Los Angeles herald., 1906-07-29


tants- News of the plan to divert these
waters has aroused the townspeople to
believe that their town and the valley
would presently be left without water,
and would soon return to the desert;
but as there are several good streams
in which the Los Angeles officials have
no rights and which they do not intend
to disturb, these fears are groundless.
Owens River Supply
The topography of the region indi-
Gates that the owens river once de-
bouched into the Mojave basin, and
found it's way to the sea then lying
east of the mountains. Lava deposits
of late tertiary and early quartenary
times plainly tell the story of the out
pouringS and upheavalS which barred
the egress of this stream and left it to
shift for itself among the mountains.
The lake which its pent-up waters have
formed is ten miles long and sixteen
miles wide, and, in spite of the great
volumes of water pouring into It, has
steadily been shrinking under the des-
ert sun. So long has it served as an
evapOrating pan that its waters are
supersaturated with soda swept into
it by wind and water. The river itself,
however, has so little alkan that such
sweet-water fish as the catfish and
club abound in 1t, and the cottonwood
lines it's banks
Officers of the United States reclaim
alton service had already begun to
formulate plan for the irrigation of
parts of the Mojave desert with this
splendid stream, when the Angelenos
appeared upon the scene and by prompt
action secured it for their own use.
Without making known their purpose,
MIR. Eaton and his associates acquired
all of the ranches and water rights for
forty miles above the mouth of the
river.
The plans, as now proposed by Will
liam Mulholland, superintendent OF the
Los Angeles water department, with
the cooperation of Messrs. Lippincott
gineers, provide for three great reser-
voirs, seventeen miles of tunnels
through granite ranges and over 200
miles of monster conduits from the
mountains to the sea, the total cost
to approximate $22. .494, 900, and the work
to be completed in four years An up
per reservoir site has beeni selected.
about sixty miles from the head of the
river in Long valley, which with the
construction of a dam 100 feet high,
would conserve the high waters Of
May, June and July, and could con-
tain a years supply at consumption
of 95, 100000 gallons a day; but 1t is
thought that 1t will not be necessary
in the near future to build any arti-
fetal reservoirs in the headwaters, as
the impounding reservoirs near Los
Angeles will answer the same purpose.
Elevation Is 1000 Feet
Construction work will be begun
about forty miles above Owens lake, at
a point where $4,000 inches of water
have been measured in October. This
Is at an elevation of 1000 feet, and is
200 feet above the lake. From here the
waters will be carried above and
around the west shore OF Owens lake,
and on to the south through the dead
valley of the ancient river, until they
reach the tossed and folded strata and
black deltas of the Lava mountains,
whose eruption long-ago blocked south
ern egress to the sea. This part of the
work must be carried on through the
terrors of desert heat and drought of
a furnace-like valley. whose gray floor
is relieved only by the white borders
Of salt wells.
Skirting along the foothills and
across the arid valleys, the waters will
be carried by monolithic concrete
conduit fortified by steel. The conduit
walls will have a minimum thickness
of six and one half inches, and will
have a capacity of O.OO0 miners inches
at an average speed of flow of four
miles per hour. One hundred and ten
miles of this conduit will bring the
construction to the southern barrier;
and here the first tunnel will be driven