enough to avoid the smell when the wind is right.

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