Imperial Valley press., 1912-02-01
NRY YEARS NOT A PERIL

II Z. f. Howe in Los Angelo
Tribune: Whenever Soouthern Cali
fornia experiences year of less than
normal rainfall some person rises 20
tell Of that time in the Sos when
range cattle. because of drought, were
driven over the bluffs into the sea.
After telling of this incident, as Il
writer in the San Francisco Call did
recently the narrator pauses for a
time to let the awful possibilities of
the scene sink into the consciousness
and arouse fear of its recurrence. And
it is possible that newcomers may
experience that fear.
There is really but one fundamental
fact to drive home in the correction
OF the misconception. and that is that
Southern California is man made land,
since the days of the Sos, and the
conditions of that time furnish no
precedentS for this.
Beyond this, | wish to say that the
SAol lSilLILClII VI NlIlo NCSil 10 q bINtot0-
ing to Los Angeles, the reason for
which statement will be given later,
Southern California as a garden and
as an orchard is a land made by man
from the remnants of creation which
We're left scattered about in a mis-
placed condition.
Long before man came here the
glaciers had been at work, slowly
moving down from San Gorgonio and
San Antonio, laying great masses Of
debris in which water was impound-
ed underground And these natural
reservoirs were made so abundant
that they have been able to carry
Southern California through several
cycles OF deficient rainfall, and can
be depended on to do so again and
again, for there always will be cycles
OF years OF abundant rain and other
cycles of deficient rain. And these ma
tural reservoirs in Il few cases have
been supplemented by storage reser-
voirs built by man in the mountains
such as the Mountain Water system
of San Diego and the Hemet and Bear
valley reservoirs of Hemet and Red
lands.
II is about nine years since South
ern California experienced deficient
rainfall sufficient to make the people
apprehensive, and at that
time a lesson was taught which has
been SO thoroughly needed that while
very little territory, aside from the
desert reclamation, has been added
to the irrigated area, most sections
have fortified their water supply. and
now even a period of TWO or three
years Of comparative drought would
have no effect on the densely pop
ulated portions OF Southern Califor-
mia.
That lesson of a few years ago,
above all things, impressed on the
better informed men Of Los Angeles
the necessity for providing a greater
supply OF water for the city, and from
Jhat lesson came the Owens river pro-
ect
When the last cycle of deficient
rainfall was ended the underground
reservoirs had been pumped to a lower
level than ever before, and the wa
ter level was slowly, but steadily,
dropping down from the level of the
land
Since then the abundant rains have
brought the water plain back to its
normal place, preparing the region
once more to withstand a drought of
considerable duration.
In fact, the abundant rains of re-
cent years have led some persons to
claim the great water supply of Owens
river was not needed They either
did not then see or were not here
nine years ago, or they would know
that, without Owens river, Los Ange-
les had reached the maximum of per-
manent growth unless it should aban-
don the park ike nature on which
it had developed
Then it is not 100 much to say
that the present deficient rainfall may
be q timely blessing to the city if it
brings about a realization that Owens