William Mulholland, the Chief Engineer of the City of Los Angeles's Department of Water and Power (LADWP), supervised the construction of this 233-mile long pipeline system consisting of a network of reservoirs, pipes, and locks, that ran from its source in the Owens Valley of Central California terminating in a reservoir in the San Fernando Valley; the project, which took the efforts of 2,000 workers, reached completion on 11/05/1913; Owens Lake--once a body of water covering 100 square miles and was 30 feet deep--went dry in 1928 due to the LADWP's excessive diversion of the Owens River.

Farmers from the Owens Valley objected to Mulholland's theft of their water and his destruction of their own system of irrigation ditches and dams fed from the Owens River; acts of sabotage occurred during the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, culminating in a large explosion on an important section of the waterway, 05/21/1924.

PCAD id: 1677