History
The original purpose of the project was to provide water for arid Southern California, whose local water resources were insufficient to sustain the region's growth. Construction began in the late 1950s, with major funding approved in a 1960 bond measure. The vote on the bond split along North-South lines, as Northern Californians opposed the measure as a boondoggle and an attempt to steal their water resources. Most of the water (roughly 80%) carried by the project is used for agriculture, primarily in the San Joaquin Valley, since pumping the water over the Tehachapi Mountains is costly and Southern California has other sources of water such as the Owens River, tributary creeks to Mono Lake and the Colorado River.
Read more about this topic: California State Water Project
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“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)