A Plug for My Wife's Blog

 Here:

Before I moved to Idaho, I never really thought about water on a daily basis.  I grew up in Los Angeles, and just assumed that every time I turned on the kitchen or bathroom faucet, water would come out. Our lawn was green, and the neighbor's pool was always full of sparkling blue water.  We went to Malibu every weekend, and there was the ocean, proudly displaying its abundance.

Later, when I was married, my husband and I took a trip up US 395 to the Owens Valley.  The area was  a vast desert, with a long aqueduct running parallel to the valley floor.  My husband said that in the early part of the 20th century, the developers of the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles needed water.  Lots of it.  The amount available locally would not be enough to support a burgeoning area, with people and lots of agriculture.  So, this aqueduct was built to take water out of Owens Lake.  Once the locals realized what Los Angeles was doing, they started blowing up the aqueduct.  The city of L.A. used the National Guard to protect the building project.  The aqueduct was completed and the water from Owens Lake was siphoned out, until no water was left.  

When I visited the area, in the early 80s, a large dust devil was all that greeted us over what was once a beautiful verdant valley and lovely lake.  We traveled up the 395 further to Mono Lake.  It retained some of its grandeur, and local people then were fighting L.A. tooth and nail to prevent history from repeating itself.  "Save Mono Lake" bumper stickers were everywhere.