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POLITICS OF WATER - Formally, it is known as hydropolitics. Bluntly, it is referred to as water politics. But in the combative world of dogmas and politics it is seen as the war over water. And it is a faithful description. Water is a strategic resource for both collaboration and conflict, a key influencer of political systems and power dynamics.
Los Angeles is intimately familiar with the politics of water. Its nexus goes back to the years of its early expansion. Frederick Eaton and William Mulholland knew that growth demanded more water. So, they considered that the runoff from the Sierra Nevada to the Owens Valley could be diverted using a gravity-fed aqueduct to Los Angeles, and one was constructed in 1913. However, it was evident that to obtain these vital water rights a “strategy of lies” were used. This triggered years of conflicts and lawsuits. Water conspiracies have been abounding since those early explosive years.
I reported in my book, “The Making of Modern Los Angeles,” what Michael Gagan, a public advocacy strategist had revealed to me. “The Los Angeles Charter prohibits the city from serving water outside the city boundaries.” This was not enacted to protect the interests of the existing consumers of Los Angeles water, but to be an inducement to surrounding communities to voluntary annex to the city of Los Angeles.
Obviously, water has been a deliberate and extraordinarily successful magnet in the growth of Los Angeles. Yet, the use of its water supply as a tool of annexation was viewed with increasing alarm by a lot of the cities surrounding Los Angeles. This was one reason coastal communities, from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to Malibu, voted in 1947 to create the West Basin Municipal Water District and then to join the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. By so doing, they had a supplemental water supply to ward off Los Angeles.
The same situation holds true with respect to the formation of the Central Basin Municipal Water District. Many of the cities in southeast Los Angeles County, not part of the city of Los Angeles, were groundwater pumpers, and could go without a supplemental supply all the way through the 1950s. They successfully warded off efforts by the city to expand, including the cities of Vernon and Huntington Park.
The California State Water Project is considered an engineering marvel. Extending more than seven hundred miles, it is the nation’s largest state-owned water and power generator and user-financed water system. The state benefited in both growth and prosperity through this project.
Ron Gastelum, former general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, remembered for me that Los Angeles almost killed the project. Joseph Jensen, chair of the MWD board for twenty years representing Los Angeles, over a question of equity, refused to officially agree because the city did not need water. Further, Los Angeles was going to pay the lion’s share from property taxes since it was the most developed area, and it had for many years underwritten the development outside.
California Gov. Pat Brown, a leader in the development of the project, focused on getting the project built. He called Los Angeles Mayor Norris Poulson and said, “We need your help. This is for the good of mankind.” Poulson in turn called Jensen who immediately agreed to sign on, which was done on November 4, 1960.
Jeffrey Kightlinger, former general manager of the Metropolitan Water District, related to me background information regarding Mulholland’s desire to build the Colorado River Aqueduct by himself in the 1920s. “How much money are you going to need?” asked William “Billy” Matthews, then general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. After reviewing the numbers, he responded pessimistically, noting that L.A. did not have enough assessed valuation to float bonds to accomplish it. But, if the suburbs of Pasadena and Glendale were included, “that’ll work.” Mulholland did so through state legislation in 1928, creating the Metropolitan Water District. Thirteen cities were initially involved, with Colton and San Bernardino opting out since the route of the aqueduct would go through the pass between Mount San Gorgonio and bypass both cities. During the peak of the Great Depression, voters approved a $229 million bond measure for the aqueduct in 1931.
San Diego joined the MWD in the mid-1940s after dithering and hesitating over building its own aqueduct. It was the decision of President Franklin Roosevelt who wanted secure water in an area that housed Navy bases during a time of war. Harry Hopkins, an advisor to Roosevelt who supervised the Work Projects Administration, signed the papers in the mid-1940s. The MWD annexed San Diego for free to the chagrin of Los Angeles and other cities. Today, the MWD is a cooperative of fourteen cities, eleven municipal water districts, and one county water authority, providing water to 19 million people in a 5,200-square-mile service area.
Aqueducts and new agencies had the water delivered, but was it safe? As told by Martin Adams, a former general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 which centered on ensuring the safety of public drinking water. The DWP operated the aqueducts, but the water was not filtrated. Water would cascade into the city and go into the reservoirs. It would be chlorinated and then served to the public. The act forced in 1986 the building of a filtration plant, completed and put into service and dedicated by Mayor Tom Bradley. It was the largest direct filtration plant in the world.
This brief review is a backdrop on the importance of water. Conflicts related to oil have been devastating. Many predict that future conflicts will involve water supplies. Climate change has worsened water problems, and man’s inconsiderate uses have created additional scarcities. Water politics will persist, so we must stay vigilant, and make water conservation a daily habit.
(Nick Patsaouras is former president of the Los Angeles Water and Power. Parts of this article are drawn from his book "The Making of Modern Los Angeles". Nick is a featured writer for CityWatchLA.com)
