Owens River to flow once more

Sac Bee ^ | 12/4/06 | Laura Mecoy

[NormsRevenge]

LOS ANGELES-"There it is. Take it."

With those simple words, engineer William Mulholland heralded the first flow of Owens Valley water into the Los Angeles Aqueduct. The 233-mile conduit would give the booming metropolis its life and turn the valley into a parched desert.

Nearly a century later, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to offer his own observations when he pushes the button to return some of the Owens Valley's water to a river left dry by the city's water diversions.

The mayor's inauguration of the Lower Owens River Project on Wednesday won't be as auspicious an occasion as the 1913 opening of the aqueduct Mulholland designed. But it will be a milestone in the long-running feud between Los Angeles and the Owens Valley over the Eastern Sierra's most precious resource: its water.

"The Owens Valley has always been an Achilles' heel in our history," said Villaraigosa. "This is a way of beginning a new chapter in our relationship with the Owens Valley and in our commitment to the environment."

The history of acrimony and environmental damage dates back to the early 20th century when former Los Angeles Mayor Frank Eaton began buying up Owens Valley's land and water rights without telling the sellers of his desire to ship the water south.

The backroom deals and profiteering connected to the aqueduct's construction were later fictionalized in the movie "Chinatown."

The arrival of Owens Valley water made Los Angeles' explosive growth possible. But sending it south caused economic and environmental havoc in the valley.

[BallyBill]

..former Los Angeles Mayor Frank Eaton began buying up Owens Valley's land and water rights without telling the sellers of his desire to ship the water south.

Now, the Courts take your land and give it to whomever can make more profit for the municipalities.

[Amerigomag]

This is, quite simply, a farce.

The LADWP will return about 1.5% of their takings to the land. Enough to maintain a small creek along an old river channel and then pump the same water to put a skim coat on Owens Lake. The first wind storm will dry out the skim coat and the dust will fly again.

In the meantime, the channel from Crowley past Bishop will remain dry most of the year.

The answer is to pump the channel at the mouth of Owens Lake and send that water south to LA. The aqueduct and the dams above Owens should be restored to their previous glory in an LA County salvage yard.

[Utah Binger]

Touch my water, enjoy! Take my water, you're dead!

[Amerigomag]

The best that can be said about the LADWP in this sad episode is that the showed the potential for the eastern drainage of the Sierra's.

At the time of Mulholland's coup the area had no organized irrigation potential, most run off collected in isolated evaporation pans and their was little power to pump from the upper river during spring floods. When the LA money flowed into the upper and lower river basin, the dry farmers and cattle interests were eager to sell their rights for big money. It was manna from heaven.

After they watched the runoff from the Mono Basin diverted into the Crowley Sink, then watched flow on the river stabilized by the dam at Crowley, providing year round water available from the river, they got angry at themselves for not being far sighted enough to see the potential and cultivate a financial sugar daddy to build the infrastructure.

[Utah Binger]

In about 1870 the local Mormon pioneers built an irrigation system with a series of ditches down both sides of the valley. The source of water was the Virgin River.

The ditches were dug by hand into the very hard bentonite clay. Every farmer would get a water turn for a very specific amount of time each week. There are a couple of stories told about a couple of instances where a certain individual was taking water out of turn. The farmer whose water was being stolen, laid in wait one night and blew him away.

You can bet that my water turn schedule is followed precisely.