Who owns owens valley

Decades before Manzanar, located just south of Independence, was a World War II-era internment camp for Japanese Americans, it was an abundant apple orchard -- hence the name. The aqueduct begins some 10 miles north of Independence, east of the town of Aberdeen, where the man-made channel gratuitously diverts most of the Owens River water flow, leaving but a relative trickle for the rest of the natural river.

It flows by gravity towards the Mojave Desert, where it rides the rest of the way encased in pipe through the Antelope Valley and on to its terminus in Sylmar. As for the Owens River, it meanders southward and with is Sierra creek flows cut off, it largely peters out north of Owens Lake , now a desiccated basin susceptible to severe dust storms that frequently provide air quality hazards to residents of nearby Lone Pine and other nearby towns. Even bottled water drinkers harvest Owens Valley water: The company CG Roxane runs a Crystal Geyser bottling plant in Olancha, at the southern end of the valley -- ironically adjacent to the Owens dry lake bed, where it obtains its water from an underground source below Olancha Peak for the Southwestern U.

Through hanging out at local eateries and attending social events such as Independence's annual Fruitcake Festival just prior to Christmas at the American Legion hall, I had a chance to meet some of the Owens Valley denizens, who have a complicated relationship with the DWP.

Many of the residents actually work for the utility agency, and the agency is usually helpful whenever it does anything in the area -- that doesn't involve water. Roper, a retired Inyo County clerk-recorder, also sits on the board of the Owens Valley Committee , a nonprofit citizen's action group dedicated to the protection and awareness of the delicate valley ecosystem.

The California Water Wars are by no means over for the Owens Valley, though the battles wage on in courtrooms these days. Little Inyo County doesn't have the money to employ hordes of lawyers. They take the water Daniel Pritchett, a University of California research employee who lives in Bishop, in the valley's northern portion, added, "Owens Valley residents cannot vote in L.

During what was planned as a retreat hundreds of miles from home, even I could not escape the influence of the City of Los Angeles. While taking a walk around the west side of Independence, I happened upon a large DWP facility, with my city's name on it, and a fleet of familiar-looking white utility trucks, each with the L. Every morning at 7 a. I had the same sort of epiphany visiting the Owens Valley.

I developed an instant affinity for the place, and suddenly my awareness of community had expanded far beyond just my neighborhood. My visit was also a life-changing experience. I got to breathe clean air and experience life that's not governed by stoplights. I got to play in the snow and soak in a hot spring. I got to meet and interact with people without having to log on to anything.

I got to be out in the proverbial middle of nowhere, and be in constant awe of the sound of silence, and the omnipresent views of the towering Sierra Nevadas. I can only hope that urbanites in the 22nd century and beyond can still experience the same thing.

The challenge of balancing the water needs of millions, which I personally benefit from, with the protection of a tranquil, yet delicate landscape is an admittedly difficult one. But witnessing where my water comes from gave me a whole different perspective.

With a new Los Angeles city government taking office this year, can we try to find more innovative, sustainable ways to obtain water? Can we try to harness local stormwater for our own use, rather than merely flush it out to the sea?

Can we gradually lower our take from the Owens Valley? It's time to find 21st century solutions to 20th century problems. Different as night and day, they were warm friends before becoming bitter enemies. An Irish immigrant, Mulholland was blunt-spoken, almost six feet tall with curly hair and a bushy mustache.

He was in his 20s when he settled in L. But Mulholland was too ambitious to remain a zanjero for long. Teaching himself mathematics, hydraulics and geology, he became a hydraulic engineer within two years, foreman within eight, and then, at 31, superintendent, a position he retained after the city purchased the water company.

For some of that time his boss was Frederick Eaton, a Los Angeles native raised in a well-to-do family. In contrast to the rough-hewn Mulholland, Eaton was sophisticated and polished. He loved his native city, serving as superintendent and chief engineer of the L. Water Company and then, from to , as mayor of L. By , L. By , the figure had again nearly doubled. As the population rose, the water table began to drop. Some estimates suggested that the Los AngelesRiver would provide enough water for no more than , people.

Both Eaton and Mulholland realized an entirely new source was needed. Mulholland began looking throughout Southern California for an alternative supply of freshwater, but it was Fred Eaton who came up with a solution. On a camping trip to the Sierra in the early s, Eaton had gazed down upon OwensLake and thought about all the freshwater flowing into it and going to waste.

Yes, Los Angeles was some miles away, but it was all downhill. All one would have to do to move it to the city was dig some canals, lay some pipe and let gravity do the rest. Furthermore, he realized, several streams flowing out of the Sierra could be used to generate hydroelectric power.

Imagine, a plus-mile aqueduct running downhill to L. Over the next two decades, as his civic interest joined his personal financial interests, Eaton grew increasingly evangelical about OwensValley water. Despite the hooch, it was the water and not the whiskey that made a believer out of Mulholland. He also purchased a 23,acre cattle ranch in LongValley, most of which he hoped to sell to the city, at a tidy profit, for use as an aqueduct reservoir.

Some say he duped OwensValley residents. To his dying day, Eaton denied charges that he acted duplicitously. Grandson John Eaton, who until a year ago lived on one of the last acres of land in LongValley passed down from his father, Harold Eaton, believes that his grandfather had no need to double-deal. And they wanted to get out. The construction of the aqueduct, under the direction of Mulholland, proceeded quickly. To provide power for electric shovels, he erected two hydroelectric plants—still in use today—on creeks that dump into the Owens River.

He also built some miles of roads, ran telephone and telegraph lines across miles of desert, and laid down miles of pipe to provide drinking water for the workers.

Conditions were harsh. Temperatures in the Mojave Desert could swing 80 degrees in a single day. Over the six years of construction on the aqueduct, 43 men died out of the 5, or so who worked on it, a toll that some experts say was rather low considering the scope of the project and the rugged terrain.

Eaton did not attend. His years of dreams of a real estate empire had come to naught. Consequently, the completed aqueduct at first had no reservoir in the LongValley area. For a time, life in OwensValley remained largely unaffected by the aqueduct. Valley produce still found a market, however reduced, at local mines, many of which were still operating. But things changed. LAist logo. We Explain L. The Brief. How To New LA. Search Query Show Search.

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