With the defeat of the Owens Valley resistance movement during the late 1920s, the valley’s dwindling population entered into a state of acquiescence as the City of Los Angeles’ “water colony.” By the beginning of the 1930s, nearly fifty miles of the Owens River was dry and by 1926 Owens Lake had been completely drained. Ninety-five percent of all previous privately owned farms, ranchland, commercial town sites, and buildings were now owned by the City of Los Angeles. Although the 1931 County of Origin statute protected other regions in California from a similar fate, the damage in Owens Valley was already complete.
Over time, as the region transitioned, a new economic model began to sustain the valley’s rural communities based on tourism rather than agriculture. Instead of providing agricultural products and other commodities, the region now utilized the majestic Eastern Sierra as the scenic backdrop for sports fishing, hiking, camping, and other outdoor activities. Father John L. Crowley, a popular Catholic priest known locally as “the desert padre” is credited in recognizing and promoting the region’s potential for environmental tourism.
The City of Los Angele continued with the necessary steps to increase its interminable water supply demands. By 1940, LADWP completed an eleven-mile tunnel connecting the Mono Basin with the upper Owens River in Long Valley that raised the aqueduct’s capacity by 35 percent. Concurrently, a group of Bishop Ranchers initiated a legal fight to protect the “Bishop Cone” area from LADWP groundwater pumping and won.
In 1963, the City of Los Angeles approved plans to construct its “second barrel” aqueduct with a capacity of 290 CFS or 300,000 acre-feet per year (in contrast, the initial aqueduct constructed in 1913 has a capacity of 485 CFS).[1] This would increase the amount of water LADWP could export from the Eastern Sierra by 50 percent from three sources: increased surface flows from the Mono Basin and the Owens Valley, reduced irrigation on city-owned properties in Owens and Mono counties, and increased groundwater pumping within Owens Valley.
Groundwater pumping activities began in the valley as early as 1918 when Mulholland determined that surface flows, namely the entire flow of the Owens River and its associated inflows, were not enough to supply his thirsty, growing metropolis well into the future.[2] Even with this supplemental pumping, large swaths of healthy groundwater-dependent native vegetation continued to cover the valley floor up to 1970.
Unfortunately, the Owens Valley landscape began to drastically change when the “second barrel” became operational in 1972. By this time LADWP had begun substantially increasing its groundwater pumping for export. Native vegetation and meadow ecosystems dependent on shallow groundwater began to wither and were replaced by opportunist invasive weed species. Once verdant meadows became desertified as natural springs, seeps, and wetlands disappeared.[3] Previously productive agricultural land returned to arid desert scrub. Mature, stately trees lining the town streets that never required additional watering in the past began to die. Dust storms occurred at more regular intervals in areas far north and south of the dry Owens lakebed. Community residents became agitated at what they saw around them and began to take action—urging officials to follow suit thus initiating an era of ligation between Inyo County and the City of Los Angeles that lasted more than twenty-five years.
Track Credits
Photograph of John Pugh’s controversial 2005 mural, “Drain,” located at 400 W Line St, Bishop, California. Music: Glen Jones, “A Geranium for Mano-A-Mano” (Creative Commons license).
FOOTNOTES (click to open/close)
[1] “Los Angeles Aqueduct Facts & History,” LADWP, accessed October 5, 2012, https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/ladwp/aboutus/a-power/a-p-factandfigures.
[2] William Kahrl, Water and Power: The Conflict Over Los Angeles’ Water Supply in the Owens Valley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 254.
[3] Generally, the alkali meadow habitat found within the Owens Valley relies on shallow groundwater to survive. In contrast, grasslands, which are not naturally present in Owens Valley, are precipitation dependent. Owens Valley is in the rain-shadow of the Sierra Nevada so it receives very little rainfall. For more information on this topic, see C.J. Klingler, “A brief overview: recent Owens Valley water history and the OVC,” and Daniel Pritchett, “Desertification as usual: groundwater management under the Inyo-LA Long Term Water Agreement.”