Legislation such as the Swampland Reclamation Act of 1861 was enacted in California to put perceived empty and wasted lands to use and stabilization. Much of this involved draining the Delta wetlands and building levees to regulate flood control in places like Locke. Mainly poor Chinese immigrants were hired to do this backbreaking reclamation work. Though contracted labor was often paid the equivalent of less than one dollar a day per worker, they built hundreds of miles of levees in waist deep water where malaria still rampaged, reclaiming a total 88,000 acres.