Los Angeles herald., 1905-07-30
BIG DEAL
In WATER
City Gets Unlimited
Supply
Vast Tract Secured by
Board
Amount Adequate for
Years to Come
Officials Take option and Plan to
Conduct Big Stream over Two
Hundred Miles to Los
Angeles
BY MAYOR McALEER

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Z BY MAYOR McALEER I
+ This proposition is the best !.
4 solution of the water problem Z
+ which has yet been advanced, and /.
+ l believe 1t to be the most practl- +
& cal and feasible. | have been over {
/ the ground and 1t is simply great. 1.
& There Is enough water In that +
Z shed to supply the city forever +
s.t1.sN s..E i
To bring to the citizens of Greater
Los Angeles an abundance of pure
mountain water from the Owens river,
which flows along the eastern base Of
the Sierra Nevada mountains, is the
proposition which the board of water
commissioners is now considering.
They believe they have found the
solution of the serious water question
which confronts them. For four years
superintendent of the Water Depart
rnent Mulholland has labored night and
day to supply the city's needs and has
succeeded, but has found no surplus,
has had nothing to fall back on.
The proposition includes the con-
struction of one of the greatest water
supply systems in the world. For 24O
miles, over the desert and through
valleys and at last under the Sierra
Madre mountains, this water must be
huge reservoirs constructed at the
point where the water of the Los An
geles river is now taken out and piped
into the city.
Thus it is proposed to supply Los
Angeles and many Of the suburban
towns and cities with the purest water
for many decades to come.
Scheme Is Practicable
Superintendent of the Water Depart
ment Mulholland says the scheme is
perfectly practicable and feasible and
should 1t be carried out, Los Angeles
will never face water shortage
again.
Engineers say that the Owens river
was once, a few centuries ago, trib-
utary to the Los Angeles river and
that great earthquake threw up the
wall of mountains which now separate
the San Fernando valley from the
desert and that the Owens river then
emptied into depression in the desert,
forming Owens lake. For hundreds of
years the river has flowed into this
lake, which has no outlet. The heat of
the sun on the desert has evaporated
the water and kept the lake at an es-
tablished level, but the water of the
lake is soda and not fit for use.
Owens river flows less in winter than
in summer, for then the lending
snow of the Sierras is not melting. In
winter the Los Angeles river amply
supplies the city and with the addition
OF about $4,000 miners inches from the
Owens, there will be more water than
the city can find use for.
Great Summer Flow
In the summer when the Los Angeles
is flowing upside down, the owens is
q roaring torrent. for then the SHOWS
on the lofty slopes of Mount Whitney
the highest mountain in the United
States, Sheep mountain and Mount
Williamson, both higher than Pixies
peak, and from the, miles of peaks of
the Sierra Nevadas are melting and
the hundreds Of creeks come boiling
down the slopes of the mountains into
the river.
The present flow of the Los Angeles
river, both surface and underground
amounts to about $500 miners inches.
The surface flow of the Owens river at
the point where the water would be
taken out is over 10000 miners inches.
or eight times the flow of the Los An
geles altogether.
To bring the water from the Owens
river to the city would require a con-
duit of sufficient size to carry $4,000
inches, 1t is proposed to build this
conduit on grade. that is, so that
the water will be brought into Los An
geles by gravity alone. Two hundred
miles of this conduit will be in the
open desert or through valleys, while a
few miles viii be built by means of the
"open cut" through sidehills and about
twenty miles Of tunnel.
The longest tunnel is estimated to
be four miles in length and another
one three miles in length. Both these
tunnels are under mountains and must
be- dug or bored from each end. while
the other tunnels will be near enough
to the surface to allow the sinking OF
shafts every mile or so and thus facili-
tate the work
Survey Is Made
A preliminary survey has been made
and It has been found that the gravity
tunnel scheme Is practical and also the
cheapest way to get the water to the
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