October 10, 2008 Arava spills on solutions to L.A. water
shortage At the beginning of the last century, L.A. Mayor
Frederick Eaton and William Mulholland, superintendent of the
city's newly created Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
(LADWP), plotted to gain control of water sources in Owens
Valley, which left Owens Lake dry and area farmers with little
recourse. The result was the completion of the first Los Angeles
Aqueduct, which supplied the city with much of its water from
1913 until a second aqueduct was completed in 1970. (Los Angeles
also draws water from Northern California via the California
Aqueduct and competes with other Western states for water from
the Colorado River.) The city of Los Angeles recently began
atoning for its sins by returning some of the water to the Owens
region, which has forced L.A.'s 3.8 million residents to do more
with less. With the city's population expected to reach 4.2
million to 4.9 million by 2020, according to the Southern
California Association of Governments,