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Los Angeles
Reaching
its Tentacles Even Further
The search for
water continued. Soon, the Hoover Dam was built on the Colorado.
With the federal government's help, Los Angles began taking water
from the Colorado, a feat which it could only dream of before.
In 1964 the
Metropolitan Water District began to recommend diverting the Columbia
River in the northwest. There were plans to bring water down from
the Yukon and dam San Francisco Bay. No one ever thought of conservation.
The remains of the Los Angles River were cemented over and a dam
was built in Central Los Angles. The dam eventually broke.
In the 1970s
Los Angles began to divert the Feather River-600 miles away from
the city. An additional aqueduct, according to Mulholland's plan,
was built to supplement the existing one from the Owens Valley.
Mono
Lake
Back in the
1930s, Los Angles began to move north from the Owens Valley. It
found Mono Lake, another pristine remnant of an inland sea. The
city began diverting the four streams that fed the lake-just like
it did in the Owens Valley.
The level of
the lake began to drop dramatically. Unlike in the Owens Valley,
this time there were conservationists that fought back. David Gains,
one of those conservationists, along with a group of college students
began a study of the lake in the 1970s. They found that if the diversions
continued, the million-year-old lake would completely disappear.
The lake has a unique ecosystem because it is three times saltier
than the ocean. It supports brine shrimp that live off algae. Thousands
of migrating birds stop in at the lake, much like they did in the
Owens Valley, and feast on the billions of brine shrimp. Public
opinion began to change and in the 1980s the California Supreme
Court limited the amount of water the city took from the streams
flowing into the lake. Finally, the conservationists were victorious.
Conclusion
Today, Los Angles
reaches over 200 miles to the Owens Valley, twice, hundreds of miles
to the Colorado, and 600 miles to the Feather River. They are changing
though. The city has finally begun to institute water conservation.
But for now, the city is an octopus with a permanent hold on the
Southwest.
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