Los Angeles Aqueduct
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 The Los Angeles Aqueduct Cascades near Sylmar |
|
| Official name | Los Angeles Aqueduct Second Los Angeles Aqueduct |
|---|---|
| Begins | First Aqueduct Owens River 36°58′32″N 118°12′38″W / 36.975678°N 118.210541°W Second Aqueduct Haiwee Reservoir 36°08′07″N 117°57′13″W / 36.135310°N 117.953510°W |
| Ends | First Aqueduct Upper Van Norman Lake (Los Angeles Reservoir) 34°18′46″N 118°29′35″W / 34.312860°N 118.492988°W Second Aqueduct |
| Maintained by | Los Angeles Department of Water and Power |
| Length | 675 km (419 mi) |
| Diameter | 3.7 m (12 ft) |
| First section length | 375 km (233 mi) |
| Second section length | 220 km (140 mi) |
| Capacity | 14.7 m3 (520 cu ft) per second 8.2 m3 (290 cu ft) per second |
| Construction began | 1908; 1965 |
| Opening date | 1913; 1970 |
| References [1][2][3] | |
The Los Angeles Aqueduct system comprising the Los Angeles Aqueduct (Owens Valley aqueduct) and the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct, is a water conveyance operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.[4] Designed by engineer and LADWP director, William Mulholland, the system delivers water from the Owens River in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains into the city of Los Angeles, California.
Contents |
[edit] Construction
The project began in 1905 with a budget of US$24.5 million.[5][6] With 5,000 workers employed in its construction, the Los Angeles Aqueduct was finished in 1913.
It consisted of 223 mi (359 km) of 12-foot (3.7 m) diameter steel pipe, 120 mi (190 km) of railroad track, two hydroelectric plants, 170 mi (270 km) of power lines, 240 mi (390 km) of telephone line, a cement plant, and 500 mi (800 km) of roads.[7] The aqueduct used gravity to carry the water, so it was relatively autonomous and cost-efficient.[8] 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),[9] and an incident of sabotage by displaced Owens Valley farmers a few years previously,[10] the aqueduct system has worked well throughout its history, and is still in use.
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.[10] 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.[11] The problem was that it was a bilateral monopoly: only one buyer (LA water board) and one seller (Owens Valley Irrigation District). Thus, it was difficult to find the appropriate price that both buyer and seller could satisfy. Typically market price is used to determine the price of the sale of a good, however in this situation it was not possible. The actual price was determined by a series of negotiations between the buyer and seller.
Historic data shows that farmers of the Owens Valley, an area with only marginal agricultural productivity, earned more in land sales per acre than comparable land sales in neighboring counties. This implies that Owens Valley farmers agreed to a price that was at least equal to the total, real value of their farmland. In most cases, farmers in this region were not pushed to the indifference point where the sale cost was equal to the value of their farmland, and actually most farmers received a net profit. In sum, this implies that, on the seller side, farmers received more in compensation than what they were willing to sell. On the buyer side, Gary Libecap of the University of California, Santa Barbara estimated that Los Angeles was willing to pay $8.70 per acre foot of water[12]. The average sale price, however, was around $4.00 per acre. This implies that Los Angeles received more than what they were willing to pay for. This bulk of these transactions was performed through peaceful economic negotiations.
However, unsavory methods outside of negotiation came into play; Los Angeles forced out farmers and even used the violent tactics to intimidate the farmers who refused to sell. In retaliation and protest, some farmers destroyed portions of the aqueduct.[13][14] However, the aqueduct's water was crucial in the development of Los Angeles, and Mulholland's role in this expansion is recognized.
[edit] 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. It starts at the Haiwee Reservoir, just south of Owens Lake. Running roughly in parallel to the first aqueduct, it carries water 137 mi (220 km) and merges near the Antelope Valley community Warm Springs. Construction cost for the five year project that began in 1965 were US$89 million.[15]
 The Los Angeles Aqueduct in Antelope Valley |
 Steam tractors at work during construction of the first aqueduct in 1909 |
 Unlined section of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, just south of Manzanar, near US Highway 395 |
 The Cascades on the Los Angeles Aqueduct near Newhall Pass |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey (19 January 1981). "Feature Detail Report: Los Angeles Aqueduct". Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). U.S. Department of the Interior. http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=116:3:339445792520671::NO::P3_FID,P3_TITLE:253208%2CLos%20Angeles%20Aqueduct. Retrieved 2009-03-19.
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey (19 January 1981). "Feature Detail Report: Second Los Angeles Aqueduct". Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). U.S. Department of the Interior. http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=116:3:339445792520671::NO::P3_FID,P3_TITLE:273623%2CSecond%20Los%20Angeles%20Aqueduct. Retrieved 2009-03-19.
- ^ "Los Angeles Aqueduct Facts". Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. 2009. http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/cms/ladwp000555.jsp. Retrieved 2009-03-22.
- ^ "The Story of the Los Angeles Aqueduct". Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. http://wsoweb.ladwp.com/Aqueduct/historyoflaa/index.htm. Retrieved 2009-02-07.
- ^ "A Hundred or a Thousand Fold More Important". Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. http://wsoweb.ladwp.com/Aqueduct/historyoflaa/hundred.htm. Retrieved 2009-02-07.
- ^ * Heinly, Burt A. (July 1910). "Carrying Water Through A Desert: The Story of the Los Angeles Aqueduct". The National Geographic Magazine XXI (7): 568–596. Includes construction photos.
- ^ Mulholland, Catherine (2002). William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 141–158. ISBN 0520217241.
- ^ "The Owens Valley Is the Only Source". Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. http://wsoweb.ladwp.com/Aqueduct/historyoflaa/onlysource.htm. Retrieved 2009-02-07.
- ^ Orsi, Jared (2004). Hazardous Metropolis: Los Angeles, Floods, and Urban Ecology. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 69–72. ISBN 0520238508.
- ^ a b Henderson, George (1998). California and the Fictions of Capital. Oxford University Press. pp. 102, 199-201. ISBN 0195108906.
- ^ Arax, Mark and King, Peter H (26 March 2006). "As Dynasty Evolved, So Did Power in L.A.". Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-power26mar26,0,7970224,full.story. Retrieved 2007-11-04.
- ^ “Chinatown” Owens Valley and Western Water Re-Allocation: Getting the Record Straight and What It Means for Water Markets,” Texas Law Review, 2005.
- ^ Gig Conaughton (29 April 2006). "Local Professor Weighs in on Water World". The North County Times. http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/04/30/news/top_stories/23_16_204_29_06.prt. Retrieved 2009-03-22.
- ^ "The Los Angeles Aqueduct and the Owens and Mono Lakes (MONO Case #379)". TED Case Studies (American University) 7 (1). January 1997. http://www.american.edu/ted/mono.htm. Retrieved 2009-03-22.
- ^ "A Second Aqueduct". Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. http://wsoweb.ladwp.com/Aqueduct/historyoflaa/secondaqueduct.htm. Retrieved 2009-02-07.
[edit] Further reading
- "An Aqueduct Used as an Emergency Highway". Popular Science 94 (2): 38. February 1919. ISSN 0161-7370. http://books.google.com/books?id=7igDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA38. Retrieved 2009-03-22.
- City of Los Angeles, Department of Public Service (1916). Complete Report on Construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Los Angeles: The Standard Printing Co..
