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By Michael Falcone

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Early on weekday mornings, someone walking around UCLA might notice something peculiar: grounds keepers with long pressurized hoses spraying water – not onto plants, but on cement.

According to UCLA Facilities Management Grounds Supervisor Rich Ohara, watering the grounds with power washers is one of the most effective ways to keep dirt and dust down to a minimum and it’s also environmentally sound. Unlike regular hoses, which use 12 to 14 gallons of water per minute, the power washers use only two gallons and can clean five times the area, Ohara said.

“We try not to wash down very often,” he said. “We do it mostly for health and safety reasons. “

But Ohara recalled that during the early 1990s, when California was experiencing a major drought, washing down sidewalks along with any watering after 10 a.m. was strictly forbidden.

The state’s susceptibility to frequent drought has shaped the attitudes many Californians have about water use. Everywhere “conservation” is the operative word, and Los Angeles is no exception.

Peeling away the layers of glitz and glamour – the Hollywood movie studios and the Beverly Hills mansions that personify Los Angeles – leaves land that is essentially an arid desert.

The green grass and palm trees that line L.A. streets today are a fairly recent addition – and their growth is possible largely because of the vision of one man.

Early in the 20th century, the first superintendent of the newly de-privatized L.A. water system, William Mulholland, realized that it was time to look for alternative sources of water for the rapidly growing city.

Though water conservation was advocated by Mulholland and others who saw how quickly the city’s population was increasing, the residents of Los Angeles were unresponsive. At the time, the only source of water for the city’s inhabitants was the Los Angeles river, and it was quickly being depleted.

But more than 200 miles northeast of the city in the expansive Owens Valley, water was plentiful. Runoff from the Sierra Nevada Mountains supplied the Owens River with a robust flow of water, and that water made the valley an ideal area for growing crops and raising livestock.

Mulholland, along with former L.A. Mayor Fred Eaton, decided to tap the resources of the Owens River and divert water to Los Angeles via an aqueduct.

Through clever land acquisitions, Eaton began buying up key parcels of land in the San Fernando Valley – land which the city of Los Angeles would later have to buy from Eaton and use for the construction of the aqueduct.

Between 1908 and 1913, hundreds of workers constructed the 233-mile aqueduct, which carries water from the Owens River through the Mojave Desert to the San Fernando reservoir.

In November 1913, in front of a crowd of tens of thousands of Angelinos, the first few drops of water poured out of the aqueduct into the reservoir. According to historical accounts, Mulholland responded to the event by saying, “There it is, take it.”

It was advice that the residents of Los Angeles followed without reservation even as the once lush Owens Valley began to dry up.

Farmers and ranchers who used to thrive in the Owens Valley watched helplessly as water was systematically diverted from their land to the burgeoning metropolis. Up against the political and economic power of Los Angeles, residents of the valley decided to reclaim their water rights by force. They repeatedly tried to take control of the aqueduct gates and dynamite the pipeline.

But in 1927, in an attempt to protect his engineering masterpiece, Mulholland led a well-armed force of L.A. police officers into the valley and was largely successful in quelling the insurgent residents there.

In 1928, the St. Francis Dam – an integral part of the aqueduct system built two years earlier – ruptured, and sent a 120-foot wall of water careening toward the Pacific Ocean, decimating all of the natural resources in its path, and killing nearly 500 people. Mulholland’s reputation was ruined and he was devastated. He accepted total responsibility for the disaster.

Years later, tests confirmed that geologic instability actually caused the dam break, not an error by Mulholland.

Though the history of Los Angeles' water system is now best known from its silver screen incarnation in the 1974 movie “Chinatown,” starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, Mulholland’s legacy has left a permanent mark on Los Angeles, the Owens Valley and Mono Lake, which has been partially drained since the L.A. aqueduct was extended to tap its water.

The aqueduct extension was completed in 1941 and diverted water from the streams that feed Mono Lake, which is about 70 miles north of the Owens Valley. As a result, the lake level fell nearly 50 vertical feet, threatening the local ecosystem.

In 1976, a group of student environmentalists led by David Gaines recognized the problem and formed the Mono Lake Committee to try to restore the lake to its original level and ecological conditions. Years of lobbying by the committee, which now has offices at both ends of the aqueduct, prompted Sacramento lawmakers to pass regulatory legislation to protect Mono Lake.

Mono Lake Committee education director Bartshé Miller said that the lake level, which is still more than 30 feet lower than it was in 1941, will never return to its previous height. But many side effects of the water diversion, like increased lake salinity and the elimination of bird habitats, have been significantly ameliorated.

Miller also said that with less water being diverted from the Mono Basin, lake levels will continue to rise and the ecosystem will improve.

“Currently the diversions are 15-20 percent of what they used to be,” Miller said. “And water recycling will directly benefit Mono Lake.”

The Mono Lake Committee was the lead organization which asked the L.A. Department of Water and Power to investigate new water recycling projects aimed at decreasing the city’s dependence on lake water.

L.A. city leaders are currently debating a proposal to convert sewage water to drinking water. The East Valley water project, an L.A. DWP reclamation plan, is ready to begin this summer, but the treated waste water would not enter the drinking water supply for another five years.

Though the plan has been in the works for five years, several prominent L.A. politicians, including City Councilman Joel Wachs (2nd district) and State Senator Richard Alarcón (D-San Fernando Valley) are beginning to question the project. Both are calling for more information about the possible health risks of drinking treated sewage water.

Ohara said UCLA has been trying to bring in reclaimed water for the past seven years, but has been unable due to the high costs involved. He emphasized that reclaimed water would be just as safe as what comes out of the taps now and said its use is not new to other parts of the country.

“People don’t realize that the water you get in Louisiana has gone through five people by the time you drink it,” Ohara said.

The link between Los Angeles, its people and its water supply has been strong since the first drops trickled into the city from sources in the North, and as the city’s growth continues, the debate about its water is likely to continue.

Miller and others at the Mono Lake Committee who are still dealing with the effects of the decisions made by L.A. city planners early in the 20th century said that the water recycling proposals show that the city is attempting to balance the needs of its residents with the needs of the environment.

“Water has a public trust value in the environment for scenic and ecological purposes, not just for drinking purposes,” Miller said.

MAJOR AQUEDUCT SYSTEMS SERVING SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

SOURCE: UCLA

Two-thirds of Los Angeles' water supply comes from sources in the north via a system of aqueducts. The 233-mile Owens River Aqueduct was completed in 1913, and was considered a major engineering accomplishment at the time. Note: Figures before the year 2000 are for actual enrollment rather than Statements of intent to register. Original Graphic by JACOB LIAO/Daily Bruin Web Adaptation by ROBERT LIU/Daily Bruin Senior Staff