The First Los Angeles Aqueduct:
With the rapid population growth during the year of 1902, Los Angeles had a larger demand of water than what they could provide and searching for a way to bring water was a must. William Mulholland, superintendent of the Los Angeles City Water Company, began to search for a new supply. He started looking on nearby local areas but it generated to nothing. In his search for a new source, he began by surveying all the rivers and groundwater basins south of the city. He found groundwater regulated and being used by agriculture. Additional groundwater use would limit the expansion of the neighboring country, which was the main basis of wealth of the area. Mulholland concluded Los Angeles would have to look elsewhere.
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He found that the Colorado River was the best source. In 1925, the Department of Water and Power (DWP) was established. Now what came to be called the Colorado River Aqueduct, needed financing to be accomplished. Voters from the region approved a $2 million bond to perform the engineering needed for the aqueduct. In 1928, an act of the State Legislature, created the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD), and its purpose was to construct the Colorado River aqueduct to supply water to Southern California. By 1931, voters issued another bond for $220 million that would start the construction of the aqueduct. By 1941 the aqueduct was completed stretching 242 miles from the Colorado River to its final holding reservoir near Riverside, California. The Colorado River Aqueduct consists of more than 90 miles of tunnels, 55 miles of conduit, 30 miles of siphons, five pumping stations, 5 treatment plants, and 9 reservoirs. All of this can supply about 1.2 million-acre-feet of water every year, which is more than a billion gallons a day. This caused phenomenal growth of Los Angeles, San Diego and neighboring areas. The aqueduct is capable of lifting more than 1600 cfs to a static height of 1600 feet as it takes a path through mountains and deserts. Upon the completion of the Colorado River Aqueduct in 1941, the Municipal Water District began to wholesale Colorado River water to its member agencies. Today those agencies include 14 cities, 12 municipal water districts, and a county water authority. More than 130 municipalities and many unincorporated areas are served by this project of the DWP’s and Mulholland’s vision. Before Mulholland died on July 22, 1935, he lived to see the inaugurations of the Colorado River Aqueduct and Hoover Dam, constructed in the spirit of significance he had always
When they finally got the dam built they could now start to allow for the construction of other dams and irrigation systems farther down river. Also another great thing of the dam is it helps with agriculture and with making more building for what they need and it help in a way way big difference with the flooding. The year this happened was the year 1931 was when this dam went up. But a little before that in the year 1912, and it seems over time the irrigation started and the siphon was made this year of 1912 but that actually attracted more and more people. That means that the state will grow I’m population and other products. But with the “Steamboats still cruised up the Colorado River from Mexico, packed with goods, when the bureau started building the Laguna Dam around 1906.” But during the year of 1994 we made a treaty with mexico with the 1.5MAF of water in Colorado River to share with Mexico. “Today nearly 17 million people depend on the Colorado’s waters.” All american canal serves the Palo Verde Imperial irrigations also the yuma project lands in imperial and coatehand valley. Also the present perfected right- Palo Verde Imperial irrigation district and Reservation Division, Yuma project California division (non-indian portion) has present perfect rights. But for the Colorado River actually dried up at one point, the people really relied on the river and water, but sadly the water takes a long time
A second aqueduct was added in Los Angeles in 1970. This aqueduct began south of the Owens, and just much cheaper
In the his brief but effectual article “The Wrong Way to Think about California Water”, the author Michael Hiltzik presents to the reader “a guide to the wrong ways to think about California water, and the glimmer of a better way”(Hiltzik). In the short piece, Hiltzik argues that the current debate on how California should be spending its meager allowance of water during the current drought is being thoroughly misguided. Hiltzik writes that people should stop criticizing businesses that consume “large” amounts of water, rather, the water already being used should be utilized more efficiently and effectively. “The only lasting solutions include creating a better-functioning water market with transparent pricing and transfers, so that water
Owens Lake was a very big lake full of water in the Owens Valley on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada.Before all of this happened Owens Lake used to be a very beautiful lake full with water as shown in the picture above.Now that all the unfortunate water events happened all the water is gone.One of the unfortunate events was the water wars,in the water wars various people were breaking each others ways of getting water while all the water from it just went to waste. The water wars was over William Mullholland taking the water from Owens Lake and also, Mullholland tricking the people of Owens Valley to take their water rights telling them that it was going to benefit them , but it really benefited Los Angeles.
Another challenge for people is when you have to transport water from one place to other places for them not to dry up like the Colorado River in El Mayor Mexico. For example the Colorado River some of its water is transported ported through, eastward across the Rocky Mountains to Denver and other cities in Colorado. The Colorado River Aqueduct carries water to metropolitan Los Angeles, and the Central Arizona Project supplies the Phoenix and Tucson areas.” The American canal provides water for the Imperial Valley of southern California, the imperial valley is very active for
The only way Yuma’s land could be irrigated was to start a project called the Yuma project which was A U.S Bureau of Reclamation project built to irrigate acres. This included the construction of the Wellton Mohawk District. The Wellton Mohawk District has 115,000 acres of land, 75,000 acres are irrigable and 40,000 are non irrigable. Only 71,000 acres of irrigable and 17,000 non irrigable acres lands are privately owned. 23 years after the completion of the irrigation distribution system, 68,000 acres have been able to be irrigated. When the Colorado river water was first applied to the lands in the Wellton Mohawk district, reclamation of irrigable lands were resulted in high crop yields and high annual agricultural incomes. The income of crops produced from the project is about 37 million dollars, more than one half of 66 million invested in the project by the U.S. The Yuma desalting plant was another expensive project that the government built its price was about 400 million dollars. The desalting plant is not an actual plant but a factory where salty water would be cleaned, and would be delivered to Mexico. The Hoover dam was a gigantic wall made of concrete that was constructed in 1931, it's purpose was to reserve the water, control floods, and used for irrigation. The price of the Hoover dam was about 49 million dollars. All
Since the population of Los Angeles was increasing, the city needed more water. The city population was over the city’s water supply capacity that if it was kept going, the city would start depopulated. William Mulholland was the one who solved this problem and became a hero of the city. He just did not start being a hero. He moved from Britain to California, and entered the water business after 1877. Throughout his career as a hydraulic engineer, he voiced the belief that L.A. faced a perpetual water shortage, so he was asked for more efficient sources of water (Nicolaides 238). Basically to maintain his power and to solve the city’s problem, he decided to bring Owen’s river water through water pipes. Since the water would come from a different
The tides shifted years later when a new, more powerful group found interest in the natural resources of the Owen Valley territory. At the time, Los Angeles, California was a growing metropolis, and of major capitalistic interest to California (with significant ties to the political leaders of the United States as high up as the president). With the population of Los Angeles out growing its water supply,
Envision yourself, about to complete a straightforward, everyday thing such as washing the dishes, suddenly to your surprise there is no water coming out of the faucet. Well for the civilians of East Porterville this is their reality. California has always had very lenient and ineffective groundwater regulations. Today, this has become a major issue, especially with California's severe drought. The regulation of the aquifer is a necessity because cleanliness is a basic human right and by not regulating the groundwater and leaving civilians with no working water, that right is taken away. The right to bathe, wash your hands, and have a working toilet is simply no more. Furthermore there are scientific statements, proving that excessively pumping groundwater will lower the water levels, which will likely lead to the land level sinking as well.
As previously mentioned, the Boulder Dam was one of the most famous, and certainly most expensive (with the whole project costing about $385 million) public works program. To provide jobs and much needed money to unemployed Americans, the Bureau of Reclamation, under President Hoover, authorized the Boulder Canyon Project on the Colorado River in 1928. The entire project included a hydroelectric power plant and a reservoir to control floods of the Colorado River and supply power to the Pacific Southwest. The dam reservoir is Lake Mead, which can store approximately 28 million acre-feet of water, making it one of the world’s largest artificially created bodies of water. Besides providing many jobs, the project responsible for the officially named Hoover Dam (as of 1947), added about 3 million acres of national parks and monuments and expanded
Southern California perhaps has seen the most conflict over water than the rest of the United States. The area surrounding Los Angeles and San Diego has virtually no fresh water source naturally and requires irrigation from the north. These two cities have continually conflicted over water allocations from the Colorado
Yet, humans have limited control on natural events, so this only reinforces the importance of managing water wisely. Recently California’s government has begun to focus more on sustaining and restoring the water supply. Dale Kasler (2016) articulates in his article some of the steps they have decided to make to solve this serious issue. The government has made the following investments: “$415 million for watershed restoration and other environmental aid for Lake Tahoe; up to $335 million for two proposed reservoirs in California, including the Sites reservoir north of Sacramento; $880 million for flood-control projects on the American and Sacramento rivers in Sacramento; and $780 million for flood-control projects in West Sacramento” (para. 10). This could be the first step to restoring the water to California. But these
Currently California is facing a water shortage. The issue has been addressed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in February. He called for all state agencies to find the way to help in the statewide water shortage. This is California’s third consecutive year of drought and last spring and summer was the worst of the season because it had the lowest amount of water recorded and California’s reservoirs were at their lowest point as well which did not help in the water shortage. Many agencies have been acquired to find possible solutions to the water shortage, the Department of Water Resources has been directed to find solutions to the problem as well as asking people to conserve water.
Unfortunately for this growth, the demand far exceeds the available supply. The Bureau of Reclamation completed the last major dam (Glen Canyon) in 1966. The Bureau built several smaller dams, along with Glen Canyon, under the auspices of the Colorado River Storage Project
Along this journey created by nature, the river interacts with man’s influence to encapsulate the full geographic experience of this region. The succession of dams along the river’s path is a major contribution to how man has decided to mesh with the river. The dams have created reservoirs for water supplies, harnessed energy to provide electric power to the southwestern region, and controlled flooding. Flood control was the main concern at the time between the years 1905 and 1907 when large floods broke through the irrigation gates and destroyed crops in California. The flooding was so large it actually created a 450 square mile sea, named the Salton Sea. As a result of this major disaster, ideas were formulated to