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Unlined section of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, just south of Manzanar, near US Highway 395. Photo courtesy of Gann Matsuda
The Los Angeles Aqueduct in Antelope Valley
The Cascades of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, near Sylmar
Two Caterpillar steam tractors pulling a long wagon train during construction of the L.A. Aqueduct in 1909

There are two Los Angeles Aqueducts, the First Los Angeles Aqueduct (or the Owens Valley aqueduct) (completed 1913) and the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct (completed 1970).1

Contents

First Los Angeles Aqueduct

The original Los Angeles Aqueduct was designed by William Mulholland (an Irish immigrant who became a self-taught engineer and head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) to deliver water from the Owens River near Independence, California, to the city of Los Angeles, California.citation needed

The project began in 1905 with a budget of $24.5 million.2 With 5,000 workers employed in its construction, the Los Angeles Aqueduct was finished in 1913. It consisted of 223 miles (359 km) of 12-foot (3.7 m) steel pipe, 120 miles (190 km) of railroad track, 2 hydroelectric plants, 170 miles (270 km) of power lines, 240 miles (390 km) of telephone line, a cement plant, and 500 miles (800 km) of roads.3 The aqueduct used gravity to carry the water, so it was relatively autonomous and cost-efficient.4 Apart from the catastrophic failure of the St. Francis Dam in 1928 that flooded the Santa Clarita Valley and parts of Ventura County (resulting in disgrace and financial ruin for Mulholland),5 and an incident of sabotage by displaced Owens Valley farmers a few years previously,6 the aqueduct system has worked well throughout its history, and is still in use.citation needed

The construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct effectively ended the development of the Owens Valley as a farming community and devastated the ecosystem of Owens Lake.7 Mulholland and his associates, including Los Angeles Times publisher Harrison Gray Otis have often been criticized for using deceptive tactics to obtain Bureau of Reclamation rights to the Owens River's flow.8 However, the aqueduct's water was crucial in the development of Los Angeles, and Mulholland's role in this expansion is recognized.citation needed

Second Los Angeles Aqueduct

The second Los Angeles Aqueduct added transport capacity in order to exhaust the city's water rights permits from the Mono Basin.citation needed It starts at the Haiwee Reservoir, just south of Owens Lake. Running roughly in parallel to the first aqueduct, it carries water 137 miles (220 km). It cost 89 million dollars and was completed in 1970.9

See also

References

  1. ^ "The Story of the Los Angeles Aqueduct".
  2. ^ "A Hundred or a Thousand Fold More Important".
  3. ^ Mulholland, Catherine (2002). William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles. University of California Press, 141–158. 
  4. ^ ""The Owens Valley Is the Only Source"".
  5. ^ Orsi, Jared (2004). Hazardous Metropolis: Los Angeles, Floods, and Urban Ecology. University of California Press, 69–72. 
  6. ^ Henderson, George (1999). California and the Fictions of Capital. Oxford University Press, 102. 
  7. ^ Henderson, George. California and the Fictions of Capital, 199–201. 
  8. ^ Arax, Mark and King, Peter H (2006-03-26). "A Dynasty, A City" (PDF), Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on 4 November 2007. 
  9. ^ "A Second Aqueduct".

External links

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