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The Los Angeles Aqueduct in Antelope Valley

The Cascades of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, near Sylmar, California

There are two Los Angeles Aqueducts, the First Los Angeles Aqueduct (or the Owens Valley aqueduct) (completed 1913) and the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct (completed 1970).

The original Los Angeles Aqueduct was designed by William Mulholland (an Irish immigrant who became a self-taught engineer and head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) to deliver water from the Owens River near Independence, California, to the city of Los Angeles, California.

The project began in 1905 with a budget of $24.5 million. With 5,000 workers employed in its construction, the Los Angeles Aqueduct was finished in 1913. It consisted of 223 miles of 12-foot steel pipe, 120 miles of railroad track, 2 hydroelectric plants, 170 miles of power lines, 240 miles of telephone line, a cement plant, and 500 miles of roads. The aqueduct used gravity to carry the water, so it was relatively autonomous and cost-efficient. Apart from the catastrophic failure of the St. Francis Dam in 1928 that flooded the Santa Clarita Valley and parts of Ventura County (resulting in disgrace and financial ruin for Mulholland), and an incident of sabotage by displaced Owens Valley farmers a few years previously, the aqueduct system has worked quite well throughout its history. It was built so well, in fact, that to this day the city still uses it to transport water.

The construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct effectively ended the development of the Owens Valley as a farming community and devastated the ecosystem of Owens Lake. Mulholland and his associates, including Los Angeles Times publisher, Harrison Gray Otis have often been denounced for having used deceptive tactics to obtain the Bureau of Reclamation rights to the Owens River's flow. However, the aqueduct's water was crucial in the development of Los Angeles, and a rehabilitation of Mulholland's reputation has taken place in recent years.

The second Los Angeles Aqueduct added transport capacity in order to exhaust the city's water rights permits from the Mono Basin. It starts at the Haiwee Reservoir, just south of Owens Lake. Running roughly in parallel to the first aqueduct, it carries water 137 miles. It cost 89 million dollars and was completed in 1970.

• California Water Wars
• California Aqueduct

• Department of Water and Power LA Aqueduct Site
• Los Angeles Aqueduct Landscape Atlas
• The Story of the Los Angeles Aqueduct by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
• The Los Angeles Aqueduct and the Owens and Mono Lakes at the American University
• Mono Lake Website
• LA DWP