Throughline - Water in the West

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

What does it mean to do the greatest good for the greatest number? When the Los Angeles Aqueduct opened in 1913, it rerouted the Owens River from its natural path through an Eastern California valley hundreds of miles south to LA, enabling a dusty town to grow into a global city. But of course, there was a price.Today on the show: Greed, glory, and obsession; what the water made possible, and at what cost.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. In eastern California, there's a valley with two names. It's traditionally known as Payahunadu, a Paiute word. But when white settlers arrived, they gave it a different name,

the Owens Valley. The Sierra Nevada Mountains tower over the valley, snow-capped and majestic. And a river runs through the middle. A river that has changed the entire course of the American West. Earlier this year, we sent ThruLine producer Anya Steinberg to this valley to see it for herself and learn the story of what happened here. I'm Ramteen Arablui. And I'm Rand Abdel-Fattah. to see it for herself and learn the story of what happened here. I'm Ramteen Arablui.

And I'm Rand Abdel-Fattah. And from here, we're handing it over to Anya. I finally made it. After six hours of gripping my steering wheel, winding around mountain roads so precarious that I almost made myself carsick. I am in the Owens Valley. And today is going to be a scorcher. This is the creek at the park.

So I'm spending a few precious last seconds in the shade while I wait to meet up with someone who's lived here for most of his life. Hey. Morning. Good, how are you? Noah Williams pulls up in a white SUV and hops out. He's a member of the Bishop Paiute tribe and works as a water program coordinator for the Big Pine Paiute tribe, two of the tribal nations in the valley. Okay. You ready? Yeah. coordinator for the Big Pine Paiute Tribe, two of the tribal nations in the valley. Okay, um... You ready? Yeah.

Payahunaru, the Paiute name for the valley, translates to the land of the flowing water. But looking around me in the dusty morning sun, it's hard to see how it got that name. This one's a little bit harder to see. You can hear it in the crunch of our footsteps. It's dry out here. We're hiking out into the desert, not on any sort of trail. What we're doing is we're actually standing in one of the ditches right now. Noah's showing me ancient ditches that Paiute and Shoshone people dug hundreds of years ago to guide snowmelt running off the mountains through the valley.

I can see the dip in the... Yeah, there's a gradual little dip. At first, it doesn't look like much to me. It does. It goes. Curves back around. Almost like a horseshoe. But as we keep walking, ditches start to pop out of the landscape. But again, you can see ditches. So it would have been ditch, ditch, ditch.

Ditch, ditch, ditch. I'm starting to grasp just how extensive this irrigation network must have been. Like they keep it at like a slope that the water could still flow down, but we were kind of moving uphill the actual wash itself. But again, just showing like kind of the engineering feat that these tribal people must have had. I mean, look at the size of some of these rocks. Noah says his ancestors dug these ditches to follow the contours of the land, spreading water across the valley. And up until 1863, when the U.S. Army forcibly marched Paiute and Shoshone people from the valley,

this is how they worked with the water the valley had. Since then, much has changed for the valley's native people. But these techniques of moving water across the land remain alive. And we knew and we had this understanding that, you know, when you spread the water, you spread the life. When you spread the water, you spread the life. I imagine, yeah, you would have found a lot more willow. You would have found a lot more, you know, grass, meadow-type vegetation.

I would imagine you would probably be hearing a lot more birds, or maybe even grasshoppers. You just would hear, you know, and feel like a lot more life you would likely it would be a lot more cool standing here But that's just the thing. This valley is totally different now from the way Noah's ancestors would have seen it. The breeze is hot and dry, and many of the natural meadows are gone. Because for over a hundred years, most of the water in the river has left its natural course through the valley. The reason why is a story of greed and betrayal, of men driven by their obsessions, glory, money, and what they saw as the greater good. I'm Anya Steinberg, and today on ThruLine from NPR, what the water made possible and what the water destroyed.

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On board was an 18-year-old Irish sailor looking for a new life. His name was William Mulholland. And what he found in the United States wasn't just a dream, but an obsession. An obsession that would turn a dusty town into a paradise city. Never set foot in Ireland again after getting off a ship. Mulholland had his eyes set on the West. He made the long, arduous journey from New York to San Francisco. Then he bought horses and rode to Los Angeles. The Los Angeles William Mulholland arrived in was nothing like the metropolis it is today.

It was a dry, tough, small place. A place suited for his personality. He was a pretty large man. I mean, very, you know, gruff, kind of short-tempered. You know, he didn't take gruff from pretty much anybody. He fell in love with Los Angeles. And soon he found a profession there. He was a zanjero.

Zanjero, a ditch digger. For the L.A. City Water Company, a private company that was leasing the water system and running it, operating it for the city. He kept the ditches, a portion of the ditches clean so the water would flow. The ditches were the lifeblood of the city because finding and distributing water was a major problem in LA. Their main source of water, the Los Angeles River, had a mind of its own. Sometimes it would swell with rain and flood. Other times it would dry up to a trickle. Mulholland the ditch digger was on the

front lines of the city's battle for water, and he was good at what he did. Today we call him a workaholic. He was so dedicated to the city and to getting the water for everybody. This is Fred Barker, an unofficial historian of LA's Department of Water and Power. He says it was clear to everyone that Mulholland was ambitious. In less than a decade, he'd gone from digging ditches to a middle management position at the Los Angeles Water Company. And his new boss, the superintendent of the company, would become one of the most important friendships of his life. The superintendent was Fred Eaton. Mulholland was hired and Fred Eaton was the boss.

Fred Eaton took him under his wing as a protege and taught him everything he knew about water, hydraulics, engineering. That's Richard Potashin, former National Park Service ranger in the Owens Valley. He says Eaton and Mulholland hit it off. They soon discovered they shared big dreams for the future of Los Angeles. It was a vision of a beautiful place with trees and water. They wanted to green the desert to make way for... The growth and development of a great metropolis on the Pacific coast, basically.

Mulholland believed that if he could figure out a way to get more water to Los Angeles, then it could become one of America's most important cities. It really moved him to provide the water to fuel that growth. Luckily for Mulholland, his friend and boss, Fred Eaton, knew exactly where to find that water. I saw more water going to waste than is contained in all the streams and rivers of San Bernardino, San Diego, and Los Angeles counties combined. This is from an interview Eaton gave to the Riverside Press in 1892. He took a very fateful trip up into the Owens Valley in the 1890s on a camping trip. And he looked down and he saw the Owens River winding its way through the valley.

What a waste of water, you know, he thought. That trip gave him an idea. Maybe he could build an aqueduct, a massive chain of tunnels and ditches that would use gravity to bring the water from the high altitudes of the Owens Valley south, 250 miles, to just about sea level. To Los Angeles. I propose to devote all of my energies to this great enterprise. It must come to Los Angeles, for it has no other outlet.

And so he spent a good 10 years or so trying to convince anybody he could of what a great scheme and idea this was. But no one listened. That is, until he met William Mulholland and took him to the Owens Valley to see for himself. The whole idea was for Eaton to take Mulholland to the Owens Valley, show him the river, and say, this is L.A.'s future right here.

This water and this river is what's going to permit L.A. to grow and all of us to prosper. For Mulholland, it was a revelation. He looked out at the rolling hills, the river, the abundant water. This was the answer to their dream. By now, it was 1904, and Eaton, who'd done a short stint as L.A.'s mayor a few years earlier, no longer worked for the water company, which, by the way, the city of Los Angeles now owned. Mulholland had taken over as superintendent,

and he got that job at a time when L.A. was having big issues with water. There was a period of about 10 years where every year the rain was below normal. The reservoirs were dropping. Things were getting kind of dicey for L.A.'s water supply. City officials were looking to the water company to do something. So there was pressure on Mulholland to find more water. That was his job. So Mulholland and Eaton devised a plan. Eaton would go to the Owens Valley and buy up property and water rights, and Mulholland would draw up the design for an aqueduct to bring Owens Valley water to LA. They were imagining something that didn't seem possible, a feat of engineering that took a certain amount of arrogance even to

envision. And they needed a lot of money to pull it off. So they made their case to the LA City Council. They convinced the council, the water department, and others that this was a feasible project and necessary, not just feasible, but necessary for LA to continue to grow. They began executing the plan. Fred Eaton went... project and necessary, not just feasible, but necessary for LA to continue to grow. They began executing the plan. Fred Eaton went to the Owens Valley and began acquiring land and water rights. This was easier for him than you might think, because what he probably hadn't told the city is that he'd been personally buying up land rights in key areas of the Owens Valley with his own money for himself. Why? Because he knew that if one day LA built an aqueduct, then they'd have to buy those lands from him at a premium, making him very rich. He was first and foremost a capitalist and an entrepreneur, so he was definitely looking out for himself, too, and what kind of profit he could accrue from a project like this.

The main obstacle Eaton faced, as he saw it, was the fact that there were others who had plans of their own for the valley. Native Paiute and Shoshone people and white settlers also needed the valley's water. The valley's ranchers in particular had hoped for years that the federal government would fund an irrigation development project there. And they'd actually been getting some traction. Federal engineers, federal surveyors were looking at their region, their little pocket for potential federal project. And of course, they were thrilled. The federal government is going to come in here and do something for us. People in the Owens Valley relied on the valley's water. They didn't want it to go anywhere. But Los Angeles was determined to take it.

So you have a conflict, the city versus the federal government, the Owens Valley versus the city. Because of this conflict, Fred Eaton intentionally misled locals about what he was really doing in the Owens Valley. Some reports mentioned that he came posing as a cattle buyer, you know, to build this huge cattle empire. There were also reports that he gave people the impression he was there working for the federal government. All the while, he was buying up land rights for Los Angeles fast. But eventually, people started figuring out what he was up to. And suddenly, the conflict was all over the news. Agents representing Los Angeles City have secured options on about 40 miles of frontage on the Owens River, north of Owens Lake. The newspapers began sounding the alarm, and the LA Times comes out with the story, you know, Titanic project to bring Los Angeles to river. Fred Eaton, ex-mayor of Los Angeles, bought the holdings of the Rickey Cattle Company,

comprising about 50,000 acres of water-bearing land. Finally, the cat was out of the bag. This is the big project. L.A.'s excited. Owens Valley's like, oh my, what happened? Mulholland and Eaton had almost reached their goal. The only question that remained was whether the federal government would allow the project to go forward. In the end, that question went all the way up to the president.

President Roosevelt, Secretary of the Interior, other people looked at this. How do we decide? Should the water stay in the Owens Valley or should the water go to L.A.? This was their dilemma. Are you going to leave this water here for 5,000 people in this isolated mountain valley? Or are you going to let it go to Los Angeles where 100 or 200,000 people are going to make use of it and we're going to have a metropolis? Which would you choose? If your principle is utilitarianism, using a resource for the most people for the most good, then it's an easy call to say, Los Angeles, you're going to get the water. And finally, Roosevelt proclaimed, I see the water used for the greatest good,

for the greatest number. The greatest good for the greatest number. And so the Owens Valley were told, sorry folks, more people down there, they have the money, they own the water already. We are going to permit LA to do this. And so that's what happened. Now, the Los Angeles Aqueduct was a go. Construction began in 1907, and William Mulholland was put in charge. If he succeeded, it would be a feat of engineering. We're talking about, you have to build roads, you have to build rail lines, you have to put in power, you have to find water for the workers. The construction of the aqueduct was one of the largest projects in American history up to that point. It was brutal.

Over 4,000 workers toiled for years to blast through rugged mountains, pour tons of concrete, and build massive ditches. 43 workers died in the process. It took more than five grinding years, and in 1913, they planned the grand opening, the dedication of the aqueduct. They had singers, they had bands, they had dignitaries. The plan was that, towards the end of the ceremony, Mulholland would give the signal, and water would flow from the aqueduct for the first time.

30,000 to 40,000 people to see this thing happen, to see this water come down the hillside. Thousands of people. But one important person was missing. I assume Eaton was invited, but he was not there. Freddie did not attend the opening. In a shocking turn, William Mulholland advised the city not to buy much of the land Fred Eaton had personally purchased in the Owens Valley. At least, not for the price he wanted, effectively killing his dreams of making a fortune from the project. So they cut Eaton out, and Eaton was not happy because Eaton saw his dreams of enormous wealth from this water, selling the water, go up in smoke.

But back at the opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the show went on. Before the water is released, there are speeches. Mulholland gave the most important one. You have come here today to ask us to render an account of our stewardship, and we come ready to do it. But almost the first words out of his mouth that day were, this was Fred Eaton's idea. If there is a father of the aqueduct, it is the man who went out and found the supply, who made the preliminary plans, and who turned the project over

to the city, former Mayor Fred Eaton. And I give him full credit. I don't take any credit for the idea. He planned it. We simply put together the bricks and mortar. Then, then, Mulholland gave a signal. Up on the mountain side, the men turned these big giant wheels and opened the gates. The water came down the mountainside. Down to the reservoir, a couple miles away. So for 10 or 20 minutes, people were going nuts. And it was kind of bedlam. People were just so excited.

So Mulholland, the water's coming down now, we're on one pass, and the mayor is standing next to him. So he turns to the mayor and says, That is taken. There it is taken. Five words. People went nuts. They were so thrilled to see this water. They knew this was going to change everything for Los Angeles. Everybody knew that. Mulholland had made his dream a reality.

Los Angeles had water coming out of every tap. The dusty city had become an oasis. But the people of the Owens Valley weren't about to give up without a fight. That's coming up. I am Paul Eckloff from Petaluma, California. You're listening to ThruLine from NPR. This message comes from 48 Hours. Did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? Journalist Domadi Pongo examines the strange death of Ruthie Mae McCoy in Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

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That's an amazing... Oh, that's cool. It's always a great omen. I'm in the Owens Valley with Richard Patashin, sitting shotgun in his red pickup truck, driving towards the site where the LA Aqueduct begins. I'm not sure what to expect, but we're both dressed for an adventure.

Me, uncharacteristically slathered in sunscreen and wearing a baseball cap. Richard, in a bucket hat, hiking pants, and a long-sleeved tie-dyed shirt that says furry hippie on it. But it all might be for nothing, because as we pull up, a fence with a chain wrapped around it blocks our way. Well, wait a minute. Let me see. Unless they have a... Maybe they don't have a lock on it. Yeah, sometimes it's a dummy lock. Only one way to find out. We're in luck.

The three. Yeah, three. It's not even locked. What about that? After a little fence hopping, Richard and I make it to our destination. The Los Angeles Aqueduct Intake. Not much of a looker. It's no Hoover Dam.

There's nothing grandstanding about it. It's a small bridge-like structure that allows water to feed through underneath it. Water that comes from the Owens River. Here it is. This is the river, the Owens River. And so this is where the aqueduct actually begins. The gates are open, so water's flowing on through. The aqueduct is pretty full right now so they're taking quite a bit of water. Richard jokingly calls this place where the Owens River turns into the Los Angeles River. It's right here that this natural flowing river was forever changed

when Mulholland opened the LA Aqueduct in 1913. By 1920, LA's population had reached half a million people, and more were coming every day. The water from the aqueduct couldn't keep up with the city's growing thirst. Plus, the Owens Valley, the aqueduct's source, was facing a drought. And the water in the aqueduct is reduced to basically a trickle. This is where we get into the real meat of the water war. Mulholland begins to think that, well, we're not going to go anywhere else. We need to maximize our water interests in the Owens Valley.

Basically, we have to go up there and begin acquiring additional water rights and land. And that's what they started to do. Roughly around 1923. They began to remove more water. Again, Fred Barker. They began to buy more ranches and farms and take more water out. So it's really the beginning of this very tumultuous conflict. We've been talking about the benefits of this water supply for Los Angeles.

But what about the people that lost their water? What about those folks up in the Owens Valley? As L.A. had grown into a thriving metropolis, the Owens Valley had struggled. L.A. was now buying up huge swaths of land in order to get its hands on the water rights. And the more water that left the valley, the drier it got, making it harder for farmers and ranchers to make a living. Paiute and Shoshone people were suffering too. Their ranching jobs were disappearing. The land they had lived on for generations was drying up, and their traditional ways of life were getting harder to maintain. They also faced growing pressure to sell their own lands, often for less money than white landowners got.

The resentment is just growing as each property gets acquired. It's beginning to look like the city is going to take over the whole valley. Some people in the Owens Valley were ready to take action, including a pair of brothers, white settlers, aptly named Watterson. Watterson's have been involved in Owens Valley since the 1880s. Mark and Wilfred Watterson were pillars of the community. They were invested in the valley, literally.

They owned several banks there and were generous with their loans. And naturally they become the leaders of the resistance movement towards Los Angeles. The Watterson brothers wanted to stop Los Angeles from buying up the valley. But the city had the upper hand and were not going to negotiate. Tensions between both sides just kept ramping up. There's real feelings that there's going to be serious violence in Owens Valley. One night, a group of men spill quite a bit of dynamite. They blew up the aqueduct.

The first shot in this war. Reward of $10,000 was offered by the city council today for apprehension of the parties who sometime last night destroyed with dynamite portions of the city's $21 million aqueduct. Imperial Valley Press, May 21st, 1924. And of course the city is outraged. So they begin sending up policemen and troopers to protect the aqueduct. That's when ranchers and farmers under the leadership of Mark Watterson drove out to the aqueduct in a caravan of Model T cars.

Their mission was simple. Open the valves of the aqueduct and release its waters. The occupiers dismissed the night watchman and then opened those valves. The water came rushing down the spillway and eventually found its way back into the Owens River. Back where they felt it belonged. I could imagine the jubilation to hear that water rushing down. Civil war and possible bloodshed is likely to result over the controversy, which has risen over the Los Angeles aqueduct in this county. The occupation made national news, like this account from the Associated Press.

The sheriff says he is powerless to dislodge the ranchers, and he knows they have arms sufficient to equip 175 men and women, all of whom can shoot straight and get their man. The sheriff showed up and basically knew everybody and was told to just leave, just go away. Big cities fooled us ranchers long enough, taking the water from the land and letting the land lie waste. After the first day of occupation, more people in the Owens Valley got wind of it and decided to

join. The crowd grew into a huge group of like 700 to 800 people. In the main intersection of a nearby town, there was a painted billboard that read, if I am not on the job, you can find me at the aqueduct. There was smoke pouring off from the barbecues, you know, the meat that was being barbecued that had been donated by local ranchers. There was music in the air. The wives were preparing, you know, picnics and feasts and that type of thing. And people were in a very joyful, jubilant mood like they had slew Goliath. We're going to stay on these gates until Los Angeles City comes to terms. And there's nobody who can put us off, at least nobody but the militia.

I think that was probably the high point of their feelings, that we could exact some small measure of justice. Back in L.A., William Mulholland was reading the news and getting angrier and angrier. When the press asked him about the ranchers, he did not mince words. Basically, there's not enough trees to hang those people on. I think he just got very disgruntled, particularly because the aqueduct he built was being attacked and damaged. After that, whatever patience Mulholland had for the residents of the Owens Valley was gone. He never showed a great deal of compassion for their struggles or what his policies were doing, not only to the valley's economy, but the environment as well. Mulholland was losing control over the water in the Owens Valley, and he needed to find a solution.

So the city was forced to open up negotiations with the Watterson brothers. Wilford Watterson went to Los Angeles to try to negotiate a settlement that could preserve some of the Owens Valley agriculture, but still provide a water supply for Los Angeles. So with that reassurance, four days later, the, quote, anarchists left the gates. They were closed again, and water flowed south down the aqueduct. But those negotiations fell apart again. L.A. had outplayed the Owens Valley. They were very crafty in acquiring properties at the intakes to some of these canals and ditches and basically isolating the other farmers and ranchers from that water supply.

It had all been a ruse. L.A. was never going to really negotiate because they didn't have to. from that water supply. It had all been a ruse. L.A. was never going to really negotiate because they didn't have to. They owned all the land around the farmers and ranchers. They had them surrounded. And there wasn't much that Owens Valley could legally do about it. And to make matters worse,

the Watterson brothers, their champions, were convicted of embezzlement and sent to prison in San Quentin. Basically, that shatters any opposition and resistance. And unfortunately, it's a really sad story because many of the people who sold their farms and ranches to the city put their money in the Watterson banks. And so they suffered tremendously. They felt completely betrayed. The people left in the Owens Valley were forced to surrender themselves to William Mulholland's dream. In the end, the city bought nearly all of the land in the valley. And that's pretty much the end of that first round of the water war. Coming up, Mulholland reaches his limits.

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and more. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Part 3. Remember the Owens Valley. Letter to the Editor. Daily News. Sunday, January 11th, 1925. There is no man available who can better serve the people of Los Angeles. William Mulholland, who cut away the mountain and opened the gates to a new empire of wealth, would make the sort of mayor this city needs. His stature rises. Members of the Hollywood Foothills Improvement Association are now selecting a suitable site for the erection of a statue of William Mulholland.

Los Angeles Evening Post record. The Mulholland Scenic Highway through Santa Monica Mountains should be thrown open to the public within a year. He was worshipped as a god because he was the Moses that brought the water to the people. He could do no wrong. Mulholland was now like a living legend in LA, but he wasn't yet free to rest on his laurels. Los Angeles needed its Moses to do even more. The water wars in the Owens Valley taught Mulholland that Ellie's water supply was as vulnerable to human intervention as it was to nature's whims.

He needed a way to keep the taps on, no matter what. If you have a varying water supply, you have to put it somewhere when you have too much, so they have enough when you don't have as much. So Mullen had to build reservoirs elsewhere to store water. And so he took on the St. Francis Dam project. And he built it very quickly with very little geologic or engineering oversight, pretty much relying on his own wits. The St. Francis Dam was finished in 1926. Mission accomplished. And Mulholland was able to turn his sights elsewhere, which was perfect because he was a busy man. He was making business trips and planning his next big thing, building another aqueduct that would bring water

all the way from the Colorado River to Los Angeles. But first, the dam. On March 12, 1928, Mulholland was called to the site of the St. Francis Dam, about 40 miles from downtown L.A. It was being filled almost to the brim for the first time. There was water seeping out from the bottom of the dam. The dam keeper said, it's making me nervous, Mr. Mulholland. Please come and look at it. So Mulholland and his right-hand man went up there that day,

looked at the dam, walked it, looked at the seepage. They felt it was safe. He brushed that off. All dams leak a little bit. About one o'clock in the afternoon, they went back downtown. They called Mulholland's house in the middle of the night. It was Mulholland's daughter who picked up the phone. She went to wake up her father.

And he knew what the call was. He stumbled towards the phone, repeating, Please, God, don't let people be killed. The dam has gone out. A huge tidal wave. I mean, literally a tsunami of water. Just completely sweeping up everything in its wake. You know, they called him probably within the first hour and a half or so. By the time this wave exhausted itself in the Pacific Ocean, well, there were over 400 people who had died.

The death was still happening until about 5 in the morning. The Los Angeles County Coroner immediately launched an inquest into the cause of the dam failure. A slew of experts testified. Geologists, autopsy surgeons, engineers, filmmakers, residents, and the man at the center of it all. Please state your name. William Mulholland. Were you chief engineer of the water department at the time that the St. Francis Dam was built? I was. The coroner questioned Mulholland on every aspect of the dam construction.

How the land was selected. How it was purchased. The geology of the rock beneath the dam, the design of the dam. We overlook something here. This inquiry is a very painful thing for me to have to attend. The only ones I envy about this thing are the ones who are dead. Ultimately, the inquest cleared Mulholland of any crimes, but blamed him for an error

in engineering judgment. He'd built the dam in a bad site. It had been doomed from the start. He retired. He was not a happy person in his old age. He did not rest on his laurels. His laurels had been burnt to the ground. On July 22, 1935, Mulholland died after suffering a stroke a few months earlier.

Some believed that it was the tragedy of the St. Francis Dam and the guilt he carried for it that really led to his end. He died a broken man. Despite his legacy being tarnished, after his death and disgrace, water still flowed through the aqueduct to Los Angeles. It's sort of mind-boggling to think of the domino effect of one aqueduct leading to the growth of a city, the growth of a region, growth of the Western United States. It's just kind of hard to get your head around.

The LA Aqueduct became a blueprint that cities would replicate across the West. Where there's water, harness it. And where there isn't water, bring it there. Cities like San Francisco, Tucson, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, and Denver all have elaborate aqueduct or water diversion systems and many of these cities continue to face the existential threat of water scarcity so it's ongoing and the cry always goes out

remember the Owens Valley. How was everybody's evenings? It was good. Did you see the sky last night? It's only 10 a.m., but already the sun is beating down on me and the other couple dozen people gathered in the parking lot of the Fish Springs Hatchery in the Owens Valley. We're just going to wait a few more minutes for the rest of the team to arrive. Most people are here from Los Angeles.

They've traveled hundreds of miles along the path of the aqueduct to learn where their water comes from. I'm here to meet the folks in charge of the Owens Valley Indian Water Commission, an organization formed to negotiate ongoing water rights disputes with the L.A. Department of Water and Power, the LADWP, on behalf of some of the valley's tribal nations. The event is called Walking Water, but we're not just here to go for a stroll. We're here to experience the landscape and to hear from the Native people who live here now, whose ancestors lived here too, about how LADWP's presence continues to shape the valley today. So we've got about two and a half miles, and it's a slight gradient, which you may not feel very obviously, but you will feel it.

I scoot up to the front of the pack, where Noah Williams, who we met at the start of the episode, is leading the charge. He uses a tall walking stick as we make our way down the road. Where we're walking, the land is nearly empty of buildings, and the vast majority of it is property of the LADWP. Really, it's a modern-day water colony. Yeah, they make it very well known that it's Los Angeles Department of Water and Power land. I mean, you see it off of every single dirt road you go off of, you know, there's going to be a sign that, you know, says owned and managed by LADWP. LADWP says they keep portions of the lands they own open as public space and employ many people in the valley, some of whom go back to the original settlers. Noah says the company's power in the valley is almost unmatched. Whatever they're spending, I mean, it's like one of the second or third largest employers in the entire valley,

so you've got the votes, even in the county. You're not going to bite the hand that feeds you if there are votes or legislation. That's the legacy of the aqueduct, of William Mulholland's big dream. The people in the Owens Valley and the people in Los Angeles are tied together. And the fate of each place depends on the other. And that's it for this week's show. I'm Randa Abdel-Fattah. I'm Ramteen Arablui.

And you've been listening to ThruLine from NPR. This episode was produced by me. And me and... Fact-checking for this episode was done by Kevin Vogel. This episode was mixed by Gilly Moon. Thank you to Kiana Malay, Kathy Bancroft, Terry Red Owl, and the Owens Valley Indian Water Commission. Sally Manning, Daniel Pritchett, Pam Vaughn, Ken Partiel Malatnikov, Leah Mangistu, Lawrence Wu, Max Zarkowski,

Devin Karayama, Andy Su, Mark Roth, Samantha Solis, Rachel Horowitz, Ellis Oriola, and Bonnie Feldberg for their voiceover work. Music for this episode was composed by Ramtin and his band, Drop Electric,

which includes Naveid Marvi. Sho Fujiwara. Anya Mizani. And finally, if you have an idea or like something you heard on the show, please write us at throughline at NPR.org. Thanks for listening. This message comes from NPR sponsor Grammarly. Thank you. entire team. Grammarly is a secure AI writing partner that understands your business and can transform it through better communication. Join 70,000 teams who trust Grammarly with their words and their data. Learn more at Grammarly.com. Grammarly. Easier said, done. This message comes from The Lever, producers of the chart-topping history podcast Master Plan.

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