Mason West The Rough River: The Turbulent History of the LA Aqueduct Abstract The Los Angeles Aqueduct was a huge undertaking for city to attempt. At the time it would be the worlds largest water project, and against all odds, in 1913 it was completed. The challenging history of the aqueduct is a testament to the power of engineering and the projects that can be completed when great minds come together. The aqueduct was able to traverse mountains, canyons and deserts to get to the city of Los Angeles. Without this modern marvel, Los Angeles, and the world, would not be the way they are today. Introduction Los Angeles is a city known around the world. It is a city that catalyzes and dictates American pop culture, as well as the world pop culture. But what was it like before all movies and celebrities? At the beginning of the 20th century LA was a growing city. It was quickly beginning to exhaust one of its most important resources, one necessary for it to survive, water. LA was starving for water and would have died without the engineering marvel, the Los Angeles aqueduct. The Los Angeles aqueduct has supplied water to Los Angeles for one hundred years, and has been absolutely vital to its growth. It has a fascinating history beginning with the group of driven engineers who noticed the dire need for water and who devised and carried out the massive project. Science of the Aqueduct Engineers have used aqueducts to supply populations with water for thousands of years. The civilization best known for their aqueducts are the Romans. They engineered large, gravity-­‐powered aqueducts that spanned as much as 40 miles to move water into Rome. An aqueduct is, “a system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, and supporting structures used to convey water from its source to its main distribution point” [1]. Aqueducts start at a lake, or reservoir, and travel hundreds of miles using just gravity. This is possible by angling the channel at a gentle slope. If the channel is too steep, then the running water will erode away the aqueduct, but if it is too shallow, the water will drop sediment deposits, and the channel will be blocked. If the right angle can be found, then the water will propel itself for hundreds of miles. Another amazing feature engineered for aqueducts is the siphon. Siphons work by having a difference of pressure in the two ends of a closed pipe. For example, the siphon is similar to blowing water through a straw. The pressure at the end of the straw by your mouth is much higher than at the open end of the straw. This pressure difference causes the water to be forced through the straw. In the same way, high pressure is built up at the end of the siphon pipe before it enters a canyon. This is achieved by having the elevation of the pipe higher at the start of the canyon than at the end, or it by damming the river up before so there is a large supply of water on the Figure 1: the movement of water in an aqueduct. initial side of the pipe. This http://kids.britannica.com/elementary/art-­‐87116/Early-­‐aqueducts-­‐had-­‐to-­‐rely-­‐
on-­‐the-­‐force-­‐of-­‐gravity creates the pressure difference needed to siphon the water down into a canyon and back out the other side, as seen in Figure 1. The Jawbone Canyon siphon is the largest in the LA aqueduct. It is composed of more than 8,000 feet of steel pipe that is 12 feet in diameter, as seen in Figure 2. The water drops 850 feet from the lip of the canyon to the bottom, which then creates enough pressure to push to water back up the other side of the canyon [2]. Figure 2: The massive size of the siphon pipes can be seen. The man is probably around six feet tall. http://latimesphoto.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/fa_463_aqu
educt23_970.jpg The Golden State Even though Southern Californian towns seem to be luscious and green, most of the state, including Southern California, is actually considered a semi desert [3]. Southern California has one wet season a year, from November to March, and the rest of the year the state is dry, receiving only a few inches of rain. From June to September, the state receives almost no rain, creating long, harsh, dry summers [3]. When the Spanish first settled the LA area in 1769, the climate was tough and the ground was dry [2]. Many ranchers and farmers lost crops and cattle over the summer months because of this difficult climate. Not only was the climate tough, but the LA River was also a force to be reckoned with. The LA River started up by Woodland Hills, and was fed by many streams until it arrived at the Glendale Narrows, right by modern day Griffith Park. From there, the river had a loose path through the open basin out to the ocean. The whole 20 miles from the mouth of the Glendale Narrows to the ocean was a large flood plain [4]. When years were dry, farmers would build close to the river, and when years were wet, the river would spill out of its banks and flood the valley. Before 1825 the river flowed out near Santa Monica, but after the huge rains that winter, the river tore a new course to Long Beach, where it currently empties today [4]. For a long time the LA River and local ground water was enough to satiate the thirst of the valley, but before long, the city needed new sources of water if it wanted to continue to grow. The City Faced a Challenge By 1903 the city population was 175,000 and the leaders of the city knew the water flowing through LA was unpredictable and limited most of the year. A year later the Los Angeles Water Company could not keep up with the demands of the people in the continually growing city. This led William Mulholland, an engineer and superintendent of the Los Angeles City Water Company, to look elsewhere in the area for a new supply of water. Mulholland worked with Fred Eaton, a fellow engineer who had scouted out the land and water in the Owens Valley, to devise a way to get water into LA. Previously, while travelling with his family in the Sierras near Yosemite, Eaton noticed the snow run off rushing down the valley, and meandering into Owens Lake. The lake is saline and a dead end for the Owens River. Eaton saw this as a waste and wanted to divert the water out through the desert and over to Los Angeles [2]. He could see that the river used to naturally flow towards Los Angeles, until a lava flow blocked the path. Eaton strongly believed these natural barriers could be overcome, and the huge aqueduct could be engineered. The City had a plan Mulholland began drafting an aqueduct plan composed of open channels, siphons, and reservoirs. A few large mountains completely blocked the path, so tunnels had to be planned through them. Mulholland and Eaton, together with a man by the name of J. B. Lippincott, surveyed the land and worked out how to get the water out of the Owens Valley. Lippincott was an engineer for the federal Reclamation Service, and had previously surveyed the valley to see if it would be a good place for a reclamation project. He knew the land well and was very familiar with its water flows and the water rights. With Lippincott’s help, Eaton went from farm to farm and purchased large amounts of land in the valley and secured the water rights to most of the valley [2]. Eaton ended up purchasing, “300,000 acres of the Owens Valley, or about 98% of all the private land in the Eastern Sierra valley” [5]. Along the way, Mulholland secured money from the city to supply the project with funding once the land was ready to go. After some political dilemmas with some unhappy farmers and businessmen, the city finally had the green light to build the aqueduct. The citizens of Los Angeles were excited by the project after community leaders rallied behind the aqueduct. The support was so strong that people voted and passed a bill to give the project $23 million dollars (which is about $1.5 billion today) [6]. The City had its Water After five years the aqueduct was finally complete. The LA Complete Report tells of the details. “Included in this work were 215 miles of road, 230 miles of pipe line, 218 miles of power transmission line and 377 miles of telegraph and telephone line” [2]. The water travels 233 miles, all by gravity. It starts at 3800 feet and ends at 1200 feet. The path of the aqueduct can be seen in figure 3. The whole distance is not all downhill and huge siphons were used to move the water up out of canyons and over hills. All in all, the Los Angeles aqueduct consists of five reservoirs, 52 miles of tunnels, 12 miles of Figure 3: The path of the aqueduct through Southern California. http://www.hydrologyfutures.com/LAA_Map_1
.gif siphons, 61 miles of open channels, and 97 miles of covered channels [6]. The system provided Los Angeles with an annual flow of 440 cubic feet per second [6]. That would be like a 7’x7’x9’ cube of water every second. Or, 3291.43 gallons per second, which totals just about 103,867,000,000 gallons a year! The People Had Not Given Up All who experienced it did not love the aqueduct. The people in the Owens Valley tried to stop and bring down the waterways in any way they could. Numerous lawsuits were filed against the city to try to stop the project. While none of these lawsuits were successful, the people of the Owens Valley were determined to stop the water. They resorted to using dynamite, and attempted to destroy the aqueduct eight times [7]. On one occasion, dynamite was dropped into a steel siphon. When it exploded halfway through the siphon, the water rushed out so fast that it created an incredible vacuum that crumpled the pipe above. On another occasion, the people of the Owens valley attacked and controlled the Alabama control gates, a large set of gates that control outflow from the aqueduct into the Owens riverbed, for sixty five hours [7]. Despite their best efforts, they had to succumb to the growth of LA, and since these attacks, no violent issues have taken place . The Legacy of the Aqueduct Without the amazing work of Mulholland and his team of engineers, the city of Los Angeles would not be what it is today. In fact, it probably would not have grown much from its pre-­‐aqueduct population of 485,000 residents [2]. Today, there are over 9,889,056 people in Los Angeles County [8]. This kind of growth could not have happened if it were not for the talented engineers that had the vision to Figure 4: From left to right, Mulholland, Eaton, and Lippincott. create such an amazing aqueduct. http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/ov_aqueduct1/lippincott_eaton_mulho
lland.jpg References [1] Encyclopedia Britannica. (2013). Aqueduct [online]. Available: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/31132/aqeuduct [2] Dept. of Water and Power. (2012). The Story of the Los Angeles Aqueduct [online]. Available: http://wsoweb.ladwp.com/Aqueduct/historyoflaa/index.htm [3]M. Reisner, “Chinatown,” in Cadillac Desert, New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1993, ch.10, pp.332-­‐333, pp.55-­‐78. [4] LA Dept. Of Public Works. (2013). History of the Los Angeles River [online]. Available: http://ladpw.org/wmd/watershed/LA/History.cfm tons of cool pics at http://www.slideshare.net/MavensManor/historic-­‐american-­‐
engineering-­‐record-­‐los-­‐angeles-­‐aqueduct [5] D. Carle, “The Distribution System,” in Introduction to Water in California, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2009, ch.3, sec.5, pp.115-­‐118. [6] American Society of Civil Engineers. (2013). First Owens River – Los Angeles Aqueduct [online]. Available: http://www.asce.org/People-­‐and-­‐
Projects/Projects/Landmarks/First-­‐Owens-­‐River-­‐-­‐-­‐Los-­‐Angeles-­‐Aqueduct/ [7] S. Harrison. (2013, Feb 6). Dynamite Attacks on the Los Angeles Aqueduct [online]. Available: http://framework.latimes.com/2013/02/06/los-­‐angeles-­‐
aqueduct-­‐2/#/0 [8] U.S. Census Bureau. (2013, Jan 3). Population of Los Angeles County [online]. Available: http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&met_y=populatio
n&idim=county:06037&dl=en&hl=en&q=population%20of%20los%20angeles%20
county