Los Angeles herald., 1906-07-29
I MAYOR OWEN MAILER
Z s.t.4.t.A-t., i. !. s.ttDe

Walter Bassett in the May number of
the Technical World Magazine con-
tributes the following interesting story
of plans for supplying Los Angeles with
pure mountain water from Owens river,
in the heart of the Sierras:
A project to bring perennial streams
from the heart Of the Sierras across
two hundred and forty miles of noun
tain, desert and plain to the gateway
of the metropolis of Southern Cali
fornia has fired the hopes and ambi-
tions of Los Angeles and the San
Fernando valley, and given new inn
petus to the tremendous growth of that
sunny country.
Twice in the past two decades has
the population of "The City of Our
Lady the Queen of the Angels" doubled
itself, and still the steady flow of home
seekers into this winterless valley
crowds her streets and pGurS out into
the surrounding country. With grow
ing city of 100000 people supplied by but
2600 miners inches of water, and a
surrounding country demanding more
water each day for its agricultural and
domestic needs, the problem facing the
AngelenoS may be said to have reached
already an acute stage. The rapid
San Fernando valley, and the extern
sion of its cultivated areas, have not
only taxed the surface streams to the
utmost, but have reduced the level OF
underground water to an alarming de-
gree. This is valley of construction
sort of pocket. gradually filled by
detritus from the coast ranges-and its
deep gravel beds drink up greedily the
flood waters from the mountain
streams, and maintain a great body of
underground water. Yet so great has
been the demand of the dry fields and
populous towns above them, that the
level of these waters has been reduced
as much as a hundred feet in the past
two years.
Spectacular Plan Proposed
Out of this crisis has arisen daring
and spectacular plan which has al
ready begun to move toward realiza- |
tion, backed by the buoyant confidence
and ability of a virile people, and the
financial strength of favored land.
The Los Angeles river, from which
the city is now supplied. is a small
str quite sufficient for the needs of
the .alley, and for the city when
its NJ .abitants numbered $4,000: but
when that population verged upon 20O-
900. and the country around about be-
came highly cultivated, the situation
became so strained that legal wars be-
tween country and city over the rights
in the little stream waged hotly from
the local courts to the supreme court
of the United States. The farmer saw
the cities taking all the surface waters.
and noted the growing weakness of his
wells. Not all the gold of her noun
tains, the wealth of her winter sun
shine, or the allurement of her scenery,
could hold back the imminent desert II
that slender supply should fail.
I1,,t tho 6a1iUarer at the drama |
tic moment in the person of an engineer,
Mr.. Fred Eaton, once mayor OF Los
Angeles, who, as ranchman and pros
pector had worked his way up the can
vons and along the valleys of the high
Sierras that lie behind the Coast ranges.
Two hundred miles northwest of his
city on the eastern slope of the noun
tains, he found the Owens river, Graded
in mountain SHOWS, pouring through
lost canyons and Issuing forth into the
saline oblivion of Owens lake, great
salt sink with no outlet.
Here was a Rhinegold hoard more
precious than the issue of a host of
stamps and placers, and all of 1t dis
sipating in the parched winds of the
desert pouring over 1t from Death val !
Icy. He foresaw the future needs of
the teeming San Fernando valley. and
laid his plans before the doubling
fathers of Los Angeles Today the
dream is on the road to reality. the
issuance of bonds has been begun, |
water rights have been secured, and
able engineers are at work upon the
details of the undertaking.
Two hundred miles due north of Los |
Angeles rise the snow-clad peaks of
the Sierra Nevada. crowned by the |
dome of Mount Whitney, 5000 feet
above the sea. The eastern walls of
these mountains are steep, and broken
by deep H-avines and canyons through |
which tumble the waters from the melt
ing SHOWS of their SUBMITS. Among
the winding canyons are dimnutive
valleys where the waters gather in
natural reservoirs, a score OF which
with little work might be converted into
permanent storehouses. Out of these
reservoirs the mountain streams drop
into the Owens river valley and flow
southeast ward toward the desert, only
a small amount of their waters being
used for irrigation of the limited pas.
lures. This valley, shut in on the west |
by the Sierras and on the east bv the
White and Coso mountains, opens al
the south into the terrible Moiave
desert, whose dread oasis is Death val
ley. Owens valley, thus poised he
tween the desert and the mountain, is
ten miles In width and over 100 miles
long, with an average elevation of 1000
feet Its chief settlement Is Inde~
pendence, the Quitting point for The
Bullfrog and Goldield mining districts
In Nevada. 1t has about 500 inhah nj