With all the effort put in during 1928 with work on the Bly Tunnel inlet, it did not make that much difference during the 1929 irrigation season. As a matter of fact to make things worse the districts doubled their rates for water from $2 to $4 per acre-foot.
For the next few years, the districts hired C.F. Staheli, a contractor to deepen the cuts and extend the inlet. It was an exercise in futility. Compounding matters was the lake in 1932, had dropped twenty-four feet since the tunnel had opened. Another tragic part of the story, the system was designed to irrigate 25,000 acres, when in reality in a good year only provided water for 5,000 acres. At the conclusion of 1934, that the project be abandoned. However, the districts engineer Harry Riddell came up with a last ditch effort to salvage the operation and account on that next week.