LOS ANGELES AQUEDUCT From Lee Vining Intake ...

LOS ANGELES AQUEDUCT From Lee Vining Intake (Mammoth Lakes) to the Van Norman Reservoir Complex (San Fernando Valley) Los Angeles vicinity Los Angeles County California

PHOTOGRAPHS

WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA

REDUCED COPIES OF MEASURED DRAWINGS

HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD National Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior 1849 C St. NW

Washington, DC 20240

HAER No. CA-298

HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD

LOS ANGELES AQUEDUCT

HAER No. CA-298

Note: For shelving purposes at the Library of Congress, Los Angeles vicinity in Los Angeles County was selected as the "official" location for all Los Angeles Aqueduct documentation. For information about the individual parts of the Los Angeles Aqueduct see: HAER No. CA-298-A through HAER No. CA-298-AM

Location: From Lee Vining Intake in the vicinity of Mammoth Lakes, California, to the Van Norman Reservoir Complex in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California

Dates of Construction: 1907-1944

Designers:

Present Owner:

Present Use:

Significance:

Historian:

First Los Angeles Aqueduct: William B. Mulholland, Chief Engineer of the Los Angeles Bureau of the Aqueduct; J.B. Lippincott, Assistant Chief Engineer.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

Aqueduct

The Los Angeles Aqueduct and its Mono Basin Extension delivers water to the City of Los Angeles from the Mono Basin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains through the Owens Valley and across the Mojave Desert to the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles .. Built between 1907 and 1913, the First Los Angeles Aqueduct, together with the Mono Basin Extension completed in 1944, is significant as an engineering feat utilizing a gravity flow system that sends water from the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Los Angeles along a 338 mile line of conduit, inverted siphons, tunnels, dams and reservoirs. The Los Angeles Aqueduct is significant as a water conveying system that made possible the continuing growth and development of Los Angeles as it expanded from a small city to Pacific Coast metropolis. The Los Angeles Aqueduct gains significance for its association with its principal engineer-designer and superintendent of the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Water and Supply, William Mulholland, who served and guided the Los Angeles water system for a half-century.

Portia Lee, August 2001

LOS ANGELES AQUEDUCT HAER No. CA-298

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Project Information: This recording project is part of the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), a long range program to document historically significant engineering, industrial and maritime works in the United States. The National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior, administers the HAER program. The Los Angeles Aqueduct Recording Project was co-sponsored during the summer of2001 by HAER, under the direction of the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP), Jerry Gewe, Assistant General Manager for Water.

The field work, measured drawings, historical report and photographs were prepared under the direction of Eric N. DeLony, Chief of HAER and by Todd Croteau, Project Leader; Portia Lee, Project Historian and Tatiana Begelman, Field Supervisor. The Los Angeles Aqueduct Recording Project Team consisted of Architects, Erin Ammer (Tulane University), Roland Flores, Rebecca Jahns (Cornell University and Carolien Loomans (ICOMOS, Netherlands). Jet Lowe, HAER Photographer, did large format photography. Department of Water and Power Engineering Designer Victor Murillo and Public Relations Manager Chris Plakos provided consultation and advice. Stephan Tucker, Staff Engineer of the Water Executive Office, served as liaison.

Engineers at the Department of Water and Power have been generous in sharing their time and expertise. Waterworks Engineer Fred S. Barker volunteered to read the text and assist with the editing process. Thomas Barth shared his extensive historical knowledge and pointed out aspects of the work that might otherwise have been overlooked. Special thanks go to Victor Murillo whose explanations of aqueduct theory and practice

were untiring and whose skill at locating archival materials enriched the report and broadened its scope.

Introduction


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The story of the Los Angeles Aqueduct is the story of the politics of growth and the

history of water resource development in Los Angeles. From the moment Los Angeles began to

look to the Owens Valley for the water that would guarantee its continued life and growth, the

story became a saga of conflicting interests. Those who saw the struggle from the point of view

of Los Angeles spoke of the greatest good for the greatest number, lauded the vision and

foresight of city fathers and the loyal support of the people of Los Angeles in bonding the city to

the limit to guarantee its future growth and prosperity. Other writers adjudicated the conflict in

terms ofland use patterns, settlement in the Owens Valley and rural arid West, and the loss of a

potentially thriving agricultural economy in the Eastern Sierra Nevada~ More dramatic

presentations have presented the story in terms of individual personalities led by their financial

self-interest, while focusing on the arrogance of Los Angeles politicians, Water Bureau officials

and Superintendent Mulholland whose reckless confidence resulted in the failure of the St.

Francis Dam.

Since its inception in 1781, the city of Los Angeles has been characterized by a single

phenomenon: growth. A half century later the tiny pueblo in the far-flung colonial empire of

Spain had supplanted the mission padres and presidio soldados with h1.lge ranchos and Mexican

secular government. Twenty years later, only two years after the end of the Mexican-American

War in 1848, California had been admitted to the Union. "By the beginning of the twentieth-

century," writes historian Abraham Hoffman," Los Angeles could be counted as one of

America's great urban success stories." 1 ·The transcontinental rail lines of the Santa Fe and

Southern Pacific brought access to eastern markets and a new Anglo population whose booster

LOS ANGELES AQUEDUCT HAER No. CA:-298

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spirit intended to create an economic and commercial center inthe Los Angeles·Basin.

Attempting to reproduce patterns of urban development characteristic of cities they knew in the

East, the new Pacific Rim pioneers began to impose their familiar cultural patterns upon the

Great American West. Yet, even unwelcome interruptions to the good life in a superior dimate,

such as earthquakes, for example, became unimportant before the one greatreality of life in

Southern California: the presence- or absence - of water.

By 1904, the city of Los Angeles had exceeded the inflow into. its reservoirs by nearly

four million gallons of water. For Superintendent William Mulholland of the Los Angeles

Bureau of Water Works and Supply, growth had become reality, not desire; injust 40years, Los

Angeles' population had increased by a factor of seventeen. To continue at that pace, the city had

to develop water infrastructure based on a dependable year-round source. To get the water that

would enable such exponential growth, former Los Angeles Mayor Fred Eaton suggested to

Mulholland a mammoth undertaking that would tap the flow of the Owens River in the Eastern

Sierra Nevada Mountains. Bonds in the amount of $26.SM were voted by the citizens of Los

Angeles to buy water rights and finance the undertaking. Together with Joseph Barlow

Lippincott, who had surveyed the Owens Valley as Assistant Superintendent of the United States

Reclamation Service, Mulholland and an army of engineers, skilled craftsmen and laborers

undertook the development of an aqueduct drawing down the waters ofthe Owens River. Their

plan, a 225-mile, gravity flow structure of siphons, tunnels, reservoirs and channels, demanded a

huge effort of men, materials, land acquisition and civic will. The Chief Superintendent saw his

historic project to completion and on November 5, 1913, water from the Owens River flowed

I Abraham Hoffman, Vision or Villainy: The Origins of the Owens Valley Water Controversy, Texas A&M University Press, College Station, Texas, 11.


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into City reservoirs in the San Fernando Valley. The city had, the Superintendent reported, "as

much water as it would ever need."2

The Bureau of the Aqueduct and its Chief Engineer Mulholland began construction on

the first Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1907. Utilizing water from creeks above Mono Lake had been

considered in the planning of the work from the beginning, but fiscal restraints and problems in

acquiring land for a storage reservoir necessitated changes in the water system route. With the

impetus of a severe drought in Los Angeles in 1930, the Mono Extension was constructed.

When it was completed in 1940, the aqueduct extended from Lee Vining Creek above Mono

Lake to Van Norman Reservoir in the northeastern San Fernando Valley, bringing the aqueduct

route to a total length of 338 miles.

As it is presently configured, the route utilizes siphons, tunnels, reservoirs and channels.

At the Lee Vining Intake, water is diverted from Lee Vining and smaller creeks flowing from the

Sierra Nevada Mountains into the western side of Mono Lake and transported in conduit to Grant

Lake Reservoir (capacity 47,400 acre.;feet). Water then flows through the 11.3 mile Mono

Craters Tunnel to the upper reaches of the Owens River, where it flows in natural channels to

Long Valley Dam, now known as Crowley Lake (183,500 acre-feet). At Crowley Lake the water

is stored and its flow regulated into the three Owens Valley Gorge power plants, dropping nearly

2500 feet. Out of the gorge the flow proceeds in the natural channels of the Owens River to the

16,400 acre-feet Tinemaha Reservoir.

After leaving Tinemaha Reservoir, the water continues to the original Los Angeles

Aqueduct intake, located approximately 35 miles north of the point where the river empties into

Owens Lake. The flow of the Owens River is diverted through the Owens Valley in 23 miles of

2 Quoted in Hoffinan, Vision or Villainy, 9


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unlined open channel to the Alabama Gates north of Lone Pine. Thirty-seven miles of lined,

open, concrete channel continues to Haiwee reservoir at an elevation 200 feet above the level of

Owens Lake. Haiwee Reservoir (capacity, 63,800-acre feet) accumulates and stores the waters

of the river and intercepted streams flowing down the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

From Haiwee south to Little Lake, water runs through 15 miles of covered concrete conduit;

from Little Lake to Indian Wells the aqueduct continues through 24 miles of conduit, tunnels and

inverted steel siphons; from Indian Wells to Red Rock Summit, water travels through 20 miles of

conduit, flumes and siphon; from Redrock through the Badlands of Jawbone Canyon to the

Mojave Desert, water flows nearly 19 miles through tunnels siphons and conduit. The flow

continues in 68 miles of conduit through the Mojave Desert, crossing the west end of the

Antelope Valley in siphon ~ipe to arrive at Fairmont Reservoir (capacity, 7500-acre feet) which

serves as a forebay for the San Francisquito Power Plants.

Elizabeth Tunnel transports water out of Fairmont Reservoir, which regulates the uniform

flow of the aqueduct to the peak demand flows required by the San Francisquito Power Plants.

Just above Upper San Francisquito Canyon Power Plant #1, a large capacity lateral from the

aqueduct supplies 36,500 acre-feet Bouquet Canyon Reservoir. This reservoir serves as close-in

storage on the aqueduct system south of the San Andreas Fault. The water drops through Power

Plant #1 on its way to 750 acre-feet Drinkwater Canyon Reservoir, down the penstocks and

through San Francisquito Power House #2, a total drop of 1500 feet between the two

powerhouses. Tunnels, conduits and siphons deliver water down the Cascades to Van Norman

Reservoir Complex (22,300 acre-feet), traversing 338 miles by gravity flow. Water is then

distributed through trunk lines to City reservoirs: Encino, Franklin, Stone Canyon, Hollywood

and Silverlake for final distribution through the City water system ..

The Owens Valley-1900


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The Owens Valley, located in East Central California on the western margin of the Great

Basin, is situated between the Sierra Nevada and the White-Inyo Mountains. Forty peaks over

13,000 feet rise on the western side of the Sierras dominated by Mount Whitney at 14,500 feet.

Precipitation on the western escarpment is heavy, almost all winter snow that never entirely

melts at high elevations. In late spring and early summer, snowmelt produces heavy water flow

down creeks and into springs. The White and Inyo Mountains form a roughly contiguous linear

range on the east side of the Valley. The Sierra range on the west side is offset about eight miles,

incorporating Round Valley.

On the east side of the Valley, mountain escarpments thrust up through tectonic shifts

were eroded by streams that transported the debris to the valley floor, creating extensive·alluvial

fans and slopes. Volcanic eruptions south of Big Pine created the field of basalt that surrounds

the cinder cones of Red Mountain and Crater Mountain. At the northeast end of the valley, vents

from volcanoes beneath the valley floor produced large lava and ash flows, creating an 800-foot

thick rhyolitic volcanic tableland. With the exception of glacial moraine, volcanic deposits and

the projecting bedrock of the Tungsten, Poverty and Alabama Hills, the valley floor is generally

flat. It descends from 4,800 feet in Round Valley to 3,600 feet on the now dry bed of Owens

Lake seventy-five miles south. 3

Owens Lake was once one of a series of interconnected glacial lakes that occupied parts

of Death Valley and the Panamint, Searles and Owens Basins. Melting glaciers flooded the

valley with water, causing the level of Owens Lake to rise, overflow southward and fill a system


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of drainage basins. Over eons of time, the Lake receded, separated from the glacial system and

became a closed basin. Evaporation caused the waters of the Lake to become mineralized and

alkaline; in 1893 the valley newspaper, the Inyo Independent, reported that it contained enough

bicarbonate of soda to supply the whole world.4

The Owens River flows from the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Mono County, fed by the

perennial creeks that flow down the canyons and across the alluvial floor. Much ofthis creek

water sinks into the alluvial floor, contributing to an immense storage reservoir beneath the

surface. Emerging from a gorge cut into the volcanic tableland, the river flows eastward,

following the southern edge of the lava. When the valley slope turns southward, the river follows

its direction, flowing along the east side of the valley. Streams on the east draining the White-

Inyo Mountains are undependable and provide little runoff. Because the Sierras cut off the

moisture-bearing winds moving eastward across the land from the Pacific Ocean, the Owens

Valley is cast into a rain shadow, and the valley captures only about five inches ofrain annually.5

Vegetation in the Valley consists generally of salt-loving and drought-resistant plants.

Where streams flow out of the Sierras onto the valley floor, creating a shallow water table,

marshlands and grasses can also survive, along with tule, reeds, cattail and rushes. Where the

water table is within eight feet of the surface, or abundant from streams and springs, salt-grass

meadows flourish. In regions of sparse water, vegetation is characteristic of desert scrub

communities: sagebrush, greasewood, rabbitbrush, saltbush and tamarisk. 6

3 Robert A. Sauder, The Lost Frontier: Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1984, 7-15

4 Quoted in Abraham Hoffman, Vision or Villainy, 1981: Texas A& M University Press, College Station, Texas, 12.

5 Sauder, The Lost Frontier, 12-13. See also First Annual Report of the Chief Engineer of the Los Angeles Aqueduct to the Board .of Public Works, Los Angeles: Board of Public

Works, 15 March 1907, 29.

6 See "Ethnography of the Owens Valley Paiute," University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnography, vol. 33, Berkeley: University of Michigan

Press, 1933


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The Owens Valley Paiute, southernmost band of Paiute tribes which occupied lands from

northern Nevada to the western margin of the Great Basin, subdivided the valley into districts, or

life zones, in which each band had hunting fishing and seed-gathering rights. These political

units,.extending east-to-west between the summits of the mountain ranges, were based on the

streams that flowed from the Sierra Nevada. Villages on the valley floor existed year round;

pinion nuts were harvested from alpine camps in the fall. Native Americans were the first valley

water engineers, diverting Sierra streams to meadows on the edge of the valley. Constructing

temporary dams of boulders, sagebrush and earth, they then cut shallow ditches for water to

nourish nutgrass meadows and wild hyacinth whose edible bulbs were a staple in their diet.

Water overflow from the irrigated plots also allowed for cultivation of seed-yielding plants such

as sunflower and wild grasses. Anthropologist Harry Lawton noted that the Owens Valley Paiute

modified the natural environment of the Valley without disturbing the ecology, "developing a

seasonal round of subsistence activities that harmonized with their arid habitat.''7

In 1834, fur trapper Joseph R Walker and a party guided by local Indians crossed the

Sierra over the pass that carries his name. Walker led expeditions through the. valley for the· next

decade. In 1845 he and another trapper, Richard Owens joined John C. Fremont on his third

expedition west. W.A. Chalfant, the venerable valley historian, reports that it was the Pathfinder

that named the lake after Owens.8 In 1855, A.W. Von Schmidt conducted the first federal land

survey of the Owens Valley. His task was to evaluate the resources of the valley, including the

terrain, soil, vegetation and water supply. His impressions were largely negative and he reported

7 Harry W. Lawton, Mary Dedecker, and William M. Mason, "Agriculttire Among the Paiute of the Owens Valley," Joumal of California Anthropology 3 (Summer 1976) 13-50;

Sauder, 16. Population estimates for the Native Americans Range from I 000 to 2000 people. No evidence of similar irrigation practices has been found in the southern part of the

Owens Valley between Independence and Owens Lake.

8 A.W. Chalfant, The Story oflnyo, Bishop, California: Chalfant Press, 1913.


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that that soil and climate were worthless.9 On a second trip northward in 1856, he was more

impressed by well-watered meadows and grasses. Subsequently, Army Captain J.W. Davidson

and the California Geological Survey surveyed the valley.

Historian Robert Sauder claims that Davidson's account, "Report of the Results of an

Expedition to Owen's Lake, and River, with the Topographical Features of the Country, the

Climate, Soil Timber, Water, and also, the Habits, Arms and Means of Subsistence of the Indian

Tribes seen upon the March," represents one of the most thorough descriptions of the Owens

Valley prior to settlement. A popular version appeared in the Los Angeles Star in August,

1859.10 Just as settlers entered the valley, banished the Native Americans and took over their

irrigated fields, field parties for the California Geological Survey led by William Brewer came

through on the final expedition to record natural features in the valley in their still-pristine

state. 11

Unlike the Native Americans, new valley settlers had no tradition of living in harmony

with the land, and saw no reason to adapt their own time-honored patterns of farming to a valley

that author Mary Austin later immortalized as "Land of Little Rain."12 "Irrigation" wrote

historian William Karl," was a matter of necessity, not choice; and the traditions of the family

farm were especially well rooted." In 1899, 424 family farms operated on 141,059 acres with

hay, alfalfa and cereal grasses as the principal crop; 110 miles of channels had been dug; and, in

9 A.W. Von Schmidt, Field Notes, Sacramento: U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, vol. 105-14, July 15, 1855, 347-348. Quoted in Sauder, The Lost

Frontier

IO Sauder, Lost Frontier, 26, The green fields and watered meadows of the Native Americans impressed all the parties that entered the valley prior to settlement.

11 Sauder, The Lost Frontier, 27. See Frank Olmsted, "Report On the Owens River Project," December 26, 1905, in archives of the Department of Water and Power, Los Angeles.

The report has an excellent compilation of figures on climate and topography and hand drawn watershed maps.

12 Austin's husband Stafford Wallace Austin, was tbe land registrar at the United States General Land Office in Independence. The unofficial poet of the valley, Mary Austin

wrote novels, poems and a memoir of her life in Inyo County. Her former home is now a house museum in Independence.


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terms of total irrigated area, Inyo County ranked twelfth among the fifty-eight counties of

California. 13

The economy oflnyo County had long been tied to the mining activities in Nevada's

Comstock Lode and the White-Inyo Mountains. The discovery of valuable minerals and metals

at Cerro Gordo northeast of Owens Lake first linked the territory to Los Angeles in 1865. Silver

and lead bullion bars, together with gold and zinc were freighted through Los Angeles to the port

of Wilmington by Remi Nadeau's mule teams. The resulting trade was a bonanza to the city and

created a ready market for the Valley's surplus agriculture. With the end of the mining boom in

1877, valley prosperity declined, although the narrow gauge Carson and Colorado Railroad,

financed by Nevada silver barons, was extended across Owens Lake to Keeler in 1883, making it

possible to haul heavy freight to main-line railheads and on to distant markets. 14

"The region promised a slow and unspectacular growth in agriculture," reports historian

Abraham Hoffinan, "coupled with mining for less sensational minerals as zinc, asbestos and

borax."15 In 1901 a new gold strike excited Valley farmers. Tonopah, Rhyolite, Goldfield and

Bulldog in the desert of southwestern Nevada attracted a new boomtown population to consume

the Valley's agricultural products. The Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad connected with the

Carson and Colorado, opening up a new route to the gold fields. Bishop incorporated in 1903,

incurring bonded indebtedness to finance civic improvements. The Inyo County Bank opened its

doors, and the town could boast of its first telephone system. Agriculture was the foundation of

13 William Kahrl, Water and Power, 1982: University of California Press, Berkeley, California, 34-37

14 Sauder, 34-35

15 Hoffinan, VisionorVillainy, 15-16


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Valley prosperity. Ifit was to thrive and increase, a dependable, controlled water system was

imperative. 16

In the last years of the 19th century, Owens Valley farmers built a system of ditch

irrigation, but by 1903, damage to the land was obvious. Irrigators sent flowing water down

slopes through a random network of ditches without control checks or levees. As a result water

overflowed fields and seepage from unlined ditches wasted the resource. Farmers then used

older, waterlogged lands for pasturage and planted crops onto neighboring land, starting a new

round of destruction. 17 By 1904, irrigated lands in the Valley were becoming too wet to use, or

unsuitable for cultivation due to surface alkali. In addition, Owens Lake was receding; its

Cartago Wharf, once standing in nine feet of water became two miles distant from the shore.

Excessive water application by farmers reduced the stream flow into Owens Lake, so that by

1904 its level had fallen fifteen feet, shrinking the surface area from 110 square miles to· seventy-

five. 18

Los Angeles - 1900

Los Angeles officials were aware of the vast amount of water in Owens Valley. Los

Angeles Mayor Fred Eaton, who once held the post of Superintendent of the Los Angeles City

Water Works, testified in Los Angeles in 1889 before a special United States Senate

subcommittee gathering information on surveys of the western arid lands. Eaton discussed the

waste of water in the Valley and the possibilities of more efficient usage. Other professional

16Hoffman, VisionorVillainy, 16

17 Kahrl, Water and Power, 52. In his report to the Reclamation Service, Jacob Clausen reported, "Hundreds of acres once covered with sage· brush and later by irrigation had

become either too wet for use of worthless because of the concentration of alkali.

18 "ls Owens Lake Near Its End?" Inyo Register, August 4, 1904, I Quoted in Sauder, The Lost Frontier, 9. For the career of Fred Eaton see Hoffman, Vision and Villainy, 31-

35.


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testimony stated that without storage, the area of irrigated landiii the valley was limited to its

current level. As geographer Robert Sauder points out, private enterprise was inadequate either

to raise the capital required to build large storage dams or to construct channels to transport

water to higher benchlands. Owens Valley ranchers had few alternatives but to look to the

Federal Government to reclaim the valley's arid lands. 19

While Inyo County farmers looked forward with anticipation to the continued growth of

Owens Valley markets and the prospect of an extensive reclamation project sponsoredby the

Federal Government, 250 miles to the south Superintendent William Mulholland of the Los

Angeles Bureau of Water and Supply sought a means to ensure the continued growth and

prosperity of the lands and citizens under his jurisdiction. The city, whose water works had been

privately held only three years earlier, faced one ofits perennial summer water shortages. To the

superintendent the solution was as clear as it was elusive: the city must have a permanent,

dependable source of water not subject to the cycle of rich water years and drought that

threatened to halt the city's expansion.

Angelenos had early learned that the cycles of flood and drought set the pattern of river

flow in the city. The fourteen pobladores who trudged from Mission San Gabriel in 1767 to

found the small pueblo of Los Angeles chose a level area close to the broad neighboring river,

the same waterway that Mulholland was to describe a century later as "a beautiful limpid little

stream with willows on its banks."20 Spanish colonial law gave the pueblo an exclusive right to

the River's waters. Over time they developed a system of zanjas, ditches whose tenders

19 Sauder, The Lost Frontier, 109. At the same meeting, an Oakland civil engineer suggested a gravity flow channel to send water to the Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles

20 Kahrl, Water and Power, 20. In their first winter, the small band of settlers were summarily flooded out and had to move their precariously situated hamlet to higher ground

LOS ANGELES AQUEDUCT HAER No. CA.,298

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enforced usage ordinances and opened the gates to allow flow onto the cultivated lands. The

zanjas carried water to waterwheels that lifted the water for gravity flow to homes and fields.

The ditch system, unsanitary and constantly polluted, worked well enough for irrigation,

but was highly unsatisfactory for domestic use. After 1853 the Common Council gave

franchises to private water companies in order to guarantee a more satisfactory domestic flow.

In 1854 the water system was made a department of the city with a zanjero or water overseer in

charge. In the next fifty years, Angelenos suffered a series of fiascoes at the hands of the private

.. water purveyors: collapsing reservoirs, deteriorated pipes, the loss of agricultural lands to

speculative home builders, water theft, and the suicide of a discouraged and embarrassed

waterworks lessee in Common Council chambers.21

After 1875 the Los Angeles Water Company system was operated on a more business-

like basis, but its tight-fisted owners refused to improve equipment or service. But, as the time

approached for the Water Company's 30-year lease to expire, sentiment began to build for a

return to municipal ownership. Fred Eaton, a native Angeleno and son of a prominent city judge,

led the campaign. Eaton had begun his career of public service with the water department at the

age of 15. Five years later he had taken over as Superintendent, holding the position for nine

years. ·In 1886 he left the waterworks and was elected to the office of City Engineer. After

serving as Republican City Central Committee Chairman, Eaton was elected mayor in 1898,

promising to acquire the water system from its private owners. In 1878 William Mulholland had

worked as a ditch tender under Eaton. Eight years later he was superintendent of the water

works. By the end of the century he ran an efficient department and was renowned as the man

21 Kahrl, Water and Power, 9; See also Mulholland, 19-29.


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who knew everything about the system down to the smallest valve and pipe fitting.22 After

Mulholland persuaded his bosses to accept $2,000,000, the Mayor was successful in passing a

bond issue for $2,090,000 to purchase it.23 The Board of Commissioners of the Water Works

promptly appointed Mulholland Superintendent of the Water Works. In one of his memorable

quotes, Mulholland reported, "The City bought the works and me with it." 24

Water Use in the City of Los Angeles

Droughts in 1903 and 1904 gave Mulholland reason to reconsider his first dismissal of

Owens Valley water for Los Angeles. Through litigation, the city had firmly establishedits rights

to the flow of the entire Los Angeles River, citing the original Spanish pueblo grant. In addition,

it had secured rights to all the water in the basin needed for its municipal supply.25 Los Angeles'

semi-arid climate traditionally produces wide variations in stream flow with rainfall averaging

fifteen inches a year in the basin and about twenty inches in the mountains. In dry years, defined

as seasons when rainfall averages only a third of the mean, little run-off comes down from

mountain streams, unless rainfall in the hills exceeds 10 inches.26 The city's continuing growth

brought a record rise in consumption and dangerously low reservoir levels. Infiltration galleries

were built to catch all of the river's underground flow and meters were introduced to control the

most wasteful uses. 27

22 Katherine Mulholland, William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles: Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000, 38-47.

Eaton was out of office when the city finally acquired the water system, which required yet another vote on the bonds. Hoffman, Vision or Villainy, 40-44.·

24 Kahrl, Water and Power, 15-18. Kahrl reports that Mulholland kept the records of the private company in his head. In fact reports exist in the DPW Archives going back to the

1880s. At the same meeting Fred Eaton was employed as a consultant for three months.

25 Nadeau, 12. The case, Los Angeles vs. Pomeroy and Hooker was handed down by the California State SuprenieCourt in 1899.

26 Complete Report on Construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, Department of Public Service of the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles: 1916, 32

27 Nadeau, 13. In July of 1903 consumption exceeded inflow into city reservoirs that had only had only a two-day capacity


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Any city water development scheme had to consider water and land use in the San

Fernando Valley, which in the years before the building of the Aqueduct was devoted to

agricultural use. The Los Angeles Basin is ringed with high mountains and foothills descending

to valley lands. The importance of the San Fernando Valley lay in its wide, deep aquifer supplied

by run-off. Sand and gravel fill in the eastern third of the Valley absorbs winter flows from the

San Gabriel Mountains that sink through the absorbent fill into a:n immense underground

reservoir. During wet cycles underground water builds up, then the reservoir flattens out in dry

years providing a relatively constant flow that di~charges into its outlet at the southeast end of

the Valley through the Glendale Narrows and into the Los Angeles River. Only during flooding

in extremely wet years does water pass completely over the gravel, through the Narrows and

down to the sea. 28

By 1905, the city had taken the smface flow of the river, the subterranean flow below the

narrows, and ground water pumped from wells south of the city for.domestic consumption.

Irrigators in the San Fernando Valley were pumping water from the aquifer for crops and orchards.

Further encroachments on underground supplies were deemed hazardous, if more water was

withdrawn from the gravel beds than would be contributed during years of average rainfall; At stake

was the city's continued growth, the dream of a great economic and commercial center in Southern

California. "To take more water for the city from the underground reservoir," observed aqueduct

historian Allan Kelley, "would stop the development of the surrounding countryside and set a limit

to the growth of Los Angeles." Citizen conferences were called to suggest a remedy, the Federal

28 In their first winter, the small band of settlers were summarily flooded out and had to move their precariously situated harttlet to higher ground.


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Government sent engineers and geologists from the Geological Survey to study the problem, and

the Los Angeles Board of Water Commissioners was mandated to gather data and find a solution.29

The common law doctrine of riparian rights gave first access to the water source to

whoever owned the land touched by the stream;· the right ran with the land and could not be

transferred separately. Since the law tied land and water together, development was forced to

follow the course of the waterway. Riparian law made water a private source for private

exploitation. Public investment in water development or delivery schemes required

condemnation of lands or buying out owners with riparian rights.30

Owens Valley ranchers knew that the Federal Government had long sought to open up

arid lands. To achieve their goal of acquiring a year-round, controlled water source that would

ensure more settlement in the Valley, the Owens ranchers looked to the federal government.

Legislation passed in the last decades of the 19th century had first addressed the problem of

opening up to cultivation the lands of the United States beyond the 1 OOth Meridian. The Desert

Land Act of 1877 encouraged farming of arid lands in parcels of 640 acres and stimulated the

formation of irrigation projects in the Owens Valley.31 Ditch companies were financed and

incorporated on a per share, cooperative basis; each share carried the right to a prescribed

amount of water. Farmers built the channels during winter using horse teams and cast-iron

scoops called "Fresno scrapers."32

The Carey Act, passed in 1894, granted a million acres in the public domain to be sold by

the states, with proceeds earmarked for state-financed reclamation projects. In 1888, after the

29 Alan Kelly, "Introductory Historical Sketch of the Los Angeles Aqueduct," in Complete Report,

30 Kabrl, 3. Lower ripsrisn owners were always at risk of an assertion of rights by sn upper owner whose right was inviolate even if he did not chose to exercise it.

31 Sauder, The Lost Frontier, 39-40. Claimants paid 25 center per acre upon filing the claim with the balsnce of one dollar per acre to be paid within three years when proof of

artificial irrigation was presented

32 Sauder, The Lost Frontier, 79-80. By 1885 seven ditches were conducting Owens River water to the arid lsnds of the Valley.


(Page 18)

United States Congress authorized the first water resources investigations of western ranges, the

United States Geological Survey hired its first professionally trained engineers. With the signing

in 1902 by President Theodore Roosevelt of the Federal Reclamation Act, new opportunities for

settlement were possible on lands that could now be cultivated under irrigation.33 The

Reclamation Service, a division of the Hydrographic Branch of the Geological Survey, was

mandated to conduct surveys in the western states and territories for possible irrigation projects

On September 15, 1903, Frederick Haynes Newell, Chief Engineer of the United States

Reclamation Service, met with his engineers at Ogden, Utah. Newell instructed his supervising

engineers to conduct surveys to determine the feasibility of water projects in the West; he had

already initiated a reconnaissance of the Owens Valley under the direction of Joseph Barlow

Lippincott, the supervising engineer for California. Lippincott, a hydraulic engineer by training,

had considerable experience in his field, serving as a railroad track engineer, hydrographer and

topographer for the United States Geologic Survey, and an engineer for private irrigation and

reclamation projects.34

Lippincott sent one of his Assistant Engineers, Jacob C. Clausen, to reconnoiter the

valley. Clausen's mission was to determine the amount and quality ofunpatented public land

and to investigate the possibility of storing water for its reclamation. Clausen reported back that

all lands were in private hands, and hydrographic syndicates were also reconnoitering in the

Valley to assess its opportunities for private power development.35 Clausen also proposed an

irrigation plan of dams and reservoirs along both sides of the valley, with Long Valley as the

33 Kahrl, Water and Power, 31.

34 Nadeau, Water Seekers. Perhaps because of a long friendship with Newell, Lippincott, was allowed to finish work presently in hand while transferring his private client work to

a partner.

35 Abraham Hoffinan, "Origins of a Controversy: The U.S. Reclamation Service and the Owens Valley-Los Angeles Water Dispute," Arizona and the West 19:335. Edison

Electric Company was interested in the Owens River for a potential power project in the Tonopah Mining District.


(Page 19)

principal storage point. After receiving Clausen's report, Lippincott recommended withdrawing

virtually all the remaining public lands in the Valley.36

Former Mayor Eaton, who knew Lippincott well, was aware of the Reclamation Service

study in the valley and was determined to make the future aqueduct a reality. Eaton also knew

the valley well and was well-known to its residents, having made his first trip there in 1892 to

consult several property owners on an irrigation plan. Legend has it that upon his return from

that early trip Eaton had informed Mulholland of the immense and wasted flow of the Owens

River, only to be told by the Superintendent that Los Angeles already had as much water as it

would ever need. Eaton told Mulholland bluntly that he was wrong ifhe believed that

underground supplies and the Los Angeles River, replenished by alternating cycles of wet and

dry years, could keep the city growing.37 At any rate, Mulholland's refusal to consider the Owens

Valley as a water source did not shake Fred Eaton's conviction that the water being spilled by

Owens Valley ranchers would guarantee the future development of Los Angeles.

The exact succession of events and the roles of Eaton, Lippincott, Mulholland, the United

States Reclamation Service and the President of the United States in the drama resulting in Los

Angeles acquisition of Owens Valley lands has been the subject of intensive examination, not

only in the annals of the Department of Water and Power, but in novels, poems, broadsides, film,

fiction and histories of California water resource development. In retrospect, conflicts were

inevitable as personal rights clashed with public good and urban and rural interests collided. The

following summary of events is intended to serve as a brief background to the construction of the

aqueduct.

36 Sauder, The Lost Frontier, 107-112; Hoffman, Vision or Villainy, 53. Withdrawal was a practice of forbidding sale or patent oflands to prevent speculation

37 Remi Nadeau, The Water Seekers: Santa Barbara, Crest Publishers, 1993, 11-23.


(Page 20)

In the spring of 1905, Fred Eaton, at J.B. Lippincott's request, went to the Owens Valley

to secure information on power company filings on Valley lands. He carried with him United

States Reclamation Bureau maps showing the withdrawn lands. Apparently Eaton also intended

to secure a personal advantage by buying options on ranches and lands important for building an

aqueduct for Los Angeles, including extensive acreage in Long Valley, a most desirable dam

site, from rancher Thomas Rickey. Eaton was successful in securing the options, but his

activities left many people, including land register Stafford Wallace Austin, with the impression

that his activities were on behalf of the United States Reclamation Service.

Events moved swiftly in the city's favor. Los Angeles had offered Lippincott private

consulting work, ostensibly to compile data on water sources in the Owens Valley.

Subsequently, Clausen's report was given to Los Angeles city water officials, probably sub rosa.

It was clear to city officials that if the Reclamation Service began work on the Owens Valley

Project, Los Angeles would be denied Owens Valley water and the city's future growth would be

seriouslycurtailed. Lippincott, Mulholland, and Eaton were able to persuade Reclamation Chief

Newell to cancel the withdrawal of Owens Valley lands and reconsider the Owens Valley water

as a source for an aqueduct to Los Angeles. In abandoning its plans for the Valley, the

Reclamation Service reported that public benefit would undoubtedly accrue from the application

of the water of the Owens River for domestic use in Los Angeles, and their project was no longer

feasible because Los Angeles controlled the reservoir site [Long Valley] and 50 miles of riparian

land. 38

38 Bureau of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, First Annual Report, Los Angeles: Board of Public Works, 1907, 17-18, 21-22. See Also Department of Public Service, Complete

Report, p. 13, 47


(Page 21)

Whatever the true course of events, Lippincott and the Reclamation service had been

compromised. While working for the Reclamation Service, Lippincott had done an analysis on

water-bearing lands in an area under his jurisdiction that had been proposed as a federal

reclamation project. Such conduct, together with his acceptance of a permanent position with the

Los Angeles City Water Department after Owens Valley lands had been acquired, inevitably left

him open to conflict-of interest charges and seriously damaged the reputation of the United

States Reclamation Service.

By July, 1905, Los Angeles had acquired options allowing it to control 50 miles of the

lower part of the Owens River, most of the land around the potential Long Valley reservoir site,

and several channel systems. On the last day of July, the Board of Water Commissioners of the

City of Los Angeles voted unanimously to hold a special bond election of $1.5 million to secure

land and water rights in the Valley. Approval seemed beyond question. Mulholland and his

Board presented the Aqueduct Project to the voters as a matter of common sense and necessity:

If the city were to grow, it would have to have additional water. In his first Annual Report to the

Board of Public Works as Chief Engineer of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, he reported:

The present plan is to build an aqueduct with a net capacity of 400 cubic feet per second. We may therefore say that one million people will require about one-half of this supply, and that the remaining 200 cubic feet per second, or 10,000 miners inches would be available for irrigation uses. The City of Los Angeles now covers 61.16 square miles and it is highly probable that its boundaries will be greatly extended. It is absolutely necessary that Los Angeles now provide for domestic water for all time to come. There are now about 350,000 inhabitants within the possible limits of these extensions, and our numbers have doubled within four years. 39

39 Bureau of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, First Annual Report, 16.


(Page 22)

However, just a few short weeks before the election and just as the scandal over the role of the

United States Reclamation Service had seemed to die down, the most famous controversy in the

story of Los Angeles water history erupted.

Nearly 16,000 acres of the Porter Ranch lands in the San Fernando Valley had long been

considered ripe for division by speculators. A syndicate, headed by Leslie Brand, the head of

Title Guarantee and Trust Company, and street railway magnate Henry H. Huntington, had

optioned them. To the question, "Shall the City of Los Angeles incur a bonded debt of

$1,500,000 for the purpose of acquiring lands, water-rights, rights-of-way-and other property,

and constructing ditches, channels, tunnels and other water works, necessary to provide said City

with a water supply in the Owens Valley, in the County oflnyo, California," the answer was

Yes, 10,693; No, 754, in what the Los Angeles Times described as a "light tumout.',.io

Subdivision in the San Fernando Valley would have a profound effect not only on water

distribution in the city, but also on its future expansion. In 1911, City Engineer Homer Hamlin

and consulting engineers John Henry Quentin and W.H. Code estimated that the aqueduct would

deliver eight times the water the city could consume and four times the amount needed to deliver

water to all the lands with in the city's boundaries. The engineering team recommended thatthe

city promote the policy of annexation, granting water to those outside areas who would agree to

become part of the city, paying in advance for any required distribution system and assuming a

proportionate share of the tax burden incurred through the construction of the aqueduct. The

Hamlin report proposed allocating 75% of the surplus to the San Fernando Valley, arguing that

water used for agriculture would be returned to its vast underground aquifer.

40 Hoffman, Vision or Villainy, 90


(Page 23)

The advent of aqueduct water would increase the city supply from an average of 80 cubic

feet per second to 480 cubic feet per second. By applying 275 cubic feet per second for

irrigation in the San Fernando Valley, the city could expect to gain back in return flows an

additional 80 cubic feet per second each year, an amount equivalent to its total natural supply

without the aqueduct.41

The decision to use the surplus aqueduct waters for subdivisions in the San Fernando

Valley exacerbated tensions between local residents and the federal government in the Owens

Valley. In 1906, California Senator Frank Flint introduced a bill to give Los Angeles title to

some of the lands originally withdrawn by the Reclamation Service. Inyo County residents

appealed to their representative, Congressman Sylvester C. Smith, who offered a compromise to

Flint's bill: until the city had used all the aqueduct water for domestic purposes, the excess

should be returned to Owens Valley for irrigating public lands, allowing the Reclamation Service

to undertake an irrigation project for the Owens Valley. President Theodore Roosevelt ultimately

resolved the issue. In a formal letter to Secretary of the Interior Hitchcock he stated that the

interests of the Valley were genuine, but "must unfortunately be disregarded in view of the

infinitely greater interest to be served by putting the water in Los Angeles."42

An Act of Congress directing the Secretary of the Interior to sell the City of Los Angeles

public lands in three California counties became law in June of 1906. It gave the city rights-of-

way over public lands for the construction of ditches, tunnels, conduits and other necessary

41 Karl, 183-185. The report became entwined in the politics of city government, as Socialist candidate Job Harriman charged in his 1911 mayoralty campaign that that the

Aqueduct project had been conceived and promoted for the benefit of the San Fernando Mission Land Company consortium. However, the 1911 conviction of the McNamara

Brothers on charges of dynamiting the Los Angles Times building influenced public opinion against the radical forces that sought to exploit the San Fernando scandal to increase

opposition to the aqueduct.

42 Quoted in Kahrl, 140. Mulholland himself, together with the President of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the head of the Aqueduct Investigating Committee

traveled to Washington to lobby Administration officials. Roosevelt's letter is printed in its entirety in the First Annual Report of the Bureau of the Aqueduct. See First Annual

Report of the ChiefEngineerofthe Los Angeles Aqueduct, Los Angeles: Board of Public Works, 1907


(Page 24)

aqueduct infrastructure. In turn, if the Secretary of the Interior abandoned the Owens Valley

Reclamation Project, the city was required to reimburse the Reclamation Fund for surveys, river

measurements and other expenses. The city was given five years to construct the aqueduct. A

year later, as the City of Los Angeles prepared to start construction on the Aqueduct, the

Reclamation Service abandoned its plan for an irrigation project in the Owens Valley.

Lippincott offered to resign his position with the Reclamation Service, but continued for a short

time at Newell's request. In July of 1906 Lippincott accepted Mulholland's offer to be Assistant

Chief Engineer of the aqueduct project.43

The decision to allot surplus water to the San Fernando Valley set in motion events that

proved to be highly prejudicial to Mulholland. Liberal and Socialist factions in the City

combined to demand a full investigation of the affair and an Aqueduct Investigation Board was

set up at the Chief Engineer's request. The Board closely questioned him on the location of the

San Fernando Valley reservoirs. He replied, "God Almighty made the topography and we had to

take the reservoir sites where we foundthem." Mulholland did finally address the question of

speculative land deals, distinguishing his duty as an engineer from the deals of the development

consortium, stating the "capitalists" who had bought up the property "looked forward to a time

when the Aqueduct would be completed .... and land values enhanced.44

In 1907 the bond issue to provide funds for the building of the aqueduct was placed

before the voters. The outcome seems never to have been in doubt with an enthusiastic campaign

mounted by the Owens River Campaign Committee, whose Chairman was Mayor Meyer

Lissner, a man long associated with civic reform. Lissner, joined by the Merchants and

43 Hoffman, Vision or Villainy, 136-138. By the time the appointment was reported to the press, Lippincott was touring the proposed aqueduct line and computing the cost of

materials and labor.

44 Quoted in Hoffinan, Vision or Villainy, 161


(Page 25)

Manufacturers Association, the Municipal League, Chamber of Commerce and virtually every

other important business organization in the city, easily persuaded voters of the importance of

the undertaking. Los Angeles citizens willingly incurred a bonded indebtedness.of $23 million

by a margin of 10 to one, 21,923 to 2,128.45 While this certainly did not constitute a recordvoter

turnout, the project had come to represent Los Angeles' will to power. Nobody really needed to

be persuaded.

The city's purpose was what it had always been: growth of population and expansion of

infrastructure with a corresponding increase in quality oflife and opportunity. Another

advantage would soon be evident as well - the promotion of a municipal power system. Why

would public power not be as beneficial to the city as a public water system had become, freeing

the city from its dependence on private power just as the purchase of the private water system

had freed William Mulholland to build the finest municipal water system in America?

Aqueduct Construction

An independent team of three eastern engineers surveyed routes first proposed by

Mulholland and his engineers, evaluating them according to the all-encompassing engineering

principal that guided Mulholland: gravity flow, the essential element in his scheme.46 The three-

man Committee modified the route from Haiwee Reservoir south, running the line through San

Francisquito Canyon rather than rather than through Palmdale and Acton to Big Tujunga

Canyon. The new plane saved about 20 miles of difficult desert terrain. To facilitate the

organization of the work, the project had 11 divisions. The first and most northerly was

45 Kahrl, Water and Power, 151-157.

46 J.R. Freeman, F.P. Steams and J.D. Schuyler were appointed by the Board of Public Works in August of 1906 to report on the feasibility of the project. See Mulholland,

William Mulholland, 134-135


(Page 26)

designated Long Valley;47 the last, Saugus, was the southernmost. Each division demanded

different types of water conveyance and control systems that were modified to accommodate the

climate, terrain and gravity flow design of the aqueduct. The division also served to equalize the

amount of work in each area and the pace of construction.

The system's divisions were:

• Long Valley Division: This division's borders ran from the Mt. Diablo Base Line to the South Boundary of Mono County. It was originally planned to contain the Long Valley Dam, which was not constructed until 10 years after the First Aqueduct was finished; · • Owens Valley Division: North boundary of Inyo County to Cottonwood Creek. In this division, construction consisted of unlined and lined channel, the Tinemaha Reservoir site and the towns of Bishop, Big Pine, Lone Pine, Owens Lake and Keeler, situated across Owens Lake; • Olancha Division: Cottonwood Creek to and including Haiwee Reservoir (its major structure), Hogback and Haiwee Creek; • Rose Valley Division: South end of Hai wee Reservoir to Little Lake; covered conduit and a tufa mill; • Little Lake and Grapevine: Little Lake to the north end oflndian Wells Siphon; these two divisions required covered conduit, tunnels and siphons, crossing 5 mile Canyon, 9 mile Canyon, Sand Canyon, Grapevine Canyon and Indian Wells Canyons; • Freeman Division: North end oflndian Wells Siphon to Red Rock Summit; covered conduit, tunnels, steel and buried concrete siphons. Flumes crossed Sage Canyon and Bird Spring Canyons; • Jawbone Division: Red Rock Summit to the south end of Pine Canyon. Construction required nearly 19 miles of earth, hard and soft rock tunnels, covered channel and the Jawbone Siphon, crossing Red Rock Canyon, Jawbone Canyon and Pine Canyon; • Mojave Division: This division was a railroad hub; the major cement plant for the construction was built in Monolith. Conduits and siphons crossed the desert; • Antelope Valley Division: From the north end of Cottonwood Siphon to Fairmont Reservoir covered conduit, tunnels, the Antelope Valley siphon and a tufa mill were constructed; • Elisabeth Division: Fairmont Reservoir and Elizabeth Tunnel to the diversion in San Francisquito Canyon; tunnels, a power way dropping to Fairmont Reservoir and Elizabeth Lake;

47 Nothing was actually built in Long Valley in constructing the first aqueduct.


(Page 27)

• Saugus Division: From Elizabeth Lake Tunnel via power drops in San Francisquito Canyon, through tunnels, siphons, flumes and conduit; and Dry Canyon Reservoir, to the San Fernando Reservoirs.48

To secure and maintain the gravity flow, 1,289 miles of survey lines were run to determine water

elevation of the reservoirs, the most economical grade for conduit, tunnel locations, and power

drops. Permanent benchmark elevations were established at the ends of each long tunnel and the

longer siphons and at three mile intervals in open country. These were supplemented and

harmonized with lines of Wye levels. True elevations were then stamped on iron posts with

brass caps, or brass plugs set in holes drilled into the rock.

The aqueduct's gravity flow design made elevation determinations crucial. Each division

demanded that individual engineering structures be modified to accommodate the terrain and

gravity flow. Since the aqueduct went through many different types of terrain requiring varying

types of water-conducting structures, uniform gradients could not be established. A grade study

was done in order to find out the most economical distribution of the fall. 49· The Final Report on

the Aqueduct listed the controlling elevations of the aqueduct as: 1) Black Rock Springs, fixing

the intake of the Owens River at an elevation of3,814.8 feet for the diversion into the conduit; 2)

Haiwee Reservoir, fixed at 3,760 feet to insure sufficient capacity for seasonal regulation; the

grade elevation of 3,545 at the gateway below Haiwee Reservoir was also fixed; 3) Fairmont

Reservoir, set at 3,035 feet; and 4) San Fernando reservoir, at the south terminus of the aqueduct,

the final fixed point. 50

48 ''Preliminary Work," in Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report, 83.

49 Mulholland and Lippincott early decided that the length of the aqueduct, the light grades and the large amount of money involved required aque~t engineers to establish

permanent elevations near grade by precise methods. See Charles H. Lee, "Precise Level Operations on the Los Angeles Aqueduct, ''Engineering News, 60: 12, 17 September

1908, 311-312.

50 Preliminary Work," Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report, 83

LOS ANGELESAQUEDUCT HAER No. CA-298

(Page 28)

The date of completion depended on the time required to construct thelongesttunnel,

located at Elizabeth Lake. Preparatory work went on concurrently with the tunnel's bore, which

began in the fall of 1907. Five hundred miles of roads and trails; 2300 buildings andtent houses;

a cement plant at Monolith; two hydroelectric plants on Owens Valley creeks; 230 miles of pipe

lines; 218 miles of power transmission line; and 3 77 miles of telegraph and telephone lines had

to be established. Two hundred forty miles of telephone line connected directly from the

aqueduct intake to Los Angeles' Home Telephone Company system; the city also constructed

two hundred twenty miles of local lines. One of the long distance lines connected directly to the

Bureau of the Aqueduct's office in Los Angeles.51

Obtaining equipment and doing the preliminary work required eighteen months and cost

$3,000,000. The advance work gave engineers and crews a glimpse of what they would have to

contend with from the terrain and climate: desert, mountain ranges and canyons to be crossed; a

large force of men and animals to be maintained in a barren country far from the source of

supplies; transportation of vast quantities of construction materials; water to be supplied for men,

animals and concrete mixers; extreme summer heat and freezing winter cold.

Throughout the building of the aqueduct, low costs were attributed to the degree of

careful preparation that preceded actual construction. Credit was also given to the efficiency of

labor at all levels and the fact that the building of the aqueduct was a mUnicipal undertaking and

the city the sole employer of all labor. Every man in a position above day laborer had a

certification from the Civil Service Cominission. 52

51 "Telephone Lines," note in Engineering News, January 25, 1912, 47.

52 Burt Heinley, "Carrying Water Through A Desert," National Geographic, 10 July 1910, 587-588


(Page 29)

Fifty-seven camps housed mule skinners, bindle stiffs, tunnel borers, pick and shovel

crews, machine operators, engineers, surveyors and specialist craftsmen. Mulholland's

secretary, Burt A. Heinley, wrote numerous articles for both learned and popular journals from

the inception of construction until its dedication. His description of"bindle stiffs," itinerant

workers, reflects the general tone often found in popular magazine articles on the aqueduct

construction. Describing the small army of men that toiled in desert heat and freezing cold for

six years, he wrote:

Today he is mucking in the tunnels of the Coast Range, recovering from yesterday's debauch in Los Angeles. Next week he will be at work in the ditch behind a steam shovel someplace on the desert ... The unknown always calls to him, and always he obeys the summons. Too parsimonious to purchase a pair of three-dollar blankets or a pair of shoes, he spends a month's paycheck with the munificence of a millionaire at the first point he comes into contact with civilization and a saloon. He begins life anew with a raging headache and empty pockets.53

Hard drinking crews concerned Mulholland and Lippincott, who turned to the Board of

Public Works for an ordinance prohibiting saloons within four miles of the aqueduct's

construction. Retaining crews in the summer's heat was also a problem, since many workers left

the desert to seek cooler climates and easier work. Historian Margaret Leslie Davis reports that

Mulholland realized he had his most efficient crews in winter months and adjusted the

construction schedule accordingly.54 Heinly's description of the day laborer seems rather too

easy and doesn't accord completely with the record of workers' accomplishments. Like the

cement contractors, construction contractors had presented the city with high bids. Mulholland

felt that he and the division engineers could get better work done more cheaply by using day

53 Quoted in Margaret Leslie Davis, Rivers in the Desert, New York: Harper-Collins Publishers law and thereafter drinking establishments were constructed a little farther away

from the aqueduct line. Inc., 1993, 45. A challenge to the saloon legislation went to the California Supreme Court which upheld the

54 Davis, Rivers in the Desert, 45-47.


(Page 30)

labor. World records set in the construction of Elizabeth and Red Rock Tunnel, labor on siphons

in Jawbone Division and the bonus system attest to the skill and pride of the laborers and their

willingness to work on a project that required back-breaking work in a desperately inhuman

climate.

Before construction began, a variety of support structures had to be built, including all

types of lodging for personnel, offices, mess houses, hospitals, drafting offices and cook shacks ..

Shortly afterward came the buildings to shelter animals and machinery: shops, barns, hay sheds,

corrals, warehouses, sawmills, powder magazines, compressor plants and a garage. All

structures had to accommodate temperatures ranging from 0 degrees in winter to 110 degrees

Fahrenheit in summer. The Final Report on the Aqueduct noted "an effort was made to make the

lodgings comfortable in both summer and winter, with bunkhouses accommodating one-to-eight

men to a room each having an outside window."55 Over 1600 tents were erected as well as 248

bunkhouses. Engineer's had their own residences and modest cottages were built for families.

In his efforts to maintain a more stable work force on the site, Mulholland advertised for

families, stating, "Any man of family who desires to work at manual labor for $2 a day can

secure a place." Modest wood cottages were built and a one-room public school opened near the

south portal of Elizabeth Tunnel. 56

Many buildings, such as offices, dwellings and bunkhouses, were designed to be portable.

On the Owens Valley Diversion Channel and what was described as the "light work" on the long

stretch in the Mojave Desert, they were taken down in sections, loaded on wagons and

reassembled at another point on the line. In keeping with the emphasis on economy, at the

55 Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report, 82, 89.

56 Four room dwellings were erected for the Division Engineers, who paid a rent to the City, "sufficient to return the investment." Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report, 89. See

also Mulholland, 166-67.


(Page 31)

aqueduct's completion those remaining were salvaged and sold. The Final Report estimated the

total number of buildings erected to be 2,291. 57

Controlling costs was paramount in all of the planning and throughout the construction of

the aqueduct. When suppliers quoted a high price for cement, the Board of Engineers decided to

build a cement plant for the waterway construction. The city bought 4300 acres ofland with

limestone quarries, clay deposits and tufa rock, then built a mill at Monolith, about 15 miles

north of Mojave. "It was not contended that the city could manufacture cement either cheaper or

better," Lippincott continued, "but the plant's location on the line of the Aqueduct eliminates

twenty-five or thirty cents a barrel in freight charges." In addition, the city's mill could regulate

its production in accordance with the amount of material needed at a site. 58

The Monolith plant produced standard Portland cement using limestone rock quarried

from local sites. An aerial tramway, 4700 feet long carrying thirty tons per hour, delivered limestone

to a 250-ton bin near the base of the hill, where it went onto the narrow gauge railroad to the

Monolith mill five and one-half miles away. Clayfor the process came from the bed of a shallow

lake adjoining the mill. The lake was drained in the spring after the rainy season and enough

material excavated through the summer to provide for an entire year. A second aerial tramway 5,800

feet long capable of carrying 25 tons per hour transported the clay to the mill.59

Tufa cement, a mixture of Portland cement and ground tufa rock, was a special feature of

the work. Deposits of tufa, a volcanic, pumaceous rock, were found at Monolith, in desert craters

between Monolith and Fairmont, and near Haiwee in lava beds. The city established tufa-

grinding plants at each of these locations. Engineers found that tufa cement could extend a barrel

57 Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report, 89 ..

58 J.B. Lippincott, "Tufa Cement As Manufactured and Used on the Los Angeles Aqueduct." Bureau of the Los Angeles Aqueduct: Seventh Annual Report, 45

59 "Cement Mill and Tufa Plants," Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report, Los Angeles: Department of Public Service of the City of Los Angeles, 1916, 191-196.


(Page 32)

of Portland cement by fifty percent. After deciding on a recipe for a mixture, they ran extensive

test-loading on the slabs of concrete to ascertain the material's strength. This precaution carried

added significance, since the city's manufacture of its own cement came under heavy criticism

from established cement plants in California that had hoped to secure contracts to supply the

aqueduct.

Maximum production of cement from Monolith in 1910 at the peak of construction

demand was 1600 barrels a day. Since demand exceeded output, engineers contracted with a

mill in Riverside to supply Portland cement. "This was the first sale of cement from a Riverside

mill," commented Lippincott, adding, "the price was materially lower than that which prevailed

in the market. It was doubtless affected also by the fact that the city was in possession of a

mill."60

To transport material through the desert to construction camps between Mojave Desert

and Owens Valley, an 8.5-mile branch of the Southern Pacific's Nevada and California Railway

was extended to meet the narrow gauge line running through the valley. Two other narrow

gauge railways were built: one, approximately .8 miles in length went to the cement plant, and

the other, approximately 1.5 miles in length, to the site of the Haiwee Dam. The Aqueduct

Division also built a temporary line to the Jawbone Division from the Nevada and California

Railway through Red Rock Canyon.61

Prior to March 1909, the city rented mules at a cost of $100,000 a year. At that rate

Mulholland had no trouble convincing the Board of the Aqueduct to buy and maintain teams. In

addition, the animals could be sold at the end of the job and the cost of their upkeep recouped.

60 Lippincott, "Cement Mills and Tufa Plants," 110. See also Kelly, Pictorial History of the Aqueduct, 23-24

61 "Two Railroad Lines," Note in Engineering News-Record, January 25, 1912, 47 ..


(Page 33)

An average of 1600 mules worked on the project.62 At the start of the project, twenty-mule teams

were relied on to haul water and supplies from the railroad terminus, but their most important

duty became hauling siphon pipes from the railhead to the canyons where the sections were

riveted together. To deliver steel siphon sections, Division Engineer Harvey Van Norman rigged

a pair of flat-deck wagons supported by steel tires two feet wide, drawn by a team of fifty-two

mules using three parallel lines of 16 mules each with a lead pair at the head and two "wheelers"

on the tongue.63

In some instances, mules performed more satisfactorily than new machinery like the

Caterpillar tractor. Before the "Cat" was put to work, all material had to be carried over

mountain roads and desert canyons by jerk-line mule teams. Heavy equipment such as shovels

had to be dismantled and packed into wagons for locations along the line. The tractors could be

moved easily by two "Cats" hooked together in tandem, doing the work of many animals at

much less expense. However, after several months in the desert, the tractors became more and

more costly to maintain as sand began to foul the engine and destroy parts~ Engineers decided to

scrap them in favor of the slower, but reliable mule.64

Two systems supplied construction power through more than two hundred miles of

33,000-volt, three-phase, temporary transmission circuits. The Saugus system extended from the

San Fernando tunnel to the Fairmont tufa mill. In tum, it was supplied with energy from the

Castaic substation of Southern California Edison Company. The Cottonwood installation

extended from the aqueduct intake to the Pinto Hills, supplemented by a turbine plant at the

cement works. Two hydroelectric plants on Division Creek, with a combined output of 725

62 G.A. Reichard, "Aqueduct of the Los Angeles, California Municipal Water System," The National Engineer, September 1913, 544.

63 Nadeau, The Water Seekers, 45; Bureau of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, Seventh Annual Report, 13.

64


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watts, generated the current necessary to operate the suction dredges in the Owens Valley

Division. Since the output was more than sufficient to operate the three dredges in service, a

transmission line was extended to a third plant, on Cottonwood Creek. From there, the

transmission line was continued along the upper 150-mile stretch of the aqueduct to work was in

progress .. The line also connected with the generators driven by steam turbines at the Monolith

Power Plant. Through this arrangement the generators operated in parallel. 65

Electricity was used where economical. Los Angeles' Chief Electrical Engineer

Scattergood, writing in the Proceedings of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, stated

that electric power was utilized where the duty was light and the power requirements large.

Portable outdoor transformer banks were found to be cheaper than gasoline engines. "Careful

figures," Scattergood reported, showed that current could be generated at certain points along the

line, transmitted and distributed at less expense than using generators powered by fuel. 66

In the desert divisions, roads were constructed at the shortest point from the railroad to

the aqueduct line, arid then extended parallel to its route through the length of the divisibfis. In

the mountain divisions, Grapevine, Little Lake and Jawbone, the elevation of the terrain varied

between 900 and 1200 feet. To move men and machinery, a system of roads and trails was

established. The "Gray Line Road" was constructed between Jawbone Division headquarters at

Cinco and the range of tunnels to the south.

Construction of the aqueduct, as historian Abraham Hoffman points out; reflected the

development of technology at the turn of the century. Methods of construction and technology

65 ''The Owens Valley and Olancha Division," 15. The flywheel effect of the steam machines maintained the voltage on the line when the dipper dredge and motor-driven shovels

were using power simultaneously. Division Creek Powe.r Plant #I was the first power plant built and put in operation by the city. See Porter, E.A., "Chronological Statement of

Land, Construction and Organization Matters in the Owens Valley District," Typescript in the Archives of the Department of Water and Power

66 "Water Power on the Los Angeles Aqueduct," Engineering Record, 65:5, 126-127; See also E.P. Scattergood,. "Electric Power in the Construction of the Los Angeles

Aqueduct..," Proceedings of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, August,· 191 O

LOS ANGELES AQUEDUCT HAER No. CA~298

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were changing rapidly as hand labor gave way to machines and improved materiel technology.

As a result, building the aqueduct involved the experimental technology of the new century as

well as technologies of the past. Automobiles and tractors were essential to the speed and

efficiency of the work, while electric dredges and excavators superseded, but did not eliminate

pick and shovel drudgery or the cost and durability of the mule team. 67

The aqueduct utilized both lined and unlined channel, depending on.the height of the

groundwater and the character of the soil. The elevation at the intake was determined by the

elevation of Black Rock Spring, which delivered a continuous flow of twenty feet per cubic

second into the diversion. At the same time, the flow line at Haiwee Reservoir had to be as high

as possible for maximum impound. Therefore, these two calculations determined the grades of

the channel for the first 60 miles. 68

From the intake to the north end of the Alabama Hills, approximately twenty-three miles,

the gradient is relatively flat - one foot to the mile - and the cross-section large - fifty-seven feet

at the flow line. In addition, the channel is close to, or below, the ground water level, two to

four feet below the surface. With an average depth often feet for the channel, covered conduit

was impractical. Engineers saw that, if the channel was kept unlined, it would gain in flow as

water seeped in rather than out. 69

From the intake, the grade of the aqueduct begins to rise above the valley floor for about

fifteen miles. After this point, soil porosity required a continuous lining of concrete on the

bottom and the sides. Lined channel continues between the Alabama Hills and Cottonwood

67 Hoffman, Vision or Villainy, 147.

68 See "The Owens Valley and Olancba Divisions of the Los Angeles Aqueduct," Engineering Record, 62:1, 2 July 1910, 14-16. Unlined channel had an average depth of 10

feet, a bottom width of 38 feet, a top width of 62 feet and a capacity of 801 second feet


(Page 36)

Creek with a capacity of 800 cubic feet per second. Between Cottonwood Creek and the Hai wee

Reservoir, a somewhat larger lined channel was engineered to carry 900 feet per cubic second.

From the south end of the Alabama Hills the line flows around debris fans, conglomerate masses

made up of large boulders cemented by wave and water action into ancient Owens Lake,

reaching Haiwee Reservoir 61 miles below the intake. The Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report

noted, "It was with great difficulty that the ditch was excavated in this material, boulders as great

as ten to thirty feet in diameter having to be moved." 70

Aqueduct engineers constructed open lined channel rather than unlined channel to allow

the waters of mountain streams to cross over the aqueduct. At Cottonwood Creek an arch

crossing for floodwaters was built and weirs constructed so that the creeks could either be

diverted into the aqueduct or passed down its channel. To eliminate sand and gravel from the

water before it entered the channel, a wasteway was constructed. In case of flood, all the

aqueduct water could be turned into the channel of Cottonwood Creek

Dredges and shovels for the aqueduct were built specifically for the work of digging

channels. Unlined channel was dug with a suction dredge. A dipper dredge dug lined chailnel

between Cottonwood Creek and Haiwee Reservoir. A variation of this lined channel, also ciug

with the dipper dredge, was designed with a flat bottom to serve as a transition between the first

two types. When the dredges did not operate satisfactorily, or conditions were encountered that

required different results, the machines were modified to suit the terrain, soil, or particular

69 "Engineering Description of Conduits," Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report, 160. Measurement showed that 7 second feet were constantly seeping into the channel between

the intake and George's Creek, excluding the inflow of 23 second feet from Black Rock Springs

70 Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report, "Engineering Description of Conduits," 160, 171 Since the ditch followed the ancient beach line of Owens Lake, the site offered "an ample

supply of clean, well-graded beach gravels for concrete."


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problems encountered. All dredges operated electrically, with energy supplied by the aqueduct's

hydroelectric power plants at Division and Cottonwood Creeks. 71

The steel hull suction dredges, fifty-five feet long and six feet deep, were divided

transversely into four compartments. A side suction, centrifugal sand and gravel pump was

installed on each hull for dredging. These were custom-made for the work, having very heavy

cast-iron shells rather than replaceable liners. The shaft of the pump, 15 feet from the end of the

hull, coincided with the longitudinal centerline of the hull to secure an entirely straight suction

line. An A-frame ladder on the machine carried a cutter that loosened dredged material so it

would flow easily into the suction pump.

As originally equipped, the ladder on each dredge carried a pair of cone-shaped cutters

driven in opposite directions at 75 r.p.m. This arrangement worked well in soft material, but in

harder or tougher deposits it hammered rather than cut the material. Once again the engineers by

trial and error modified the machine by installing a single larger cutter designed to operated at 20

r.p.m. Another problem with the cutter was its tendency to undermine the excavation several

feet before the top caved in. This problem was overcome by rigging a "hydraulic giant," a jet of

water on the forward end of the hull over the ladder. It could be turned to reach any point in the

face of the excavation. The stream had sufficient force to break down material as hard as the

cutter could handle. The modification also enabled the machine's operator to cut the slope of the

channel more exactly. 72

The dipper dredge was installed to excavate all materials too hard for the suction dredge.

Essentially a Model 40 Marion Steam Shovel, it was mounted on a hull to meet a variety of

71 Jones, "A Search for Water," 12.

72 "Owens Valley and Olancha Division of the Los Angeles Aqueduct," 14-15. This article contains a complete set of specifications for the dredge.


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conditions under which it had to operate. A fifty-foot boom carried an eighteen foot dipper arm

that carried a 1.5 cubic yard dipper. The base of the booni was seated on a swing pivot at the

forward end of the hull. The outer end of the boom swung from a braced A-frame on the hull.

Side arms extended out from the top of the frame. Pairs of hinged struts attached to each of the

side arms allowed the boom's position to be adjusted as necessary. The boom was operated and

the dipper hoisted by a variable speed motor that drew current from a transfonner float behind it,

in the same manner as did the suction dredge. 73

Both electrically operated and steam driven custom designed Marion steam shovels

excavated sections for the lined channels and standard 430-second foot conduits of the aqueduct.

Regular Model 60 steam shovels were modified to carry thirty-five foot booms and the electric

shovel was designed with a forty-foot boom to have sufficient range to reach the excavation at

the full width of the cut while operating atits bottom. In this position they had the reach to place

the excavated material in spoil banks back of the four-foot berms that lined each side of the

channel cut. All three machines carried 1.5 cubic yard dippers with manganese steel teeth. A

large supply of spare parts was stockpiled, and repairs could be done within 24 hours. Power

was taken from the construction line that extended along the aqueduct.. So that concrete work

would not be delayed, the excavations were kept 500 feet in advance of pouring. 74

Steam shovels were able to push boulders weighing 8 to 10 tons out of the excavation,

material that could not be handled by electric shovels unless blasted in advance~ For economy's

sake, where deep side..;hill cuts were necessary, two steam·shovelswere used in tandem, one

working ahead of the other. The first cut down the upper half of the slope and threw material

73 Ibid.,, 16. See also Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report,, "Engineering Description of Conduits," 160. Suction dredge No. I was used for unlined channel working south from

Black Rock Springs a section of travertine was encountered that required blasting. The dipper dredge was then used to complete the section.

74 ''The Olancha and Owens Valley Division," 16. See also Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report, 174


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down to the lower shovel, which then excavated the channel and threw the material from the first

shovel down the slope.

Concreting went on immediately behind the shovels with concrete lining put on in six-

foot sections without forms, then the bottom floated in and formed with templates. Curing

concrete became a challenge during winter months since the new poured concrete would freeze

during the night. Water for the concrete was heated in boilers to speed the setting time. It was

then poured and covered with two-inch planks to retain the heatand keep out frost.

Covered conduits were an important feature in the aqueduct's water conveyance system,

running approximately 180 miles of the total length of the 235-mile waterway. The longest

stretch of the main conduit extends 135.26 miles from Haiwee Reservoir to the Fairmont

Reservoir. Conduits were designed by engineers in the main office of the Bureau of the

Aqueduct, but field engineers made the selections of the type and dimension to be used on the

ground.1s

Aqueduct conduits varied in size and types, but they were generally box-shaped; the

standard capacity was 430 cubic foot per second. All the excavations for the 430-second foot

conduits on the Mojave Division were made with the Model 40 Marion steam shovels. The

normal width of the excavation was 12 Yi feet with a normal depth of 10 Yi feet. The Board of

Consulting Engineers had originally decreed that desert conduit could not be covered within

fiscal constraints. After Mulholland and his engineers built a test mile of covered section near

75 For a description of the methods for determining economical gradient for the conduit using the theorem of parallel tangents, see ''The Location and Design of Conduits on the

Los Angeles Aqueduct," Engineering News, 64:25, 16 December 1911, 716-17.


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Mojave that came in within the allotted budget, desert conduit was constructed with a flat bottom

and covered. 76

Workers used cut-and-cover construction to excavate trenches for conduits. Although the

Austin Excavator could be utilized in most locations, mules and shovel brigades were called in

for difficult terrain such as valleys and steep hillsides. Three methods were Used for building the

conduit: the first laid down the floor first, then built the side walls and finally the cover; the

second built the side walls and cover together, then followed with the floor; the third built the

entire conduit at one operation. Engineers found that rapid evaporation could prevent the

concrete from setting properly in the first method unless the three operations were almost

simultaneous. Since the second method enclosed the conduit from the.start, the evaporation

problem was lessened. Finally, experience showed the monolithic pour the best method,

combining the advantages of the first two and also avoiding all joints in the conduit.77

Conduit was first designed with a concrete roof that was tied into transverse ribs on top of

the cover. Ribs were three feet apart, center-to-center, and the 3-inch thick roof slab was

reinforced with wire mesh. However, problems were soon encountered with the curing of the

concrete. As a result, the cover was changed and a flat slab substituted, six inches thick on the

sides and seven inches in the center, with additional reinforcing and concrete. Builders modified

the covers according to the ground surface and distance of the cover above or below the surface.

Covers also had to be varied according to the nature of the soil. Since clay would stand

76 Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report, 174. The shovels stood a lot of punishment. Repair shops kept a large slipply of parts on hand and prided themselves on doing repairs

within 24 hours. To avoid delay to the concrete work, the excavation was maintained SOO feet in advance.

77 Complete Report on the Aqueduct, 219.


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vertically, little reinforcing was needed for the sides. In desert sand, back forms were necessary

and the concrete sides had to be reinforced. 78

The entire concrete-lined portion of the aqueduct was plastered in order to obtain the

most efficient coefficients of flow. Proper curing was achieved by a monolithic cover casting

with the sides, walls and water maintained on the invert. This system created a humid

environment that was maintained by keeping the manholes closed. "Mile after mile of covered

conduit was built in this manner," the Final Report stated, "without a transverse crack showing

up."79

Engineers felt that tunnels were one of the most satisfactory methods of water

conveyance. Free from the hardships imposed by weather, or breaks such as those that

threatened conduits, tunnels offered a safe and direct line of flow along the route. As aqueduct

construction progressed, it became apparent that tunnels could be driven more cheaply than other

types of conveyance could be constructed. As a result, the aqueduct when finished had 42.9

miles of tunnels and 8.8 miles of power tunnels rather than the 28 total miles of tunnel originally

proposed by the Board of Engineers. 80

The construction of the 26,870-foot Elizabeth Lake Tunnel ranks as one of the aqueduct's

greatest feats. The tunnel is located one-half mile west of the Lake, which is situated in a valley

where the Coast Range of mountains has a double crest. Where the tunnel crosses the valley, it

bores 250 feet below the surface. Elizabeth Tunnel was designed as the outlet from the bottom

of Fairmont Reservoir, and as a pressure tunnel and diversion to the penstocks of San

Francisquito Power Plant # 1, the first power plant south from the crest of the range. A key

78 See ''Engineering Description of Conduits," Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report, 160

79 Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report, 191.

80 ''Tunnel Construction," Los Angeles Aqueduct Final Report, 142.


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connector in the aqueduct design, the tunnel carries water from the Antelope Valley on the north

side of the Sierra Madre Mountains to San Francisquito Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains. 81

Boring the Elizabeth Tunnel represented an unparalleled feat in hard rock mining. Work

was started by hand at the south portal on October 16, 1907, and on the north portal November 1,

1907. Since tunnel boring was the most time consuming aspect of the work, it was begun first.

As soon as possible tunnelers were equipped with air compression drills and a track for electric

railroad cars installed. "Everyone works for records," wrote Burt Heinly in the National

Geogtaphic as the work progressed in 1910. Progress was calculated every 10 days to intensify

the spirit of rivalry. Engineers determined how much tunnel could be bored in a particular type

of rock or soil, or the average distance that should be made by a power shovel or a concrete gang

in the ten-day period. When the given distance was exceeded, the city paid each man on the

crew a bonus for every foot over. As a result, Heinly reported, "every American tunnel boring

record had been broken, as well as those for other forms of cement and cement work."82

Engineer John Gray at the north portal and W.C. Aston at the south portal supervised

Elizabeth Tunnel excavation. Desert conditions outside the tunnel could range from 10 degrees at

midnight to 120 degrees by mid-day. Inside the tunnels the temperature generally remained

about 58 degrees. The bonus system had been instituted to hasten the pace from 5 feet in an

eight-hour shift to 8 feet per day. A crew that tunneled in excess of this rate would receive an

extra forty cents per foot per man. Buoyed by this incentive the two supervisors eventually

achieved eleven feet per day. The north portal proved to be considerably more difficult, with

workers risking their lives after hitting pockets of water that flooded the tunnels. Workmen

81 The Los Angeles crews also broke international tunneling records. In June 1909, Saugus Division tunnelers broke a record previously held by Swiss crews in the Ricken

Tunnel, Switzerland. In August, crews at Red Rock Canyon at Tunnel 17-M excavated and lined from two headings a I 0,596 foot Jong sandstone tunnel in.15 months.


(Page 43)

timbered the sides of the shaft and drove overlapping steel rails ahead of the coring to hold back

possible cave-ins. Work on the north portal had to be stopped for forty-five day after one cave-in

totally flooded the tunnel. W. C. Aston, Superintendent of the south portal of Elizabeth Tunnel,

acknowledged the variety of methods employed in driving the tunnel in a detailed article on

every aspect of its construction, machines, methods of operation, shift operation, evaluation of

materials,. freighting of supplies and railroad track. Labor was key to the construction. Ashton

noted "Discipline and strict attention to business while on shift are required of everyone, while at

the same time, a spirit of friendliness is fostered and every man made to feel that in a large

measure the success is due to his efforts and the interest he takes. "83

By July 1910 almost 100 miles of aqueduct had been excavated. Thirty-six miles of this

distance was through hard rock boring at the rate of 2 miles a month. For the last ten days of

May, the total distance in tunnel, conduit and channel excavated was 16,983 feet, or about 10

miles a month. 84 Excavation on Elizabeth Tunnel was finally complete 1,239 days after the work

started, although concreting took another 10 months. 85

Aqueduct historian Burt Heinly described siphons as "probably the most interesting

feature of this great enterprise, excluding tunnels." Twelve riveted steel and eleven reinforced

concrete ••inverted siphons," essentially large diameter pipes designed to handle extremely high

heads of water pressure that build up as water descends into and rises out of canyons, carried the

aqueduct flow across canyons and valleys. 86 Steel siphons ranged in length from 611 feet to .15,

596 feet, and in diameter from 7 feet 6 inches to 11 feet. They were designed for a minimum

82

83 W.C. Aston, 'The Elizabeth Tunnel," Mines and Minerals, September 1910,102-105. Aston's piece is an exhaustive description of the tunnel driving process.

84 Heinly, "Carrying Water Through A Desert," 588.

85 Davis, Rivers in the Desert, 51-68; see also Mulholland, 198; the tunnel completion on February 27, 1911 made national news. The Christian Science Monitor report it as "an

engineering feat without parallel for low cost and the short time employed.


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capacity of 430-second feet. The thickness of the steel depended on pressure, varying from one-

fourth inch to one and one-eighth inch. Steel plates from mills in the eastern United States were

rolled and punched at the factory, then assembled and riveted in thefield.·Concrete siphons were

constructed for locations where the hydrostatic pressure was low and the depressions to be

crossed shallow.87 To study the relative merits of the two types, the Bureau of the Aqueduct

constructed the Whitney concrete siphon and the San Antonio and Dove Springs steel siphons.

Leakage observations were made and cost records kept to evaluate which type would be most

efficient in a given location.

The 955 foot Whitney siphon, 10 feet in diameter with a 9 inch shell on the top and sides,

rested on a base with a thickness of 12 inches and was designed to withstand a maximum head of

75 feet. After springing leaks, the expansion joints were removed and filled and the remaining

pipes built without them. Six other concrete siphons used tufa cement and only one developed a

crack (that became watertight after a fill repair). The experimental San Antonio steel siphon,

built of Yi inch plates 72 inches wide with two longitudinal riveted seams also developed initial

leaks. Engineer J.B. Lippincott reported to the Engineering Record that the leaks were easily

plugged by recaulking. 88

The Antelope Valley siphon, 50 miles north of San Fernando reservoir, crosses a valley

with a relatively gentle gradient and utilizes both systems. Its pipe is ·divided into three parts:

the north end is reinforced concrete, 2, 750 feet in length; the middle portion is of riveted steel

plate extending 15,597 feet; and the south end is reinforced concrete, 3,447 feet in length. The

86 ''Construction oflnverted Siphons of Steel Pipe and Reinforced Concrete," Final Report on the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 192

87 Heinly, Burt A., "An Aqueduct Two Hundred and Forty Miles Long," Scientific American, 25 May 1912, 476: See also "Inverted Siphons on the Los Angeles Aqueduct,"

Engineering Record, 65:26, 29 June 1912, 722

88 "Inverted Siphons on the Los Angeles Aqueduct," 722.


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pipe's inside diameter is .10 feet throughout the length; the transitions to the steel pipe occur at

the ends where the concrete portions release·so feet of head pressure.

Excavation for the concrete siphons was made with the Model 40 Marion Steam Shovel.

Crushed rock was quarried nearby so that it could be hauled by 12-mule teams to the site along

with the necessary sand and gravel. The pipes' Fairmont Tufa was manufactured by the city's

Monolith mill. Tufa cement, according to William Hurlbut, Chief Draftsman of the Aqueduct,

was slower in getting its initial hardness than regular cement but, after twenty"."eight days, was

fully as hard. "By the end of six weeks it has a greater strength than straight cement," he

reported, "steadily gaining strength as the two-year breaks show at the present time in excess of

600 pounds." The cement was mixed on high trucks and laid using gravity flow.89

Erection of the steel siphons began in the middle and was carried out to the ends, which

were concrete. The lap-joint steel plate for the middle section came by train from Pennsylvania

to the railhead at Mojave, and then was hauled to the job site. The roundabout seams were

single-riveted; one-quarter inch plate for up to 100 feet of head pressure was used with double-

riveted longitudinal joints; the rest of the plates had triple-riveted longitudinal joint construction.

All plate was 72 inches in width and field riveted. After riveting, sections were rolled into the

trench, picked up with an A-frame derrick and bolted.90

Due to the desert heat, the12- and 24-foot sections were fabricated and bolted in the

trench during the day and riveted at night. Riveting crews were run on the bonus system with

payments made on the basis of measurements for each ten-day period. The world's record for

89 William W. Hilrlbut, "Antelope Valley Siphon, Los Angeles Aqueduct," Engineering Record, 68:3, 19 July 1913, 60-62 The article illustrates riveting, several aspects of the

construction, diagrams the arrangement of steel fonns and a section of the concrete siphons.

90 "Hurlbut, "Antelope Valley Siphon," 61. The Y. and 5/16 inches plates were riveted four-ring sections, or 24 feet in length; the 3/8-inch plates in two-ring sections, or 12 feet in

length.


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field-driven rivets was made on the erection of the Antelope Valley siphon, with one crew

driving 1,651 5/8 inch rivets in one eight hour shift.91

Jawbone Siphon, located in the Mojave Desert, bridges Jawbone Canyon. Operating

under the greatest head of any on the aqueduct, the 7,096-foot long siphon runs 850 feet from the

hydraulic gradient, or a maximum pressure of 365 pounds per square inch. Jawbone Canyon's

walls slope as much as 35 degrees. Twenty-six feet of grade was allowed for friction head on the

siphon. The pipe was laid on concrete piers, three feet greater in breadth than the diameter of the

pipe. Built on bedrock in the hillsides, Jawbone, like many of the siphons, was buried in 8 feet

of gravel on the canyon floor. 92

For engineers, the principal design problem for Jawbone Siphon was to put in place the

smallest weight of metal, given the fixed grade. The solution approximated the configuration of

a tapered pipe by using a large diameter pipe, reducing it in several places as the pipe descends,

and correspondingly increasing it in the ascent. Determining the locations requiring changes in

diameter governed the design. As built, pipe diameters ranged from 10 feet at the ends to 7 feet 6

inches in the center, and the thickness of the plates from Y4 inch to 1 1/8 inches, resulting in a

saving in weight over a pipe of constant diameter of 10%. Riveting the heavy plates required 5-

pound rivets driven with air hammers at 115 pounds pressure.93

Construction of the steel pipe at Jawbone started in the middle of the canyon floor and

extended simultaneously up both sides. It was placed in position on the hillside by an aerial

tramway. Pipe on the valley floor was laid on concrete piers two feet thick that extended one-

quarter of the lower circumference of the pipe. Three feet .greater than the diameter of the pipe,

91 Hurlbut, "Antelope Valley Siphon," 62; Final Report on the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 199.

92 Complete Report on the Construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 219.

93 See ''Construction of Siphons," Final Report on the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 192, 234, passim.; Heinly, "An Aqueduct Two Hundred and Forty Miles Long," 476.

LOS ANGELES.AQUEDUCT HAER No. CA-298

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piers were spaced 36 feet center-to-center across the floor of the canyon. In thelowest part of

the siphon, three 14-inch valves tested to 750 pounds working pressure operated as a "blow-off'

in case an excess of water flow rushed down the steep gradient. The valves could be opened to

divert the water into the natural channels of the canyon.

Engineers encountered problems during construction of the various siphons on the

aqueduct. At Sand Canyon they drilled a pressure tunnel in granite rock on both inclines. As the

siphon was filled, leaks and fissures appeared. When full pressure was turned into the conduit,

the south incline blew out and the granite side of the mountain crashed to the canyon floor.94 At

Antelope Valley, unusually heavy rains washed out the concrete piers that supported the siphon.

When the siphon sagged from loss of the supports, a circular seam broke and water burst out at a

head pressure of 200 pounds per square inch, creating a vacuum in the upper portion.

Atmospheric pressure caused the steel pipe to collapse. Mending the break and slowly re-

introducing water into the pipe repaired the section. As head pressure increased,. the siphon

returned to its circular form without any other breaking joints or shearing rivets. "Common sense

and ingenuity," reported historian William K. Jones," saved the city over $245,000 in repair

expense and the line was working in less than a month. "95

DAMS AND RESERVOIRS

Reservoirs to impound swplus water were not considered in the design of the original

aqueduct. Historian William Karl points out that reservoirs had been taken out of the original

plans for the Aqueduct in 1906 on the grounds that money was not available to construct them.

94 Los Angeles Aqueduct, Final Report, 26; Jones, "Los Angles Aqueduct: A Search for Water," 14.

95 Jones, "Los Angeles Aqueduct: A Search for Water," 14.


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Both Mulholland and many commentators on the aqueduct during the 1906-1913 period

consistently referred to the undertaking as a water delivery system. The Chief Engineer himself

advocated ground water replenishment and storage, seeing his system as a link between the

groundwater reservoir of the Owens and San Fernando Valleys. Surplus could be sent to the

"upside-down" Los Angeles River that carried its greatest flow at subsurface levels.96 Aqueduct

historian Burt A. Heinley, writing in Engineering News in 1913 reported:

The effect of the delivery of the water into the San Fernando Valley will impress the people of Los Angeles and vicinity with the fact that although the aqueduct has been successfully built, funds have not yet been provided to utilize the immense surplus of 18,000 miners'inches (of Southern California), or 90% of the aqueduct flow, nor to complete the power plant and carry to Los Angeles the electric power generated by the heavy fall of the lower part of the aqueduct. 97

Five reservoirs were on line at the completion in 1913. The largest of these, Haiwee Reservoir

and Dam, operated as storage, clarification and regulation, according to Los Angeles Chamber of

Commerce President Henry Z. Osborne. Fairmont Reservoir had little storage capacity; just ten

days flow of the aqueduct, but enough to regulate the flow into Elizabeth Tunnel. Dry Canyon

Reservoir was conceived as an ancillary facility for emergency impound. The two remaining

reservoirs at the completion in 1913 were the major impounds just below the outlet in the San

Fernando Valley, which also regulated distribution to city trunk lines. 98

Located at the extreme south end of the Owens Valley, the Haiwee Reservoir site begins

7 miles south of Owens Lake, in what was the ancient channel of the Owens River. A long

narrow structure seven and one-half miles in total length, the reservoir is situated in a high valley

between the slopes of the Sierra range on the west and the Haiwee hills on the east. The

96 Karl, Water and Power, 252-253; see also Moody, Charles A., "Los Angeles and the Owens River," Out West (October 1905.)

97 Burt A. Heinly, "Completion, Dedication and Testing of the Los Angeles Aqueduct," Engineering News, 70: 10:920, November 13, 1913.

98 Henry Z. Osborne, "Story of the Los Angeles Aqueduct," Concrete-Cement Age, (December, 1913): 249.


(Page 49)

reservoir, contained by a north and south dam, was designed with a maximum high water

elevation of 3, 764 feet and a capacity of 63,800-acre feet. The terrain chosen had a summit in the

basins of both the north and south dam sites, with the south site 45 feet lower than the north. An

intermediate summit between the two was excavated to form the Merrit Cut. Each dam had the

following measurements: North Haiwee Dam: 1567 feet in length, 41 feet to maximum center

height, containing 168,978 cubic yards of earth. South Haiwee Dam: 1523 feet in length, 85 feet

in maximum height, containing 500,000 cubic yards of earth.99

Water entered Haiwee Reservoir at the west end of North Haiwee Dam, described by the

Bureau as "low, and more of a levee than a dam."100 It was built by a hydraulic method whereby

engineers sent the waters of Cottonwood Creek down the completed portion of the aqueduct

where jetting pumps powered hydraulic nozzles that sprayed the embankment. Water and soil

were then sent down to the dam site in a 12" pipe. The maximum depth of water against the

north dam was 36 feet. To prevent wave erosion, a concrete face was placed on the waterside.

Due to the depth of the south dam, the core wall went down 120 feet to bedrock. Where the

maximum depth of water would be 71 feet, a trench 7 feet wide was timbered and excavated to

bedrock. It was partially filled with water from Haiwee Creek. A puddle clay core was then

constructed to prevent underflow.

A belt line railroad ran from the clay pits to the dam. At each end, a switch and track

allowed cars to pass along either edge of the dam as it was being erected. Three trains operated

on a circuit, one filling, one in transit, and another dumping. "When things are running

smoothly," said Assistant Chief Engineer J.B. Lippincott, "the train is loaded in 4 minutes."101

99 William W. Hurlbut, Completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct , 483-84.

JOO Seventh Annual Report, 23. See also "Unit Costs and Methods of Construction of Los Angeles Aqueduct," Western Engineering, November 1916, 425-26.

IOI See" J.B. Lippincott, The South Haiwee Earth Dam and Reservoir of the Los Angeles Aqueduct," Engineering Record 65:2, 3 February 1912, 116-118


(Page 50)

A Model 60 steam shovel filled the dump cars that discharged on the edges. In the center portion

of the dam, two floating barges with electric motors, pumps and jets took the water from the

pond, discharging it through nozzles against the materials dumped from the cars, and washing it

toward the center. The finer materials floated toward the center of the dam and the coarser ones

stayed on the outside. The dense clay became compacted by its own weight and the weight of the

dam resting on it. 102 "The dam in this manner is thoroughly tested as it goes up," stated the

Bureau, "for if a pond in the center of the dam would not leak through on the upper side, it

should not leak through the full cross section of the dam. 103

The reservoir outlet ran from the reservoir and through a pressure tunnel 1, 193 feet long

driven through the west abutment. A submerged canal 700 feet in length passed through the

north portal of the tunnel to the lowest point in the reservoir. The outlet gate tower allowed

water to pass from the reservoir into the aqueduct. Paired cast-iron sluice gates, radially offset at

different elevations along the height of the tower, allowed water to enter the 20-foot diameter

tower and exit through the tunnel. The up-stream face of the dam was paved with 2 feet of rip-

rap from basalt cliffs about 1-Yz miles from the dam site. After the fill had been made, the tracks

were laid to the cliffs and the rock transported to the dam. 104

Located at the end of the 1000 second-foot tunnels below Power Plant No. 2, Dry Canyon

Dam and Reservoir were constructed as part of the original aqueduct. The reservoir went into

operation in February of 1912, and was designed to regulate fluctuating flow through the power

plants back to normal delivery. The reservoir's storage capacity was 1,325-acre feet with a

spillway lip 7 .1 O feet below the crest of the dam. The elevation of the outlet of the original

102 Seventh Annual Repon of the Bureau of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 24.

103 Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, Los Angeles:: Board of Public Works, 1912, 24

104 "Unit Costs and Methods of Construction," 426.


(Page 51)

spillway made 562-acre feet of water unavailable. In 1933 a new spillway, replacing a major

portion of the original, was constructed to increase available water capacity.

Dry Canyon dam is near the mouth of San Francisquito Canyon, about five miles from

where the Aqueduct crosses the Southern Pacific Railroad near Saugus. It is earth fill, 528 feet

long with a height of 61 feet and slopes of 2 111 to 1 on each side. Engineers designed a clay cut-

off wall that was extended to bedrock 70 feet below the foundation. The clay, taken from the

reservoir site, was puddled into place and compressed by its own weight. A steam shovel,

loading material on wagons, was used to build the toes of the main dam. Water carrying clay

material excavated by the hydraulic method was discharged into a pond formed between the two

toes, placing dense, fine material toward the center of the dam.

As built, Fairmont Reservoir, at an elevation of 3,035 feet, had a capacity of 7,620-acre

feet. Its earthen dam had a maximum center height of 115 feet and contained 607, 114 cubic

yards of soil; the core wall was concrete. The reservoir was intended as safeguard storage supply

200 miles from the aqueduct intake. It also served as a regulator for the hourly fluctuations of

water through the San Francisquito Power Plants to meet peak load conditions. The capacity of

the conduit into the reservoir was 420 cubic feet per second. From Fairmont the water passes

beneath the Coast Range through a pressure tunnel of 1000 second feet capacity, allowing the

discharge of water volume to be coordinated with periods of high and low power demand. 105

The flow emerged on the south side of the mountains, emptying into a surge chamber then

dropping 941 feet to San Francisquito Power Plant No. 1.106

105 Allen Kelly, Historical Sketch of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, Los Angeles: Times Mirror Printing and Binding House, 1913, 28-30.

106 G.A. Reichard, "Aqueduct of the Los Angeles, California Municipal Water System," The National Engineer, September 1913, 546.


(Page 52)

The last two reservoirs planned as part of the First Aqueduct system, Lower and Upper

Lower San Fernando (Van Norman) reservoirs were not completed until after the aqueduct had

been placed in operation. Until Lower San Fernando was finished in 1915, water was stored in

Dry Canyon Reservoir. Filtration took place in Hai wee Reservoir since storage was long enough

to allow filtration to take place. Aeration was effected at the Cascades.

Located at the outlet of the last tunnel on the aqueduct and just above the site of Upper

San Fernando Reservoir, the Cascades, essentially a rock-imbedded masonry conduit, sends the

full flow of the water down 1,037 feet in a distance of 167 feet. "The purpose of the structure,"

wrote publicist-historian Burt Heinly," is chiefly aesthetic, although it has a high practical value

in its thorough aeration of the water." 107 Heinly reported that the structure would be eliminated

since the total fall of 294 feet from the outlet of the aqueduct to the high water elevation of the

prospective upper San Fernando Reservoir would make possible a "hydro-electric development

of 9685 horsepower." Whatever the plans may have been, the Cascades have remained one of

the most effective pieces of aqueduct design. To create the effect of a "mountain torrent,"

engineers had to adapt plans to the steep terrain. The exit of the 10-11 foot tunnel opened from

the precipitous slope of the hill onto a hogback. A permanent road was constructed on the east

side of the hogback to facilitate the building of a concrete bulkhead for two cast-steel sluice gates

originally lifted by a screw and operated by hand.

Eleven steps with a 2-foot rise and 4 feet of tread, ranging in length from 12 feet at the

top to 19 feet at the bottom, take care of the first drop of 22 feet in a distance of 49 feet.

Sidewalls rise vertically 4 Yi feet. Water is carried from the foot of the stairs for the next 750 feet

on a 30% grade. On this section a total of 60 cubic yards of boulders one foot in diameter were


(Page 53)

placed about one foot apart in concrete after it had been shoveled. The concrete was troweled

down to leave about 4 to 6 inches of the boulders protruding. At the foot of the cascade, water

enters an open-lined channel at an angle of 63 degrees. "Almost all of the momentum and

agitation of the water is taken up in a distance of 75 feet," writes Heinley," [so that] the water

would enter the straight-away of the channel as an open stream."108 On Septemberl, 1913, the

Chief Engineer and the City fathers stood at the terminus of the aqueduct to watch the water pour

down the spillway, said to have been named the Cascades by Mulholland himself 109

"The specter of a water dearth," wrote Mulholland family historian Katherine

Mulholland, "always haunted the city's water men."no As the city continued its exponential

growth Mulholland and his engineers turned their attention to acquiring new sources of water

and supplementing those they had. Inthe ten years after the opening of the first aqueduct, 1915-

1925, the Bureau of Waterworks and Supply finished nine reservoirs: Upper and Lower San

Fernando, Hollywood (Mulholland), and St. Francis were large regulating and storage structures,

Encino, Sawtelle, Ascot, Lower Franklin and Stone Canyon were smaller, "neighborhood';

structures, primarily water storage for later distribution through the city trunklines. Historian

William Karl argues that, as the City bought up more and more Owens Valley land, agricultural

uses no longer regulated the flow of water into the aqueduct. As a result, the Water Department

was forced to build additional storage capacity.

St. Francis dam site, located in San Francisquito Canyon one mile north of Power Plant

No. 2, was originally intended to support power generation in San Francisquito Power Plants 1

and 2. The floor of the canyon at the site was at 1660 feet elevation. At an elevation of 1800

107 Burt A. Heinly, "Aqueduct Outlet Cascades," Engineering News (2 September 1915):455.

108 Heinly, "Aqueduct Outlet Cascades," 456.

109 Katherine Mulholland, William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles, 243-245.


(Page 54)

feet the dam would provide storage of 21,000-acre feet; at this elevation, the water surface would

cover 400 acres. Raising the elevation to 1825 feet and the height of the dam to 165 feet, the

capacity would increase to approximately 30,000-acre feet. Engineer Edward Hurlbut described

St. Francis Reservoir as the most important storage basin at the southern end of the aqueduct,"

"deriving its supply from the surplus water of the aqueduct used for power in the winter months,

which water during the past years has been wasted into the Santa Clara and Los Angeles Rivers."

He also reported that it would obtain a supplemental supply from "high mountainous country."

Hurlbut did not identify the location, but reported that run-off would come from a drainage area

of 37 Y2 square miles whose mean annual rainfall was 20 inches. 111 In the next year's report

Hurlbut reported to Chief Engineer Mulholland that the dam site had been cleared, test wells

dug, and the foundation trench started. He reported that "additional detail" topographic maps

had been completed to show that storage capacity at 1825 feet would be 32,000 feet. 112

St. Francis Dam, completed on May 4, 1926, was a gravity-arch design in which the dam,

spillway and outlet gates were incorporated into a monolithic structure. The structure contained

167 ,000 cubic yards of concrete poured in layers 5 to 10 feet thick, over a period of two years, to

reach a final height of 209 feet. Containing 167 ,000 cubic feet of concrete, it had a maximum

width of 169 feet, height of 208 feet, and length of 668 feet, together with a dike that added 613

feet. Water was diverted from the aqueduct on March 18\ and the reservoir filled gradually. 113

Water exited the reservoir through the upstream outlet gates, flowed down the stepped face of the

dam into a forebay, then into the aqueduct conduit.

l l 0 Katherine Mulholland, William Mulholland, 320

l l l During this period the city's maintained an aggressive program of Valley property acquisition resulting in a marked decrease in agricultural irrigation in the Owens Valley.

As a result, storage excess flows down the aqueduct, water that had formerly been used by farmers in irrigation, had to be stored. Wm. Kahrl, Water and Power, 31 J.

l l 2 Twenty-third Annual Report of the Board of Public Service Commissioners of Los Angeles, June 30, l 924.

l 13 Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Board of Water & Power Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, 34.


(Page 55)

Problems leading to total failure appeared during the dam's first year. Capacity had not been

tested, since water in the reservoir was drawn down to replace flows lost when No Name Siphon

was dynamited. By the winter of 1927, the abutments against which the dam rested had begun to

swell. In January 1928 cracks appeared on the face of the dam, beginning at top center and

slanting downward toward the sides. Since the structure had been placed on solid bedrock,

Mulholland and his engineers theorized that the sides had moved upward with the swelling

causing leaks in the seams. These were promptly caulked, but disregarded, on the premise that

leakage in dams is common. The reservoir filled to capacity during the first winter, and the dam

failed on March 27, 1928. The abutment anchoring the east end of the dam collapsed under the

weight of the water it had absorbed. Ground broke off, slid past the face of the dam and crashed

to the canyon floor. The pressure of the reservoir water overpowered the abutment. Both wings

of the dam crumbled and water escaped from the center section. 114

Many theories have been advanced to explain one of the world's most spectacular dam

failures. Mulholland had announced an increase in the dam's capacity between 1924 and 1925,

and the statistics indicate that the size of St. Francis Dam was increased nearly 25% in a

somewhat short period of construction. At completion, its height was20 feet higher than first

planned without appreciable widening at the base; uplift pressures were cited as causing

destabilization, and later engineers posited that rock formation of mica schist and conglomerate

rock behind the structure caused slippage along seismic faults. 115 Mulholland and his engineers

had built the dam to provide storage for surplus Owens River water to guard against a severe

114 See Nadeau, The Water Seekers, 98; Kahrl, Water and Power, 33-314; Outland, Man-Made Disaster, passim.

115 Kahrl, Water and Power, 311and312; Katherine Mulholland, citing Rogers, "A Man, A Dam and a Disaster," in The St. Francis Dam Disaster Revisited, 20-2.


(Page 56)

drought in the city. Over 400 people were killed and property damage registered in the millions

as a 186-foot wall of water rushed down the Santa Clara Valley to the sea. 116 Mulholland

resigned from the Bureau of Water Works in November of 1928 and went into retirement after

51 years of continuous service. His successor was his long-time associate and assistant Harvey

Van Norman. 117

The first concrete was poured for Hollywood (Mulholland) Dam in August of 1923; it

was completed during December of 1924. A graceful structure decorated by Roman arches and

pierced spandrel railing, the dam featured California Grizzly bear heads at intervals around its

circumference. A concrete, gravity-arched design similar to St. Francis Dam, it was 183 feet high

and 900 feet along its crest. The capacity of the reservoir, with high water elevation of 746 feet

above sea level, was 7900 acre-feet. A reinforced concrete tunnel 2,455 feet in length supplied

the reservoir with water. A 12-inch circulating pipe from the tunnel to the dam was laid on the

reservoir bottom. Designed as a city reservoir, it was finished with a 16-foot roadway and two

four-foot sidewalks to facilitate vehicular and pedestrian traffic. 118

After the St. Francis disaster, Mulholland Dam was renamed Hollywood Dam. In his last

days as Chief Engineer, Mulholland ordered the water lowered in Hollywood Dam. Because of

their engineering similarities, doubts were expressed about the safety of Hollywood Dam and

whether its base lacked sufficient width to allow for a seismic event. Water Department

116 Historian Norris Hundley Jr. argues that .the failure of St. Francis Dam was directly a result of Los Angeles' acquisition of Owens Valley lands. The city's purchases,

beginning in 1923, drove out farmers and ranchers whose water use had restricted flows into the aqueduct. This required Los Angeles to build new reservoirs. See Norris Hundley

Jr., The Great Thirst, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992, 165. See also Charles Outland, Man-Made Disaster, the Story of St. Francis Dam, Glendale, California:

Arthur H. Clarke Co., 1977.

117 See Chapter 6, "Water Wars of the 1920s," in Hoffman, Vision and Villainy; Kahrl, "The Politics of Exploitation," in Water and Power, Chapter 6; and Chapters 22 and 23 in

Catherine Mulholland, William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles, for a variety of viewpoints on the events of the years 1924-1927.

118 Twenty Third Annual Report, 22-23; Twenty-Fourth Annual Report, 24.

LOS ANGELESAQUEDUCT HAER No. CA-298

(Page 57)

engineers strengthened the dam with earth backfill on its downstream face in 1927 and the dam

was closed in 193 2 for an extensive retrofit, and then reopened. 119

. Supervised by Stanley Dunham, the engineer of St. Francis Dam, Tinemaha was the

alternate solution for water storage when it seemed that Los Angeles could not secure the water

rights from Fred.Eaton for a reservoir at Long Valley. Eaton had bought a cattle ranch at Long

Valley before aqueduct construction began, eventually acquiring over 2,000 acres including a

key site for a reservoir. Los Angeles had a 100-foot easement through the valley, but plans for

the reservoir were postponed when Mulholland refused to meet Eaton's price of $1,000,000.120

Since the aqueduct intake was located south of most of the Owens Valley farms and irrigation

ditches which had upper riparian rights to the river's water, Los Angeles could not meet its needs

during periods of prolonged drought in the Owens Valley. 121

Tinemaha Dam, located six miles north of the intake, was earth-filled with slopes· 2 · Yi to

1 on both sides. Containing 423,000 cubic yards of earth, its capacity was 17,000-acre feet.

Tinemaha regulated the flow of the aqueduct from the intake to Haiwee. Designed to store the

high water flow of the summer above the capacity of the aqueduct and to regulate low flow, the

reservoir could divert all the water going into the aqueduct in order to make repairs or meet

emergency situations. 122

The Bouquet Canyon Dam, completed in 1934, provided intermediate off-line storage to

replace what had been lost with the failure of Saint Francis Dam in 1928. St. Francis Reservoir

provided about 38,000 acre-feet of regulatory and reserve storage; Bouquet Canyon was

designed as a replacement with approximately the same volume and proximity to the aqueduct.

119 Katherine Mulholland, William Mulholland, 325-326.

120Hoffinan, Vision or Villainy, 172.

121 Hoffman, Vision or Villainy, 172-3; Eventually the breach between the two men became permanent and was not mended until just before Eaton died in 1933.


(Page 58)

It provided additional storage for water-supply emergencies and equalized the flow of water for

better power production.

Filled and discharged through a 3 Yi mile steel pipeline, the 36,000 acre reservoir site is

situated about 50 miles from Los Angeles and 17 miles northeast of the town of Saugus. It

connects to the Aqueduct at the head of the penstocks at San Francisquito Power Plant No. 1.

Construction Engineer H.L. Jacques of the Bureau of Water Works and Supply of the City of Los

Angeles described the principal engineering features of the 185-foot dam as its 3,000,000 cubic

yards of rolled earth fill, and the demanding pipeline construction over difficult terrain. 123

Bouquet Canyon is located at the headwaters of a small stream whose catchment area is only

13.6 square miles. The site, about 4 miles east of the aqueduct line, is at the position of the first

power drop. This elevation was utilized by placing a pipeline in the aqueduct that could be

opened or closed to provide floating storage. Plans for a diversion artd permanent spillway were

combined. A vertical shaft 166 feet in length and 8 feet in diameter was belled out to 16 feet at

the top, and then connected with a 1300-foot tunnel discharging into a stilling basin below the

dam. A 24-inch diameter steel pipe was laid through the length of the tunnel to act as a bypass

and allow the discharge of the equivalent of the natural flow from the watershed

H.L. Jacques, writing for the engineering community, described the rolled earth dam as

"of conventional design." Its height above the streambed is 185 feet, with a crest length of 1200

feet and side slopes of 3 to 2 on both faces. The upstream face is paved with a reinforced

concrete slab 6 inches thick at the crest and 9 inches thick at the base, where it connects with a

concrete toe wall 4 feet thick extending from 10 to 20 feet into firm bedrock124

122 Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Board of Water & Power Commissioner of the City of Los Angeles, June 30, 1927, 26.

123 H.L. Jacques, "Bouquet Canyon Dam Built for Los Angeles Aqueduct," Engineering News-Record, 21June1934, 810

124 Jacques, "Bouquet Canyon Dam," 811-8 I 2.

Expanding the Water Supply: the Mono Extension


(Page 59)

In 1920, Los Angeles' population had reached 575,000, and showed no sign of slowing;

Coupled with explosive growth, the 1920s was also a period of prolonged drought. In 1923

Mulholland and his engineers took a highly publicized camping trip down the Colorado River to

call attention to the potential supply, but delivery of its water to Los Angeles and the other

Metropolitan Water District members was still four years in the future. Perplexing engineers, Los

Angeles city water officials once again looked north for the answer to drought and the key to

continued growth. 125 "More water and more power mean so much to the Los Angeles

metropolitan area," argued Engineering News-Record in 1937; " ... despite prospects of

additional supplies of both from other sources, funds have been made available for further

development of the Owens Valley Aqueduct." The Mono Basin had a snow catchment area that

could add 150-second feet to the existing supply of the aqueduct. Moreover, securing a new

water supply in the Mono Basin meant that the 2000 feet of additional head dropping from the

Owens River Gorge into Owens Valley could be used to generate additional power for the

region.126

The city had begun to negotiate for water and property rights in the Mono Basin as early

as 1912 as part of planning for power development in the Owens Valley Gorge. Eight years

later, as he had done for the aqueduct, Mulholland again sought the aid of the United States.

Reclamation Service in land acquisitions. In exchange for reimbursement by the city for costs,

the Service prepared detailed plans, surveys and cost estimates for an extension of the aqueduct

125 Hoffman, Vision or Villainy, 177-78. See also ''Colorado River Aqueduct," HAER No. CA-226, Historic American Engineering Record 1998, passim. When the first water

from the Colorado Aqueduct came into the city of Pasadena in June of 1941, Los Angeles was only talcing a 10% allotment of the total flow.

126 "Developing A New Water Supply for Los Angeles," Engineering News Record, 25 February 1937, 285


(Page 60)

to Mono Basin. Both the preliminary and final reports focused on the development of Lee Vining

and Rush Creeks, estimated to have the capacity of delivering 142,000-acre feet of water

annually into the Owens River. In the course of the investigation, the Reclamation Service

withdrew Mono Basin public lands. The Service's investigative report did not address power

generation because the waters of the upper Mono Basin were largely in control of the Southern

Sierras Power Company. 127

Meanwhile, opposition to the aqueduct erupted in the Valley. Between 1924 and 1927,

violence provoked by the Owens Valley residents' bitterness over events surrounding the

building of the aqueduct, together with the severity of drought in the Valley, cast a long shadow·

of doubt over the project. The United States Reclamation Service apparently saw no need to set

up a new irrigation plan for the benefit of farmers. Disagreement between valley factions on the

proper course of action to regain water rights, together with the refusal of both sides to

compromise on a plan for equable distribution of water between the ditch companies and the city

of Los Angeles, provoked stalemate, then lawsuits, and finally repeated dynamiting of the

aqueduct and diversions from the gates.

A series of tragic events that affected both sides in the conflict changed the course of

development along the aqueduct. The banks of the Watterson brothers, who had led the Owens

Valley fight against the city, closed. Mark and Wilfred Watterson were convicted of

embezzlement and sentenced to prison in November of 1927. Fred Eaton who still controlled

lands at the strategic Long Valley reservoir site, suffered severe financial loss with the Watterson

bank closure and several years later his lands went into receivership. 128 Perhaps more important,

127 Kiihrl, WaterandPower,330-331.

128 Hoffman, Vision or Villainy, 246. See also Nadeau, The Water Seekers, 109.


(Page 61)

Elwood Mead, Arthur Newell Davis' successor as Commissioner of the United States

Reclamation Service, was uncomfortable keeping the Mono lands withdrawn ifthe city had no

definite plans for a project. By 1929, with Mulholland having resigned and Eaton no longer in

control of potential water storage lands, the impasse between the two men, which had prevented

the building of a reservoir at Long Valley, was no longer an issue. Between May 1929 and

December 1930 Los Angeles began filing requests for new withdrawals in the Basin amounting

to nearly 366,000 acres in Inyo and Mono County.

The public did not immediately embrace the extension of the aqueduct. In what

historian William Kahrl describes as "an excess of enthusiasm and a complete lack of

appreciation for the mood of the electorate," Bureau of Water Works and Supply attempted

to float $40 million worth of bonds to further both the Boulder Canyon and Mono project.

The issue failed, in Kahrl's opinion, because the public lacked confidence following the St.

Francis Dam disaster. 129 Undaunted, the Bureau put another issue on the 1930 ballot. This

time it asked for $38.8 million to complete the purchase of Owens Valley properties, buy

out the interests of the Southern Sierras Power Company, build the Mono Extension with a

reservoir at Long Valley and expand the local distribution system. City officials and the

Bureau enlisted support from the entire Los Angeles business and corporate community,

police and fire department personnel, consumer groups and citizens. This time, the bonds

passed eight to one. 130

Engineering News-Record reported in December, 1930 that Los Angeles would buy

lands in five town of the Owens Valley: Laws, Bishop, Big Pine, Independence and Lone

129 Kahrl, Water and Power, 337-343. A two-thirds majority was required for passage.

130 Hundley, The Great Thirst, 164


(Page 62)

Pine, "made possible by the voting of the $38,800,000 bond issue May 20, 1930."

However, the Mono Project experienced innumerable delays. Work did not start until

negotiation for water rights had finally been completed in the fall of 1934. A further

complication benefited Owens Valley negotiators: the California State Legislature had

adopted a County-of-Origin statue in 1931, which authorized a county to retain within its

borders water originating there andrequired to meet future needs. 131

As in the case of the Elizabeth Tunnel discussed above, the Mono Extension's

timetable was·captive to the completion of the 11.3-mile Mono Craters Tunnel. Its two

portals and two shafts were begun first. Water from Mono Lake was saline and unpotable,

so fresh water had to be obtained from the creeks feeding Mono Lake. The purpose of the

tunnel was to divert water from the Mono Basin creeks into the Owens River to

supplement the aqueduct supply. Engineering News-Record, writing as the tunnel was

begun, reported that the need for the supplement arose because, since 1926, 26% of the

water in Haiwee Reservoir had been pumped from ground water wells in the Owens

Valley. 132

Two dams were also an important part of the project: an earth fill at Grant Lake for

water storage and regulation above the tunnel, and a rock fill at Long Valley, 16 miles

below the tunnel for storage and regulation of both Owens River and Mono Basin water.

Diversion dams and collection works, together with a concrete pressure pipe from Grant

131 This legislation, California Statutes, Chapter 70 (1931) meant that the Bureau of Water Works and Supply had to work very closely with the Inyo County Board of

Supervisors. Jn addition the acquisition of town lands required four years of negotiation; the deal to obtain Southern Sierras Power Company lands was not concluded until 1933;

the relinquishment of rights of held by ditch companies at Fish Slough was not official until 1934. See Kahrl, Water and Power, 342 and "Los Angeles To Buy Five Towns in

Water Development," Engineering News-Record, 4 December 1930, 898. The article reported the water and power commissioners of Los Angeles by resolution of September 24,

1929 had raised the price offered from $4,597,832 agreed on by negotiation to $5,798,780. The right of the board to increase the prices was one of the points the court upheld in

the case Los Angeles brought as a test suit.

132 "Owens Valley Aqueduct Extension Includes I 1.3 Mile Tunnel," Engineering News-Record, 11 July l 935, 47.


(Page 63)

Lake to Mono Craters tunnel, as well as pipelines that made four of the five streams of the

basin -- Parker, Lee Vining, Mill and Walker Creeks -- tributary to Grant Lake, were also

part of the project. Rush Creek, which flowed directly into Grant Lake, would also flow

. th R . 133 mto e eserv01r.

Mono Craters Tunnel has a total length of 59, 811. 7 feet from portal to portal. The

tunnel section, 9 feet in height and 9 feet 7 Y2 inches wide, was designed in a horseshoe

shape with a cross-sectional area of 72.3 square feet inside the concrete lining. Because of

very heavy ground encountered as the tunnel progressed, the shape of the concrete lined

section was modified, becoming close to circular. The tunnel was advanced from six

headings, the two portals and two shafts. Shaft 1 was 950 feet and shaft 2, 350 feet. To

sink shaft 1, engineers had to excavate drifts at varying levels in order to intercept fine

sand and water under pressure 134

Carbon dioxide gas plagued engineers in the construction of the tunnel.

Encountered 7,900 feet from heading No. 1, the west portal, the gas entered with water

flowing in from the ancient craters and escaped into the air when the water reached

atmospheric pressure in the tunnel. Gas areas were also met at 11,000 feet and 12,500. To

draw fresh air in from the outside, shaft 3 was sunk and blowers and air pipes installed at

the foot of the shaft.

Flooding also caused considerable difficulties in the east and west headings from

shaft 2. On February 27, 1936, a pocket of nearly 4,000,000 gallons of water flooded

headings 4 and 5 and shaft 2, stopping work until March 26th. Swelling ground, which

133 In 1934 the City filed for direct diversion of 200 cubic feet per second and storage rights for the five creeks. In 1940 the State of California issued a permit for Mono water

which excluded Mill Creek. See "Water Rights and Hydrology," in Second Los Angeles Aqueduct, Los Angeles: Department of Water and Power, 1971, p. 2.

134 Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, City of Los Angeles: June 30, 1936, 75 and 76.


(Page 64)

required extra heavy timber support, and quicksand slowed work on heading 6 at the east

portal, where a seasonal flow of water varied from about 1,300 to 2,000 gallons a minute

throughout the year. An article in Engineering News-Record in February of 193 7 reported

that the quicksand usually came in with water under high pressure with the depth of the

water increasing in the shaft 100 feet in an hour. "Workmen sometimes escaped by such a

narrow margin as to leave their boots stuck in the quicksand."135

Timbering the shaft proved extremely difficult since the timbering was repeatedly

forced inward by pressure. As long as the formation traversed was adequate for supporting

the weight of the lining, the shaft was concreted. In long stretches through soft material

the timbering had to be supported from above. Eventually engineers turned to a grouting

method to secure the timbering. However, problems were again encountered when grout

began to boil up in the bottom of the shaft, bring up with it large rocks. From July to

November of 1936, almost no progress was made in headings 2 and 3. Engineers modified

their methods and eventually settled on a method using steel sheetpiiing and higher

pressure grouting that proved successful. 136 The Mono Extension was finally finished in

the last months of 1940.137

Grant Lake Dam replaced a natural, water"".wom cut in the glacial moraine.

Approximately 90 feet high with a crest length of750 feet, it had side slopes of2 Yi to 1 on

the main body of the embankment. The slope upstream was flattened to 7 to 1 toward the

base to increase the length of the path of percolation beneath the structure. A 3 ,500-feet

134 Ibid. 76.

136 "Developing A New Water Supply for Los Angeles," Engineering News-Record, 25 February 1937, 285-86, and "Owen Valley Aqueduct Extension Includes 11.3 Mile

Tunnel," 48-49.


(Page 65)

outlet tunnel delivered water into a canal that extended four miles to the west portal of

Mono Craters Tunnel. The canal had a capacity of 500-second feet when operating under

the full head of the reservoir. Rush Creek, which flowed through the Grant Lake dam site,

was diverted by building the outlet conduit under the dam first. 138

Long Valley Dam was begun in 1922, but work had to be abandoned after Fred Eaton

and Valley irrigators filed lawsuits. By 1933 the city had acquired the property and construction

began in April of 193 5. 139 Engineers started by reconditioning old camp buildings acquired from

Southern Sierras Power Company, which had previously transmitted power through the Owens

River Gorge. Built about 17 miles downstream from the lower end of Mono Craters Tunnel, the

dam was created by a placement of 111,045,000 cubic yards of fill. Fifty feet of its total height

of 167 feet were below streambed. With a crest length of 550 feet and a base thickness of 870

feet, the dam could store about 163,000-acre feet of water. Soil stripping was started in 1935, but

the rock was found to be creviced above an underlying fault and the location of the dam was then

moved a mile upstream where the formation across the stream was entirely tuff stone. As at

Grant Lake dam, a compacted blanket of earth was laid on the reservoir side slopes and bottom

continuous with the embankment. 140

The importance of Long Valley to the aqueduct system lay in the new control of

run-off from 437 square miles of the upper Owens River Basin. The aqueduct as

completed in 1907 diverted water successfully from lower valley elevations. With the

impound at Long Valley's elevation, 50,000 hp would be available to power plants that

137 Karl, 348.

138 Bid, passim. For a detailed discussion of the engineering problems encountered, see also Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, June

30, 1937, 6-7; and Thirty-seventh Annual Report of the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, June 30, 1938, 5,6.

139 Remi Nadeau, The Water Seekers, 110. Southern Sierras Power had transmitted power as far as the Imperial Valley.

140 "Developing a New Water Supply for Los Angeles," 287. The article illustrates maximum sections of both Long Valley and Grant Lake Dam.


(Page 66)

would eventually be built in the Owens River Gorge. Mono Basin added another 50,000

hp of potential power dropping into the gorge, as well as additional water for power sent to

the existing plants in San Francisquito Canyon at the south end of the aqueduct. On April

24, 1940, the Bureau of Water Works and Supply successfully tested Mono Craters Tunnel

by diverting 65 cubic feet per second of water from Rush Creek through the tunnel into the

aqueduct. Grant Lake Dam was placed in service in October of 1940. The third largest

reservoir in the aqueduct system, it impounded 49,300-acre feet of water. When the Mono

Basin project went into operation on January 1, 1949, Long Valley Reservoir regulated

135-second feet of water in continuous flow through Mono Craters Tunnel into the Owens

River. "In conformity with its long established tradition," wrote Chief Engineer and

General Manager of the Bureau of Water Works and Supply H.A. Van Norman, "the

Bureau fulfilled its obligation to the citizens of Los Angeles by furnishing an adequate and

economical water supply at all times."141

By 1944, the City had resold 63 7 parcels of land in the town of Bishop that had

been at issue in the court cases beginning in 1930. With the help of Father John Crowley,

a Catholic priest and activist in the Owens Valley, a number of town properties returned to

private ownership. In 1941, Long Valley Reservoir was renamed Crowley Lake to honor

his dedicated efforts to promote new economic initiatives and the well being of Valley

residents. 142

141 Thirty-ninth Annual Report of the Board of Water and Power Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, June 30, 1940, 5

142 Kahrl, Water and Power, 361-363. In this same period, the Department of Water and Power concluded a land exchange agreement with the Owens Valley Paiutes and a

protection agreement for the Tole elk. See Kahrl, Water and Power, 351-361.

The Power System


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The aqueduct project was advertised to the voters as a project sufficient to supply water

to a city of two million inhabitants. To the engineers, it was apparent that the gravity system,

designed to deliver 258,000,000 gallons into the San Fernando Reservoirs every twenty-four

hours, could easily be utilized for power generation. In fact, the three-man panel of engineers

who had been hired by the City in 1906 to make recommendations on the proposed project,

modified Mulholland's aqueduct route plans in favor of a power system. As a result the aqueduct

was designed to come into the city through San Francisquito Canyon, adding three power drops

totaling 1,842 feet for future construction of power plants .143

In their report, the engineer-panel argued that future power generation would cover the

cost of the bonds and their interest as well as the installation of the hydroelectric system. City

officials, in proposing municipal development of aqueduct power, were supported by business

and civic groups and the public press, which had assured voters during the 1907 aqueduct bond

election that the sale of aqueduct power would be sufficient both to meet the interest charges on

the aqueduct bonds and to provide a sinking fund that would retire them in twenty years. 144

Underscoring the importance of the power delivery system, a city ordinance passed

in 1909 during the aqueduct's construction created a Bureau of Los Angeles Aqueduct Power

within the Department of Public Works, presided over by a Chief Electrical Engineer and three-

man Consulting Board of Engineering. The man who took the post, E.F. Scattergood, became

nearly as powerful and respected as Superintendent Mulholland.

143 Mulholland had planned for the route to come through Lancaster and Palmdale with a terminal reservoir in Big Tujunga Canyon. The changes shortened the overall length of

the project by twenty miles and substituted a San Francisquito Canyon route rather than one through Palmdale and the Antelope Valley. For the complete text of the Consulting

Engineer's report, see Engineering News 57:4, 24 January 1907, 93-96.


(Page 68)

Scattergood and his Board initially estimated installation costs at $80 per kilowatt for the

development and transmission of power, ready for sale at a stepped-down voltage at Los

Angeles, based on a peak-load capacity of90,000 kW. Accordingto Howard Knowlton, writing

on the power system in Electrical World, the estimate was less "by a marked degree" than the

average cost of hydraulic power development and installation elsewhere on the Pacific.Coast.

Knowlton attributed the differential to several causes. Water from the diversion works used in

the power system was carried close to the power sites. The proximity to the city avoided

"unusually severe" engineering difficulties, "since the organization of the aqueduct forces had

been utilized in establishing hydraulic development for electrical production." 145

Utilizing its hydraulic grade -- 3,812 feet above sea level at the intake in Owens Valley to

the San Fernando Reservoir in Los Angeles at 1, 165 feet -- the aqueduct delivered 400 cubic feet

of water in continuous flow to the San Fernando Reservoirs. An editorial note in the

EngineeringRecord in 1913 observed that simply transporting water through "forbidding

country" was challenging enough, but adding a hydroelectric system increased the number and

complexity of the problems. Before undertaking the project, Scattergood and his engineers

decided not to employ the methods of steam generation despite the fact that peak loads were

expected to be greater than the energy provided by the normal flow of water. Hydraulic flow was

cheaper, but would involve a waste of water unless a method could be found to store tail water

temporarily, then send it back to the aqueduct. Building aqueduct cross sections with at least

144 Burt A. Heinly, ''Carrying Water through a Desert," National Geographic, I 0 July 1906. Fred Eaton proposed a combined public and power project, an idea Mulholland and

Scattergood emphatically rejected as antithetical to the Roosevelt policy of the greatest good for the greatest number. See "A Neglected Aspect of the Owens River Aqueduct

Story," 91, 100.

145 Howard S. Knowlton, "Developing Electrical Energy from the Los Angeles Aqueduct, Electrical World, ( 10 February 1912), 301-302


(Page69)

double capacities and placing storage reservoirs above and below the power stations solved the

problem 146

A continuous, dependable flow of 400-second feet of water was required in the city

regardless of electric power demand. A system ofreservoirs controlled the aqueduct's storage

and flow -- Haiwee, Fairmont, Dry Canon, San Fernando No. 1 and San Fernando No. 2. Two

types of generating plants were built. The first, like San Francisquito Power Plants 1 and 2, were·

designed to handle all fluctuations of the load imposed by consumers in Los Angeles; the other

plants were designed to operate on a constant load. Engineering Record reported in February of

1912 that the Los Angeles power load peaked at 90,000 hp, an amount the power system was

1 147 prepared to supp y.

Division and Cottonwood Creek power plants, constructed in the spring and summer of

1908 were developed to provide power for the construction ofthe aqueduct. The two original

power plants along with Big Pine Creek Power Plant, which went on line in August of 1925,

became feeders for Hai wee Power Plant, put into operation in July of 1927. Hai wee Power plant,·

about two miles below Hai wee Reservoir, received water through a 10-inch diameter steel pipe.

The plant's control of water from the reservoir, together with the natural drop in the aqueduct

grade, made the head of water available for power generation. These four plants, along with the

Owens River Gorge Power Plants and Pleasant Valley Reservoir power plant, which went into

operation between 1952 and 1958, delivered power to the Owens Valley as part of the Owens

Valley Electrical System.

146 "Los Angeles Aqueduct Power," Engineering Record, Vol. 68, 8:1.

147 "Water Power on the Los Angeles Aqueduct, Engineering Record, 3 February 1912, 126.

LOS ANGELES AQUEDUCT HAER No. CA.,298

(Page 70)

San Francisquito No. 1 was the first large station constructed. It used water sent through

a power conduit from Elizabeth Tunnel. The conduit, a series of short tunnels and steel pressure

pipe, carried water under hydrostatic pressure to utilize the total head pressure from Fairmont

Reservoir. A surge chamber over the end of the tunnel at the head of the penstocks regulates

water flow to avoid water hammer, pressure waves or sudden change in head pressure. Water is

carried by the three 84-inch steel penstocks that emerge from the surge chamber to a point about

1400 feet down the power drop. Each penstock divides into a Y-connection leading into two 60-

inch pipes that reach the powerhouse 2000 feet away. Here the water is branched again into two

penstocks, then shot through a water needle aligned with buckets on a Pelton wheel. If no power

generation is required, a bypass needle can divert water into a raceway.148

A 20-feet deep, trapezoidal-shaped tailrace beyond the powerhouse operates as a forebay

for the 3,500-foot tunnel leading to the second San Francisquito plant. It was intended to provide

the same output variation as Power Plant No. 1. In order to avoid wasting water when electricity

was not at peak demand, its forebay capacity was large enough to ensure that both plants could

be brought up to peak capacity during periods of prime evening load. A regulating reservoir in

Drinkwater Canyon was constructed to be used in conjunction with the surge chamber of Power

Plant No. 2. 149

148 "The San Francisquito Power Station No. l," Engineering Record, 68:8, 23 August 1913, 218-219.

149 Knowlton, "Developing Electrical Energy from the Aqueduct," 305; Twenty-second Annual Report of the Board of Public Service Commissioners, June 30, 1923.

The Second Aqueduct150


(Page 71)

The Second Los Angeles Aqueduct, the third of the City's Owens Valley water projects,

was constructed betweenTinemaha Reservoir and the Van Norman (San Fernando) Reservoirs

just below the Cascades, Although the operation of existing facilities was changed all along the

line of the aqueduct, no changes were made in the existing infrastructure. Roughly parallel with

the First Aqueduct, the second system increased water delivery by about one-half. One hundred

seventy-seven miles long, it was designed for a mean annual flow of 210 cubic feet per second

(cfs) or 152,000 acre feet per year.

In 1963, the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners considered the

project in relation to the costs of Colorado River water to be supplied by the Metropolitan Water

District of Southern California. A rapidly growing population in southwestern states claimed an

increasing share of the river's water in successful litigation before the United States Supreme

Court. The Board subtracted the cost of building the second aqueduct from the cost of purchasing

water from the MTA. The second aqueduct enabled the Department of Water and Power to

reduce reliance on sources beyond the City's control.151

Mulholland and his engineers were highly cost conscious and made strict comparisons

between methods and materials of construction. Labor was relatively cheap and available, but

material was expensive, particularly if it had to come from the eastern United States by rail or

ship. Manpower often triumphed over machine power even with the bonus system for wages.

Costs became not only a factor of accounting: when tunneling computed to be cheaper than

running pipe, engineers had to rethink routes and resurvey lines. On the other hand, support

150 Unless otherwise noted, material in this brief overview is taken from The Second Los Angeles Aqueduct, Departnient of Waier and Power, Los Angeles, 1971. See also paper

presented by Max K. Socba, Chief Engineer of Waterworks, Department of Water and Power, Los Angeles, California, October 29, 1964, .to the American.Association of

Waterworks Engineers, California Section, in the collection of the Department of Water and Power Library, Los Angeles.


(Page 72)

infrastructure was in place for the Second Aqueduct and the costs oflocal transportation were

low compared to 1907.

Technological innovations, methods of construction and maintenance records on the first

aqueduct and the Mono Extension affected decisions, particularly with respect to location, on the

second aqueduct. The second aqueduct route follows a nearly parallel alignment with the first

system, utilizing gravity flow from an elevation of3760 feet at Haiwee Reservoir, through two

power drops to an elevation of 1200 feet at Upper Van Norman Reservoir. The only route

variation occurs in the Antelope Valley where engineers used pressure pipe for a straight line

crossing of the Canyon, rather than a flow-line route around the rim of the valley. All the work

above Haiwee enlarges First Aqueduct facilities for joint transmission use.

As originally designed, Haiwee was a summit reservoir with a dam at the north and south

ends. For the second aqueduct, placing a dam at the narrows in the mid-section created an upper

and lower reservoir. One hundred and seventy feet higher than the earlier reservoir, Upper

Haiwee established the initial grade for the second aqueduct. Engineers also constructed a

bypass section for Lower Haiwee with a capacity of755 cfs, along with a connection to the first

aqueduct, enabling full flow to be maintained to both aqueducts if the lower reservoir had to be

taken out of service.

Between the Alabama Gates near Lone Pine and Haiwee Reservoir, capacity of the first

aqueduct's 38-mile, open, concrete lined-tunnel was increased to handle the additional flow of

the Second Aqueduct. A 62-mile long, gravity flow conduit closely paralleled the first aqueduct

as it crossed Rose Valley, Freeman and the Mojave Plains. In contrast to the tunnels and siphons

Mulholland and his engineers utilized to overcome the mountain barriers at Little Lake and

151 The Second Los Angeles Aqueduct, Los Angeles: Department of Water and Power, 1971 · , XIX.


(Page 73)

Jawbone, second aqueduct designers used pressure pipe conduit to reduce cost. For the

Antelope Valley crossing, which veered about 10 miles to the east of the first aqueduct; 14 miles

of pressure pipe was used, again shortening the length of the route.

No changes were made to the flow through Elizabeth Tunnel and the power tunnels from

Fairmont to the surge tank above San Francisquito Power Plant No. 2. From the surge tank to

Van Norman Lake, 17 miles of pressure pipe and several short tunnels crossed. the Saugus

Mountains. To eliminate tunneling, the second aqueduct stayed on high ground, bypassing San

Francisquito Power Plant No. 2, a design feature that delivered water to the Cascades at an

elevation 300 feet higher than the terminus of the first aqueduct, saving pumping and distribution

expense. Work on this section also enlarged the peak capacity withdrawal of Bouquet Canyon

Reservoir.

New plants supplemented original facilities. Seven hydroelectric plants were constructed

along the first aqueduct route for transmission to Los Angeles. The three Owens Valley Gorge

Power Plants and Pleasant Valley were added between 1952 and 1958 as part of the Owens

Valley Electrical System. The Foothill Power Plant, which went into operation in fiscal year

1971-72 with a capacity of 10, 700 kw was designed for the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct.

Foothill (Cascades) Power Plant, a new generating station with a rated capacity of 10,700

kilowatts, was located on the site of the Upper Van Norman Reservoir. Water was supplied from

a connection to the Saugus Pipeline of the Second Aqueduct, and discharged into.the existing

high-speed channel between the Cascades and the Upper Van Norman Reservoir Bypass

Channel.

Conclusion


(Page 74)

The Los Angeles Aqueduct and its Mono Basin Extension delivers water to the City of

Los Angeles from the Mono Basin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains through the Owens Valley

and across the Mojave Desert to the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. Built between 1907

and 1913, the First Los Angeles Aqueduct, together with the Mono Basin Extension completed

in 1944, is significant as an engineering feat utilizing a gravity flow system that sends water

from the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Los Angeles along a 338 mile line of

conduit, inverted siphons, tunnels, darns and reservoirs. The Los Angeles Aqueduct is significant

as a water conveying system that made possible the continuing growth and development of Los

Angeles as it expanded from a small city to Pacific Coast metropolis. The Los Angeles

Aqueduct gains significance for its association with its principal engineer-designer and

superintendent of the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Water and Supply, William Mulholland,

who served and guided the Los Angeles water system for a half-century.

Sources Consulted

Books


(Page 75)

Chalfant, A. W. The Story of Inyo. Bishop, California: Chalfant Press, 1913.

Davis, Margaret Leslie. Rivers in the Desert. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993.

Hoffman, Abraham. Vision or Villainy: The Origins of the Owens Valley Water Controversy. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1981.

Hundley Jr., Norris. The Great Thirst. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992.

Kahrl, William L. Water and Power: The Conflict Over Los Angeles' Water Supply in the Owens Valley. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.

Mullholland, Katherine. William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

Nadeau, Remi. The Water Seekers. Santa Barbara: Crest Publishers, 1993. Reprint.

Outland, Charles. Man-Made Disaster: The Story of St. Francis Dam. Glendale, California: Arthur H. Clarke, Co., 1977.

Sauder, Robert A. The Last Frontier: Water Diversion in the Growth and Destruction of Owens Valley Agriculture. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1984.

Articles Aston, W.C. "The Elizabeth Tunnel." Mines and Minerals. Vol. 31, No.2. September 1910:

102-105.

Engineering News. "The Location and Design of Conduits on the Los Angeles Aqueduct." Vol. 64, No. 25. 16December1911: 716-717.

"Notes" Telephone Lines. 25 January 1912: 47.

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___ . "Report of the Proposed 226-Mile Aqueduct for the Water Supply of Los Angeles." Vol. 57, No. 4. 24 January 1907: 93-97.

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___ . "Owens Valley Aqueduct Extension Includes 11.3 Mile Tunnel." Vol. 115. 11 July 1935: 47-79.

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---. Second Annual Report of the Chief Engineer of the Los Angeles Aqueduct to the Board of Public Works. Los Angeles, California. 5 December 1907.

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