Los Angeles Aqueduct: The Beginning of The Water Wars
The water wars began when Frederick Eaton was elected mayor of Los Angeles in 1898, and appointed his friend, William Mulholland, the superintendent of the newly created Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP).
Eaton and Mulholland had a vision of a Los Angeles that would become far bigger than the Los Angeles of the start of the 20th century. The limiting factor of Los Angeles' growth was water supply. "If you don't get the water, you won't need it," Mulholland famously remarked. Eaton and Mulholland realized that the Owens Valley had a large amount of runoff from the Sierra Nevada, and a gravity-fed aqueduct could deliver the Owens water to Los Angeles.
Read more about this topic: California Water Wars
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