At this point almost all of the precipitation that falls on the state of California is trapped by dams in reservoirs where it is controlled, managed and transported to other parts of the state. The vast system is an impressive engineering feat, but it grew out of a long history of conflicts over the use of water resources and has come with a great environmental impact.
I had planned to use some images to illustrate this diary. I am continuously getting error messages when I try to publish with the IMG tags, so I'm leaving them out.
In 1846 the United States went to war with Mexico in what was essentially a war of territorial expansion. It was ended in 1848 by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The US territory expanded to include most of the present states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Most of the area outside of East Texas had sparse European settlement. Before the formal transfer of sovereignty took place gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in the Sierra foothills. The news touched of the great gold rush that led to one of history's more dramatic transformations.
People with dreams of instant wealth poured into the area from all parts of the world. There was no easy way to get to such a remote and inaccessible location. For people coming from the eastern US the choices were an overland wagon journey, a months long voyage around Cape Horn or a trek across the malaria infested jungles of Central America.
San Francisco was born when the tiny fishing village of Yerba Buena was transformed into a city in a matter of two or three years. I doubt that any of the worlds other major cities experienced such rapid initial development. Ships poured through the Golden Gate and tied up at the existing wharfs. Not only did their passengers disembark for the gold fields, but in many cases the entire crew went with them leaving the ship abandoned. As more ships arrived there was no where for them to dock. The wharfs were extended further into the bay and the abandoned ships scuttled. This resulted in what had been Yerba Buena Cove eventually becoming land fill. A good portion of today's downtown business district is built on top of it.
The geologic process that created California's mountains laid down deposits of gold in the Nothern Sierra Nevada and in the Klamath Mountains. The most readily obtainable deposits were to be found at around the 1000 ft. level in the Sierra foothills where they were washed out by flowing streams. Present state highway 49 connects the string of mining towns from Nevada City to Mariposa. Initially most mining was done by individuals who needed little more than a shovel and a pan. This is known as placer mining and the word appears in the names of California locations.
This was the beginning of California water wars as miners quarreled over claims and access to water to prospect them. Diversion ditches were built to route the water to claims that did not border streams.
Very few of the enterprising Argonauts achieved wealth panning for gold. After a few years of backbreaking effort most of them became discouraged. Many embarked on the perilous journey to return to the places that they had left. Others drifted down into the Central Valley and became farmers.
There was gold in them thar hills, but it required more intensive mining techniques to get it out. Capital investment moved in to develop underground mines and large scale hydraulic projects. Many of the miners who had arrived with their dreams of riches wound up as wage workers in these enterprises.
Hydraulic mining began in the Nevada City area in 1853. It involves the use of high pressure water jets to wash away the sides of mountains and put the resulting debris through sluice boxes to shake out the gold.
The increasing use of this technique created California's first major environmental crisis. Not only were mountains being destroyed but other environmental havoc was being created. Water was diverted from higher locations. Once the debris had passed through the sluice boxes it was returned to the river channels as heavy mud. As this washed down into the valley it buried useful farmland and raised the channel of the rives causing increased flooding during the rainy seasons. Cities such as Sacramento and Marysville were forced to build higher and higher levees. Legal battles raged over the matter for years. In 1884 the landmark federal court decision of Edwards Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Mining and Gravel Company declared hydraulic mining to be "a public and private nuisance".
This was but one of the many important cases that shaped the future of water law in California. Water law varies greatly in different places, depending in part on the practical realities of geography and climate. In places with an abundant supply it is often treated as a nuance that can cause erosion. In places with a scarce supply it is more likely to be seen as a precious commodity that requires rules for sharing. California water law has forged a compromise between two traditional legal doctrines of prior appropriation and riparian rights.
Prior appropriation follows the practice of granting rights to the first party to make use of a source of water. In California this often meant the mining interest up in the mountains and worked to the disadvantage to farmers and ranchers down stream. Riparian rights grants a share of interest in water to the owners of property bordering a stream and apportions water between upstream and downstream users. The case of Lux vs. Haggin established the fundamental precedent in California water law.
The Great Thirst
State Supreme Court ruled in favor of riparianism in a qualified sense: hybridism of the California Doctrine.
Prior appropriation can supersede riparian rights when and only if the prior appropriator is actually using the water before the downstream riparian owner had acquired the property and as the riparian owner began to use the water.
"Put simply , both systems were legitimate and timing determined which prevailed in a conflict."
Here is a link for anyone who is interested in a more detailed explanation of California water law.
California WATER RIGHTS FACT SHEET
Most of the western half of the United States has a decidedly dry climate. It is not naturally suited to support dense human habitation. That was a reality easily dismissed by the new American nation with its notions of a manifest destiny from God to bring forth the fruits of the land from sea to shining sea. There was one popular cant that rain would follow the plow. As God fearing homesteaders tilled the soil rainfall would just naturally increase. Things didn't exactly work out that way. The efforts to develop water in the American west offer interesting and complex history. The best single volume work that I have read on the subject is:
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner
California's two largest cities, San Francisco and Los Angeles began to search for reliable supplies of water to sustain their growing populations. San Francisco's approach was to turn the Hetch Hetchy valley in Yosemite National Park into a reservoir and build an aqueduct to pump the water across the Central Valley. Hetch Hetchy in its natural state is said to have rivaled Yosemite Valley.
When this project was completed between 1913 and 1923 it raised little public objection. That is not something that can be said of the hydrological skulduggery to the south.
William Mulholland was the infamous water tsar of Los Angeles. The story of the secret schemes to grab the water rights to the Owens valley east of the Sierras and construct the LA Aqueduct have provided drama for books and movies. A reasonably prosperous agricultural area was turned into another desert.
The St Francis Dam was constructed to provide a holding reservoir north of Los Angeles for the water from the Ownes Valley. It was planned and supervised by Mulholland. When it began to leak he pronounced it safe. At midnight on March 12, 1928 it collapsed triggering a flood down the Santa Clara River that killed more than 450 people.
Irrigation projects continued to proliferate around California under the auspices of various local government entities. However, by the 1930s the water needs of agriculture and the cities were outstripping the financial capacity of local government. During the depression state government was in no position to tackle the problem, hence the New Deal to the rescue. The Central Valley Project was developed by and continues to be operated by the US Bureau of Reclamation.
It's center piece is the vast reservoir created by Shasta Dam. The water is passed down the Sacramento River and pumped across the delta into irrigation canals for the eastern side of the San Joaquin Valley. It came into operation by the end of WWII.
Another New Deal Water project was the construction of Hoover Dam. The Colorado River Aqueduct delivers water from that reservoir to Los Angles. During the administration of Pat Brown the California Water Project was developed. It consist of a large reservoir at Oroville Dam and an aqueduct that runs down the west side of the San Joaquin Valley to a pumping station that hauls water over the Tehachapi Mountains to Los Angeles. The hydroelectric power that is generated by the water is used to move it.
The Delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers is a critical lynch pin in this complex system. Giant pumping stations are used to pull water out of the delta into the aqueducts to serve the Central Valley and California State water projects.
An attempt to develop a map which shows all of the water and irrigation systems in California results in a very complex maze. All of the water that flows into the Central Valley and most of the water that flows elsewhere in the state is being captured and managed.
The fact that much of the winter precipitation in the nothern mountains falls as snow is an important feature. In addition to irrigation flood control is also an important function of the water system. Before the dams were built heavy runoff could result in serious flooding. Reservoirs must maintain enough capacity to contain runoff. Slow melting snow is a boon to water management.
This is the water system in California that has evolved over the past 160 years. Even without the very real threats of climate warming it is stretched to its capacity. Tomorrow we will look at the problems, conflicts and challenges for the future.