Download or read book Owens Valley Revisited written by Gary D. Libecap and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the contemporary West, pressures to more effectively reallocate water to meet growing urban and environmental demands are increasing as environmental awareness grows and climate change threatens existing water supplies. The legacy of Owens Valley raises concerns about how reallocation can occur. Although it took place over seventy years ago, the water transfer from Owens Valley to Los Angeles still plays an important role in perceptions of how water markets work. The memory of Owens Valley transfer is one of theft and environmental destruction at the hands of Los Angeles. In reassessing the infamous transfer, one could say that there was no "theft." Owens Valley landowners fared well in their land and water sales, earning more than if they had stayed in agriculture. In another sense, however, "theft" did occur. The water was not literally stolen, but there was a sharp imbalance in gains from the trade--with most of the benefits going to Los Angeles. Owens Valley, then, demonstrates the importance of distributional issues in water trades when the stakes are large. Los Angeles water rights in the Owens Valley and Mono Basin have again been a front-page issue since 1970. New environmental and recreational values and air pollution concerns have ushered in demands to curtail the shipment of water from source regions for urban use. Owen's Valley Revisited: A Reassesment of the West's First Great Water Transfer carefully explores how these sagas were addressed, considering the costs involved, and alternative approaches that might have resulted in more rapid and less contentious remedies. This analysis offers insights to guide the ongoing conversation about water politics and the future thereof. .
Download or read book A Land Between written by Rebecca Fish Ewan and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2000-12-08 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Land Between tells the stories of the people who have lived in the valley and uncovers the marks they have left on the land.
Download or read book The Owens Valley written by Jane Wehrey and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2013 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Owens Valley is a bold and beautiful land where rugged alpine peaks tower over the deep trough of high desert that John Muir called "a country of wonderful contrasts." Inhabiting a rich and complex past are native people, miners, cattlemen, farmers, and city builders who laid claim, often violently, to its resources. By 1913, Owens River water was flowing south through the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and from the long and bitter conflicts that followed emerged an Owens Valley future far removed from the agrarian Eden envisioned by 19th-century pioneers. Today, unparalleled recreational opportunities draw millions of visitors annually to this "long brown land" even as reminders of a quintessential Western past linger in its open vistas, epic landscape, and enduring traditions.
Download or read book Geology Underfoot in Death Valley and Owens Valley written by Robert Phillip Sharp and published by Mountain Press Publishing. This book was released on 1997 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eastern California boasts the greatest dryland relief in the contiguous United States, offering a rich variety of environments and spectacular geology. Illustrated with photographs, maps, and diagrams, Geology Underfoot in Death Valley and Owens Valley provides an on-the-ground look at the processes sculpting the terrain in this land of extremes for everyone interested in how the earth works.
Download or read book Water and Power written by William L. Kahrl and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1983-11-08 with total page 605 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is not the purpose of this work to propose a specific format for the settlement of the city's current difficulties with the valley, to resolve the environmental questions associated with Los Angeles's proposed groundwater pumping program, or to promote any cause associated with the developing situation in the Owens Valley. But by performing the essential historical task of separating what happened from what did not, and by distinguishing in this way the choices which have been made from those which have yet to be decided, it is my hope that this effort will help to establish that common basis for understanding which is essential for the debate over specific issues to proceed most effectively. This book, then, is scarcely the last word on the Owens Valley conflict: the final chapter, after all, has yet to be written. The story that has emerged here is at once very different and more troubling than the conventional treatments of the conflict as a simplistic political morality play. Any attempt to deal with so controversial a subject, however, is almost certain to spark controversy itself. For that reason, with the exception of a small collection of private letters, this work is constructed entirely from the published documents and other materials available to the general public, anchoring the narrative in sources the reader can consult to trace the line of my argument on any point with which he or she may disagree. In addition, the work as a whole has been reviewed for technical accuracy by officials of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, although the department is in no way responsible for the content of this study or the conclusions drawn from it.
Download or read book Deepest Valley written by Paul C. Bateman and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Vision Or Villainy written by Abraham Hoffman and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventy-five years ago the growing city of Los Angeles, amid considerable conflict, appropriated water from a rural area 250 miles away. Still unresolved, the controversy surrounding the Owens Valley-Los Angeles Aqueduct has long since moved from the personal, even violent level fictionalized in the movie Chinatown to the dry realm of court proceedings, injunctions, and environmental impact reports. But water remains a problem in California, and the questions raised by these events--the rights of a rural area versus a growing metropolitan area, environmental issues, and levels of government responsibility--are of recognized national importance today. Much of the history of the controversy has been incompletely or imperfectly reported. Conventional accounts have focused on city versus valley, overlooking the role of the federal government. Others espouse the conspiracy theory popularized in Chinatown, dealing in plots and personalities. Relying on primary sources, many unused until now, Dr. Hoffman demonstrates how the utilitarian views of Theodore Roosevelt and his agents in the Geological Survey, the Reclamation Service, and the Bureau of Forestry helped determine the future of Los Angeles and the fate of Owens Valley. A model of historical reporting, this book redresses the balance in a record that too often has been oversimplified, usually at the expense of the city and often in terms of heroes and villains.
Download or read book Cadillac Desert written by Marc Reisner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1993-06-01 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I’ve been thinking a lot about Cadillac Desert in the past few weeks, as the rain fell and fell and kept falling over California, much of which, despite the pouring heavens, seems likely to remain in the grip of a severe drought. Reisner anticipated this moment. He worried that the West’s success with irrigation could be a mirage — that it took water for granted and didn’t appreciate the precariousness of our capacity to control it.” – Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times, January 20,2023 "The definitive work on the West's water crisis." --Newsweek The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruption and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecological and economic disaster. In his landmark book, Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West. Based on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning expose and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of an Eden--an Eden that may only be a mirage. This edition includes a new postscript by Lawrie Mott, a former staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, that updates Western water issues over the last two decades, including the long-term impact of climate change and how the region can prepare for the future.
Download or read book Water Levels and Artesian Pressure in Observation Wells in the United States written by and published by . This book was released on 1940 with total page 638 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Land of Little Rain written by Mary Austin and published by . This book was released on 1903 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1903, this classic nature book by Mary Austin evokes the mysticism and spirituality of the American Southwest. Vibrant imagery of the landscape between the high Sierras and the Mojave Desert is punctuated with descriptions of the fauna, flora and people that coexist peacefully with the earth. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
Download or read book Rock Art of the Owens Valley written by Bill Petry and published by . This book was released on 2019-06 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guide to Rock Art Sites of the Owens Valley
Download or read book Weaving a Legacy written by Sharon E. Dean and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Situated on the western edge of the Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and White-Inyo mountain ranges, Owens Valley has been home for thousands of years to the Owens Valley Paiute and their southern neighbors, the Panamint Shoshone. The willow baskets both groups created are noteworthy for their complex construction and durability, and their materials and designs reflected available resources as well as the seminomadic existence that characterized life in the Great Basin for generations. Since the mid-nineteenth-century arrival of non-Indians into the Valley, the baskets have changed. Weaving a Legacy places those changes in the context of the region's dramatic social history. In addition, the volume closely examines basketry techniques and technology, historic weavers and their lineages, contemporary weavers, and basket collectors. The text is extensively illustrated with black-and-white photographs of people, landscapes, and baskets. Among the legacies of these baskets are the stories they evoke, many of which the authors recount in this beautiful work.
Download or read book Water to the Angels written by Les Standiford and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the story of the largest public water project ever created—William Mulholland’s Los Angeles aqueduct—a story of Gilded Age ambition, hubris, greed, and one determined man who's vision shaped the future and continues to impact us today. In 1907, Irish immigrant William Mulholland conceived and built one of the greatest civil engineering feats in history: the aqueduct that carried water 223 miles from the Sierra Nevada mountains to Los Angeles—allowing this small, resource-challenged desert city to grow into a modern global metropolis. Drawing on new research, Les Standiford vividly captures the larger-then-life engineer and the breathtaking scope of his six-year, $23 million project that would transform a region, a state, and a nation at the dawn of its greatest century. With energy and colorful detail, Water to the Angels brings to life the personalities, politics, and power—including bribery, deception, force, and bicoastal financial warfare—behind this dramatic event. At a time when the importance of water is being recognized as never before—considered by many experts to be the essential resource of the twenty-first century—Water to the Angels brings into focus the vigor of a fabled era, the might of a larger than life individual, and the scale of a priceless construction project, and sheds critical light on a past that offers insights for our future. Water to the Angels includes 8 pages of photographs.
Download or read book Exploring the Monster written by Robert F. Whelan and published by . This book was released on 2000-01 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Western Times and Water Wars written by John Walton and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1993-08-31 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Walton first uses his magnifying glass to capture images of struggle in a California valley during a century and a half of transformation, then inverts it to scrutinize the American state, popular politics, and collective action in general. The maneuver is bold, the outcome stimulating."—Charles Tilly, New School for Social Research "A passionate and first rate historical adventure. The plot is as intricate, fascinating, and full of intrigue and detail as a Dickens or a Tolstoy novel."—John Nichols, author of The Milagro Beanfield War
Download or read book The Spoils of Dust written by Alexander Robinson and published by Applied Research and Design Publishing. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once the third-largest lake in California and among the world's greatest sources of dust, for decades the dried Owens Lake was merely a footnote to the most notorious water grab in modern history. Now, the desert lake has been reassembled--not refilled--to redeem its lost value without returning Los Angeles's main water supply. In The Spoils of Dust, this bargain redemption and its surprise conjuring of an extraordinary landscape, is the backdrop for investigating contemporary relationships between landscape architecture, engineering, and perception. The Promethean terrain makes legible the frameworks we use to reinvent nature in the Anthropocene, revealing itself as a monument to the prismatic modes by which we know landscapes today. Almost by accident, this has made select landscape values the linchpin for major water resource decisions, thrusting landscape architecture into a consequential position. Answering the challenge, the book concludes with a speculative atlas and robotic tool for an imaginative and advanced approach to dry lake design.
Download or read book Miracle Country written by Kendra Atleework and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE SIGURD F. OLSON NATURE WRITING AWARD “Blending family memoir and environmental history, Kendra Atleework conveys a fundamental truth: the places in which we live, live on—sometimes painfully—in us. This is a powerful, beautiful, and urgently important book.” —Julie Schumacher, author of Dear Committee Members and The Shakespeare Requirement Kendra Atleework grew up in Swall Meadows, in the Owens Valley of the Eastern Sierra Nevada, where annual rainfall averages five inches and in drought years measures closer to zero. Her parents taught their children to thrive in this beautiful if harsh landscape prone to wildfires, blizzards, and gale-force winds. Above all, the Atleework children were raised on unconditional love and delight in the natural world. But when Kendra’s mother died when Kendra was just sixteen, her once-beloved desert world came to feel empty and hostile, as climate change, drought, and wildfires intensified. The Atleework family fell apart, even as her father tried to keep them together. Kendra escaped to Los Angeles, and then Minneapolis, land of tall trees, full lakes, water everywhere you look. But after years of avoiding her troubled hometown, she felt pulled back. Miracle Country is a moving and unforgettable memoir of flight and return, emptiness and bounty, the realities of a harsh and changing climate, and the true meaning of home. For readers of Cheryl Strayed, Terry Tempest Williams, and Rebecca Solnit, this is a breathtaking debut by a remarkable writer.
