California water wars
The California water wars were a series of political conflicts between the city of Los Angeles and farmers and ranchers in the Owens Valley of Eastern California over water rights.
As Los Angeles expanded during the late 19th century, it began outgrowing its water supply. Fred Eaton, mayor of Los Angeles, promoted a plan to take water from Owens Valley to Los Angeles via an aqueduct. The aqueduct construction was overseen by William Mulholland and was finished in 1913. The water rights were acquired through political fighting and, as described by one author, "chicanery, subterfuge... and a strategy of lies".
Water from the Owens River started being diverted to Los Angeles in 1913, precipitating conflict and eventual ruin of the valley's economy. By the 1920s, so much water was diverted from the Owens Valley that agriculture became difficult. This led to the farmers trying to destroy the aqueduct in 1924. Los Angeles prevailed and kept the water flowing. By 1926, Owens Lake at the bottom of Owens Valley was completely dry due to water diversion.
The water needs of Los Angeles kept growing. In 1941, Los Angeles diverted water that previously fed Mono Lake, north of Owens Valley, into the aqueduct. Mono Lake's ecosystem for migrating birds was threatened by dropping water levels. Between 1979 and 1994, David Gaines and the Mono Lake Committee engaged in litigation with Los Angeles. The litigation forced Los Angeles to stop diverting water from around Mono Lake, which has started to rise back to a level that can support its ecosystem.
Owens Valley context
The Northern Paiute people were the inhabitants of the valley in the early 1800s, and used irrigation to grow crops.In 1833, Joseph R. Walker led the first known expedition into the central California area that would later be called the Owens Valley. Walker saw that the valley's soil conditions were inferior to those on the other side of the Sierra Nevada range, and that runoff from the mountains was absorbed into the arid desert ground. After the United States gained control of California in 1848, the first public land survey conducted by A.W. von Schmidt from 1855 to 1856 was an initial step in securing government control of the valley. Von Schmidt reported that the valley's soil was not good for agriculture except for the land near streams, and stated that the "Owens Valley worthless to the White Man."
In 1861, Samuel Addison Bishop and other ranchers started to raise cattle on the luxuriant grasses that grew in the Owens Valley. The ranchers came into conflict with the Paiutes over land and water use, and most of the Paiutes were driven away from the valley by the U.S. Army in 1863 during the Owens Valley Indian War.
Many settlers came to the area for the promise of riches from mining. The availability of water from the Owens River made farming and raising livestock attractive. The Homestead Act of 1862 gave pioneers five years to claim and take title of their land for a small filing fee and a charge of $1.25 per acre. The Homestead Act limited the land an individual could own to in order to create small farms.
The amount of public land settled by the late 1870s and early 1880s was still relatively small. The Desert Land Act of 1877 allowed individuals to acquire more area, up to , in hopes of drawing more settlers by giving them enough land to make their settlement and land expenses worthwhile, but "included no residency requirements". By 1886, rapid acquisition of land had begun and by the mid-1890s, most of the land in the Owens Valley had been claimed. The large number of claims made by land speculators hindered the region's development because speculators would not participate in developing canals and ditches.
Before the Los Angeles Aqueduct, most of the of canals and ditches that constituted the irrigation system in the Owens Valley were in the north, while the southern region of the valley was mostly inhabited by people raising livestock. The irrigation systems created by the ditch companies did not have adequate drainage and as a result oversaturated the soil to the point where crops could not be raised. The irrigation systems also significantly lowered the water level in Owens Lake, a process that was intensified later by the diversion of water through the Los Angeles Aqueduct. At the start of the 20th century, the northern part of the Owens Valley turned to raising fruit, poultry and dairy.
Los Angeles Aqueduct
and William Mulholland were two of the more visible principals in the California water wars. They were friends, having worked together in the private Los Angeles Water Company in the 1880s. In 1886, Eaton became City Engineer and Mulholland became superintendent of the Water Company. In 1898, Eaton was elected mayor of Los Angeles and was instrumental in converting the Water Company to city control in 1902. When the company became the Los Angeles Water Department, Mulholland continued to be superintendent, due to his extensive knowledge of the water system.Eaton and Mulholland had a vision of a Los Angeles that would become far larger than the Los Angeles of the start of the 20th century. The limiting factor of Los Angeles's growth was water supply. "If you don't get the water, you won't need it," Mulholland famously remarked.
Eaton and Mulholland realized that the Owens Valley had a large amount of runoff from the Sierra Nevada, and a gravity-fed aqueduct could deliver the Owens water to Los Angeles.
Obtaining water rights 1902–1907
At the start of the 20th century, the United States Bureau of Reclamation, at the time known as the United States Reclamation Service, was planning on building an irrigation system to help the farmers of the Owens Valley, which would block Los Angeles from diverting the water.From 1902 to 1905, Eaton and Mulholland used underhanded methods to obtain water rights and block the Bureau of Reclamation. The regional engineer of the Bureau, Joseph Lippincott, was a close associate of Eaton; Eaton was a nominal agent for the Bureau through Lippincott, so Eaton had access to inside information about water rights and could recommend actions to the Bureau that would be beneficial to Los Angeles. In return, while Lippincott was employed by the Bureau, he also served as a paid private consultant to Eaton, advising Los Angeles on how to best obtain water rights.
To help acquire water rights in 1905, Eaton made high offers to purchase land in Owens Valley. Eaton's eagerness aroused suspicion in a few local Inyo County people. Eaton bought land as a private citizen, hoping to sell it back to Los Angeles at a tidy profit. Eaton claimed in an interview with the Los Angeles Express in 1905 that he turned over all his water rights to the City of Los Angeles without being paid for them, "except that I retained the cattle which I had been compelled to take in making the deals... and mountain pasture land of no value except for grazing purposes". Eaton moved to the Owens Valley to become a cattle rancher on the land he purchased. Eaton always denied that he acted in a deceptive manner.
Mulholland misled Los Angeles public opinion by dramatically understating the amount of water locally available for Los Angeles's growth. Mulholland also misled residents of the Owens Valley: he indicated that Los Angeles would only use unused flows in the Owens Valley, while planning on using the full water rights to fill the aquifer of the San Fernando Valley.
By 1907, Eaton was busy acquiring key water rights and traveling to Washington to meet with advisers of Theodore Roosevelt to convince them that the water of the Owens River would do more good flowing through faucets in Los Angeles than it would if used on Owens Valley fields and orchards.
The dispute over the Owens River water became a political dispute in Washington. Los Angeles needed rights of way across federal land to build the aqueduct. California Senator Frank Flint sponsored a bill to grant the rights of way, but Congressman Sylvester Smith of Inyo County opposed the bill. Smith argued that irrigating Southern California was not more valuable than irrigating Owens Valley. While a compromise was being negotiated, Flint appealed to President Roosevelt. Roosevelt met with Flint, Secretary of the Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock, Bureau of Forests Commissioner Gifford Pinchot, and Director of the Geological Survey Charles D. Walcott. In this meeting, Roosevelt decided in favor of Los Angeles.
Several authors, such as Rolle and Libecap, argue that Los Angeles paid an unfairly low price to the farmers of Owens Valley for their land. Gary Libecap of the University of California, Santa Barbara observed that the price that Los Angeles was willing to pay to other water sources per volume of water was far higher than what the farmers received. Farmers who resisted the pressure from Los Angeles until 1930 received the highest price for their land; most farmers sold their land from 1905 to 1925, and received less than Los Angeles was actually willing to pay. However, the sale of their land brought the farmers substantially more income than if they had kept the land for farming and ranching. None of the sales were made under threat of eminent domain.
The aqueduct was sold to the citizens of Los Angeles as vital to the growth of the city. Unknown to the public, the initial water would be used to irrigate the San Fernando Valley to the north, which was not at the time a part of the city. From a hydrological point of view, the San Fernando Valley was ideal: its aquifer could serve as free water storage without evaporation. One obstacle to the irrigation was the Los Angeles City Charter, which prohibited the sale, lease, or other use of the city's water without a two-thirds approval by the voters. This charter limitation would be avoided through the annexation of a large portion of the San Fernando Valley to the city. The annexation would also raise the debt limit of Los Angeles, which allowed the financing of the aqueduct.
The San Fernando land syndicate were a group of wealthy investors who bought up large tracts of land in the San Fernando Valley with secret inside information from Eaton. The syndicate included friends of Eaton, such as Harrison Gray Otis and Henry E. Huntington. This syndicate made substantial efforts to support passage of the bond issue that funded the aqueduct. These efforts are reported to have included the dumping of water from Los Angeles reservoirs into the sewers and by publishing scare articles in the Los Angeles Times, which Otis published. Remi Nadeau, a historian and author, disputed that water was dumped from reservoirs, because the sewer system may not have been connected to the reservoirs. The syndicate did unify the business community behind the aqueduct, and its purchases were public by the time the vote on the aqueduct was taken.