Most often, the saga of the Owens Valley “Water Wars” begins at the turn of the twentieth century when the City of Los Angeles began its determined effort to acquire a remote river flowing with pristine snowmelt from the Eastern Sierra. This historical account fails to consider the “stolen water” story of the Indigenous people who called this place home before the influx of European-American settlers descended on the valley during the mid-nineteenth century. Owens Valley Paiute had their familial lands occupied and appropriated by these same settlers who, in turn, modeled their farm’s irrigation ditches on the original ancient irrigation systems of the Paiute.[1]
The Owens Valley Pauite who refer to themselves as Nüümü or “People”, were the first occupants of Payahuunadü (Land of Flowing Water) and have lived here since time immemorial.[2] The Owens Valley Paiute language belongs to the Western Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family.
Historically, Owens Valley Paiute lived in semi-permanent camps and traveled to various locations within the valley and surrounding mountain areas where they practiced the seasonal gathering of seeds, nuts, berries, and roots for food, medical, and other sacred purposes. Paiutes and other Indigenous groups of the region constructed and maintained the ancient irrigation systems to specifically encourage the growth of these foodstuffs and to lure wild game into selected areas.[3] Piñon nuts were a critical winter food gathered in the mountains during the summer months and stored for winter use. Small game, deer, and native fish supplemented their largely vegetarian diet.[4]
Today, there are four federally-recognized tribes in the Owens Valley: the Big Pine Band of Owens Valley Paiute Shoshone Indians of the Big Pine Reservation; the Fort Independence Indian Community of Paiute Indians of the Fort Independence Reservation; the Paiute-Shoshone Indians of the Lone Pine Community of the Lone Pine Reservation; and the Paiute-Shoshone Indians of the Bishop Community of the Bishop Colony. About 2,500 tribal members were recorded to be living on area reservations in the 1990s.
In April 1937, Congress passed an Act that authorized the exchange of land and water rights between the federal government and the City of Los Angeles. The resulting Land Exchange Agreement of 1939 swapped 2,913.5 acres of federally reserved Indian lands for 1,391.48 acres of city-owned land that was highly taxed and not as valuable as the federal lands that were exchanged.[5] The land swap consolidated scattered parcels that the Owens Valley tribes held at three new reservations in Bishop, Big Pine, and Lone Pine. Although Los Angeles agreed to supply a set amount of water to the reservations, the land exchange did not include water rights because the Los Angeles City Charter would not permit the sale or exchange of water rights without the approval of two-thirds of voters. So in 1939, both parties negotiated to resolve the matter of the associated water rights at a future date. It was also agreed that the City of Los Angeles would supply, in perpetuity, four acre-feet of water per year to the three new reservations.
To this day, historic water rights promised by the LADWP during the 1939 Land Exchange have not been fulfilled. Additionally, the federally-reserved Indian water rights appurtenant to the lands traded in the 1939 land exchange remain unresolved.
Read an interview from the Fall/Winter 2013 edition of ARID Journal conducted by Jenna Cavelle with Harry Williams and Alan Bacock. Click here to download.
Track Credits
Archival soundtrack excerpt from produced by Standard Oil in 1947. Photo of a traditional Northern Paiute “toni” or wikiup circa the late 1800s. Music: Black Twig Pickers and Steve Gunn, “Old Strange” (Creative Commons license). Photo courtesy of the Braun Research Center Autry National Center.
FOOTNOTES (click to open/close)
[1] John Walton, Western Times and Water Wars: State, Culture, and Rebellion in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
[2] The Owens Valley Paiute call themselves Nün‘wa Paya Hup Ca’a‘ Otuu’mu translated as “Coyotes’ children living in the water ditch.” Barry Pritzker, A Native American Encyclopedia, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 227.
[3] Harry Williams suggests that the ancestral Paiute did not farm in the industrialized form we practice today (monoculture agriculture) but did so in a way to encourage plant growth and wildlife in a selected area where food gathering activities and hunting were practiced. Harry Williams, interview with Kim Stringfellow in Bishop, California, January 2012.
[4] Trout (brown and rainbow) and other sport fishing stocks such as large-mouth bass were introduced into the Owens Valley primarily in the late 1900s. Native species, including Owens pupfish (Cyprinodon radiosus) and Owens tui chub (subspecies Siphateles bicolor snyderi) are considered endangered species by the state of California and the federal government.
[5] “A History of Water Rights and Land Struggles,” Owens Valley Indian Water Commission, accessed July 12, 2020, http://www.oviwc.org/water-crusade/.
[6] “A History of Water Rights and Land Struggles.”