Castaic Dam
Castaic Dam is an embankment dam in northern Los Angeles County, near the unincorporated area of Castaic. Although located on Castaic Creek, a major tributary of the Santa Clara River, Castaic Creek provides little of its water; the lake is the terminus of the West Branch of the California Aqueduct, part of the State Water Project. The dam was built by the California Department of Water Resources and construction was completed in 1973; the lake has a capacity of 325,000 acre feet and stores drinking water for the western portion of the Greater Los Angeles Area. Castaic is an earth-fill dam with its surfaces covered with boulders and cobble-sized rocks to prevent erosion; the dam is 340 feet high above the streambed, 425 feet above the foundations, 5,200 feet long, containing 44 million cubic yards of material. The maximum thickness of the base is 2,350 feet. Flood waters are released through an ungated, concrete overflow spillway on the west side of the dam, emptying into a stilling basin called Castaic Lagoon.
The total storage capacity of Castaic Lake is 325,000 acre⋅ft, of which 31,000 acre feet is considered active capacity and 294,000 acre feet are considered inactive. The inactive capacity is only used during periods of extended drought or interrupted water delivery, most in 2014. At maximum water elevation of 1,515 ft AMSL, the lake covers 2,235 acres, with 29 miles of shoreline; the much smaller Castaic Lagoon covers 200 acres. Castaic Lake is the lower and larger of two main storage reservoirs for the West Branch of the California Aqueduct. Water drawn from the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta is transported down the San Joaquin Valley via the California Aqueduct and pumped over the Tehachapi Mountains, where it splits into the East Branch – providing water for Riverside and San Bernardino and eastern Los Angeles Counties – and the West Branch, which supplies western Los Angeles and parts of Ventura County; the West Branch first enters Pyramid Lake, formed by Pyramid Dam, before traveling through the 7.2-mile Angeles Tunnel to the upper end of Castaic Lake.
Together, the two reservoirs can store about a year's supply of water. During normal operations, Castaic Lake serves as a regulatory reservoir for water delivered through the California Aqueduct, releasing it at times of peak demand. However, the dam and lake was built to provide a pool of "emergency storage" that can be drawn down if water deliveries from northern California are interrupted, whether due to construction, equipment malfunction or severe drought. Below the dam, the majority of the water flows to Los Angeles via a system known as the Foothill Feeder, operated by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California; the water travels about 20 miles south via a 16.75-foot diameter pipeline to the Jensen Filtration Plant near San Fernando, where it connects to the municipal water system. The underground, pre-stressed concrete pipe has walls nearly 4 feet thick. Water from the Foothill Feeder is stored in the smaller Los Angeles Reservoir in the San Fernando Valley; the water continues south via the 45-mile Sepulveda Feeder, which provides water to Los Angeles proper and other municipalities in south Los Angeles and Orange Counties.
The main customer water agencies are the Central Basin Municipal Water District, West Basin Municipal District, Municipal Water District of Orange County. As many as 12 million people in these areas receive their full or supplemental water supply from Castaic Lake and the feeder system. A smaller portion of the water supply is distributed by the Castaic Lake Water Agency; the service area covers about 195 square miles in Ventura and north Los Angeles counties, providing water to about 287,000 people. The main constituents of the agency include the Los Angeles County Waterworks District No. 36, Newhall County Water District, Santa Clara Water Division, Valencia Water Company. The 11 MW Foothill Feeder hydroelectric power plant is located at the base of the dam and generates electricity when water is needed in Los Angeles. In 2009, the Foothill Feeder plant generated 49 million kilowatt hours; the 1,495 MW Castaic Pumped-Storage Plant is located at the upper end of the west arm of Castaic Lake. The Elderberry Forebay Dam separates the upper arm from the rest of Castaic Lake, maintaining a small pool for power generation known as the Elderberry Forebay, serving as the lower reservoir of the pumped-storage operation.
Pyramid Lake, located 7.2 miles to the west, serves as the upper. When demand for electricity is high during the afternoon, water is withdrawn from Pyramid Lake and released into Castaic Lake. At night, when demand is low, water is pumped back into Pyramid Lake; the sale of peak electricity reduces the Department of Water Resources' overall electric costs for operating the California Aqueduct. In 2009, the Castaic pumped-storage plant generated a net 465 million KWh. List of dams and reservoirs in California List of power stations in California List of the tallest dams in the United States "Castaic Lake Dam". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey. "Dams Within the Jurisdiction of the State of California". California Department of Water Resources, Division of Safety of Dams. Archived from the original on 2012-03-09. Retrieved December 3, 2012
Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument
Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments are sites in Los Angeles, which have been designated by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission as worthy of preservation based on architectural and cultural criteria. The Historic-Cultural Monument process has its origin in the Historic Buildings Committee formed in 1958 by the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects; as growth and development in Los Angeles threatened the city's historic landmarks, the committee sought to implement a formal preservation program in cooperation with local civic and business organizations and municipal leaders. On April 30, 1962, a historic preservation ordinance proposed by the AIA committee was passed; the original Cultural Heritage Board was formed in the summer of 1962, consisting of William Woollett, FAIA, Bonnie H. Riedel, Carl S. Dentzel, Senaida Sullivan and Edith Gibbs Vaughan; the board met for the first time in August 1962, at a time when the owner of the historic Leonis Adobe was attempting to demolish the structure and replace it with a supermarket.
In its first day of official business, the board designated the Leonis Adobe and four other sites as Historic-Cultural Monuments. The designation of a property as a Historic-Cultural Monument does not prevent demolition or alteration. However, the designation requires permits for demolition or substantial alteration to be presented to the commission; the commission has the power to delay the demolition of a designated property for up to one year. In the commission's first decade of operation, it designated 101 properties as Historic-Cultural Monuments. By March 2010, there were 979 designated properties. Leonis Adobe Bolton Hall 1913 Eastern Columbia Building Griffith Park CBS Columbia Square Studios Historic-Cultural Monuments in Downtown Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments on the East and Northeast Sides Historic-Cultural Monuments in the Harbor area Historic-Cultural Monuments in Hollywood Historic-Cultural Monuments in the San Fernando Valley Historic-Cultural Monuments in Silver Lake, Angelino Heights, Echo Park Historic-Cultural Monuments in South Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments on the Westside Historic-Cultural Monuments in the Wilshire and Westlake areas City of Los Angeles' Historic Preservation Overlay Zones National Register of Historic Places listings in Los Angeles List of California Historical Landmarks Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources: Designated L.
A. Historic-Cultural Monuments website — with'ever-updated' LAHCM List via PDF link. Official Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources website — Homepage Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission website Designated LAHCM Landmarks by Neighborhood — L. A. Department of City Planning website Big Orange Landmarks: "Exploring the Landmarks of Los Angeles, One Monument at a Time" — online photos and in-depth history of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments — Website curator: Floyd B. Bariscale. Big Orange Landmarks: Floyd B. Bariscale's Flickr Photostream — Big Orange Flickr Gallery of L. A. H. C. Monuments
California water wars
The California water wars were a series of political conflicts between the city of Los Angeles and farmers and ranchers in the Owens Valley of Eastern California over water rights. As Los Angeles expanded during the late 19th century, it began outgrowing its water supply. Fred Eaton, mayor of Los Angeles, realized that water could flow from Owens Valley to Los Angeles via an aqueduct; the aqueduct construction was overseen by William Mulholland and was finished in 1913. The water rights were acquired through political fighting and, as described by one author, "chicanery, subterfuge... and a strategy of lies". Since 1913, the Owens River had been diverted to Los Angeles, causing the ruin of the valley's economy. By the 1920s, so much water was diverted from the Owens Valley; this led to the farmers trying to destroy the aqueduct in 1924. Los Angeles kept the water flowing. By 1926, Owens Lake at the bottom of Owens Valley was dry due to water diversion; the water needs of Los Angeles kept growing.
In 1941, Los Angeles diverted water that fed Mono Lake, north of Owens Valley, into the aqueduct. Mono Lake's ecosystem for migrating birds was threatened by dropping water levels. Between 1979 and 1994, David Gaines and the Mono Lake Committee engaged in litigation with Los Angeles; the litigation forced Los Angeles to stop diverting water from around Mono Lake, which has started to rise back to a level that can support its ecosystem. The Paiute natives were the original inhabitants living in the valley, used irrigation to grow crops. In 1833, Joseph Reddeford Walker led the first known expedition into the central California area that would be called the Owens Valley. Walker saw that the valley’s soil conditions were inferior to those on the other side of the Sierra Nevada range, that runoff from the mountains was absorbed into the arid desert ground. After the United States gained control of California in 1848, the first public land survey conducted by A. W. von Schmidt from 1855 to 1856 was an initial step in securing government control of the valley.
Von Schmidt reported that the valley’s soil was not good for agriculture except for the land near streams, incorrectly stated that the "Owens Valley worthless to the White Man."In 1861, Samuel Bishop and other ranchers started to raise cattle on the luxuriant grasses that grew in the Owens Valley. The ranchers came into conflict with the Paiutes over land and water use, most of the Paiutes were driven away from the valley by the U. S. Army in 1863 during the Owens Valley Indian War. Many settlers came to the area for the promise of riches from mining; the availability of water from the Owens River made raising livestock attractive. The Homestead Act of 1862 gave pioneers five years to claim and take title of their land for a small filing fee and a charge of $1.25 per acre. The Homestead Act limited the land an individual could own to 160 acres in order to create small farms; the amount of public land settled by the late 1870s and early 1880s was still small. The Desert Land Act of 1877 allowed individuals to acquire more area, up to 640 acres, in hopes of drawing more settlers by giving them enough land to make their settlement and land expenses worthwhile, but "included no residency requirements".
By 1866, rapid acquisition of land had begun and by the mid-1890s, most of the land in the Owens Valley had been claimed. The large number of claims made by land speculators hindered the region’s development because speculators would not participate in developing canals and ditches. Before the Los Angeles Aqueduct, most of the 200 miles of canals and ditches that constituted the irrigation system in the Owens Valley were in the north, while the southern region of the valley was inhabited by people raising livestock; the irrigation systems created by the ditch companies did not have adequate drainage and as a result oversaturated the soil to the point where crops could not be raised. The irrigation systems significantly lowered the water level in the Owens Lake, a process, intensified by the diversion of water through the Los Angeles Aqueduct. At the start of the 20th century, the northern part of the Owens Valley turned to raising fruit and dairy. Frederick Eaton and William Mulholland were two of the more visible principals in the California water wars.
They were friends. In 1886, Eaton became City Mulholland became superintendent of the Water Company. In 1898, Eaton was elected mayor of Los Angeles, was instrumental in converting the Water Company to city control in 1902; when the company became the Los Angeles Water Department, Mulholland continued to be superintendent, due to his vast knowledge of the water system. Eaton and Mulholland had a vision of a Los Angeles that would become far larger than the Los Angeles of the start of the 20th century; the limiting factor of Los Angeles's growth was water supply. "If you don't get the water, you won't need it," Mulholland famously remarked. Eaton and Mulholland realized that the Owens Valley had a large amount of runoff from the Sierra Nevada, a gravity-fed aqueduct could deliver the Owens water to Los Angeles. At the start of the 20th century, the United States Bureau of Reclamation, at the time known as the United States Reclamation Service, was planning on building an irrigation system to help the farmers of the Owens Valley, which would block Los Angeles from diverting the water.
From 1902 to 1905, Eaton and Mulholland used underhanded methods to obtain water rights and block the Bureau of Reclamation. The regional engineer of the Bureau, Joseph Lippincott, was a close associate of Eaton, Eaton was a nominal agent for the Bu
San Gabriel Dam
San Gabriel Dam is a rock-fill dam on the San Gabriel River in Los Angeles County, within the Angeles National Forest. Completed in 1939, the dam impounds the main stem of the San Gabriel River about 2.5 miles downstream from the confluence of the river's East and West Forks, which drain a large portion of the San Gabriel Mountains. It is located directly upstream from the Morris Dam; the dam provides flood control, groundwater recharge flows and hydroelectricity for the populated San Gabriel Valley in the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. In the 1920s, the Los Angeles County Flood Control District proposed to impound the San Gabriel River just below the confluence of the East and West forks with a 512-foot high, 2,500-foot long concrete arch dam to capture floods and provide water conservation. To be named the San Gabriel Forks Dam, the project was canceled by the State Engineer after having convened an inquiry to investigate problems which were occurring at San Gabriel Dam site, including a landslide that destroyed a large portion of the construction site, in early November 1929.
The inquiry panel concluded and issued a report to the State Engineer stating that the proposed dam "cannot be constructed without creating a menace to life and property."Subsequently, the design of the San Gabriel River flood control project was changed from one large dam to two smaller dams: San Gabriel No. 1, about 2 miles below the original Forks site, San Gabriel No. 2, on the West Fork about 15 miles above the confluence. The cost of San Gabriel No. 1 was understated, creating a scandal. The bond measure necessary for financing of the project was defeated by a narrow margin of 52 to 48 percent; as a result, the city turned to the federal Public Works Administration for money to complete the project. The San Gabriel No. 1 dam was to be made of rock-fill. Construction of the 315-foot high San Gabriel Dam at this site began in 1932 and was completed in 1939. In early 1938, before the dam was finished, Southern California was hit by record floods; the heaviest rains fell in the San Gabriel Mountains.
San Gabriel Dam was able to knock about 40,000 cu ft/s off the peak of the flood. Further downstream, Morris Reservoir was able to absorb 30,000 cu ft/s, reducing the flood to less than half of what it would have been if not for the dams. Water stored behind San Gabriel Dam is an important source for groundwater recharge during the dry season of April through October. Water from San Gabriel and Morris Dams is released through the dry months to spreading grounds at San Gabriel Canyon and Peck Basin, where it percolates into the local groundwater basin. Dam operations are coordinated by the San Gabriel River Water Committee, established in 1889 to represent water-rights holders on the San Gabriel River and with rights to 97,700 acre feet of river water; the large reservoir, known as San Gabriel Reservoir No. 1, is nearly 3 miles long when full. The 525-acre reservoir stores 44,183 acre⋅ft of water when full, creating one of Southern California's largest instream reservoirs; this is 17% less than the original capacity of 53,344 acre⋅ft when the dam was first built, because sedimentation has reduced the water volume.
Interest in sediment removal began in the 1980s, after several major wildfires in the San Gabriel Mountains and subsequent flooding caused millions of cubic yards of sediment to wash into the reservoir. The reservoir was dewatered in 2004 to allow for sediment removal, but work was delayed after heavy rains during the winter of 2004–2005 refilled the reservoir. Disposal of the removed sediment has been a contentious issue; the 2005 sediment removal project stored about 6,100,000 cubic yards of sediment in a nearby canyon, but this is now prohibited due to environmental and safety issues. Another option would have been to truck the sediment to local beaches for replenishment, but this has been banned by the California Coastal Commission. Most of the sediment is sold for building material or ends up as landfill, but these options are limited. Flood control releases are coordinated in conjunction with the other mountain dams and Cogswell; the dam supports two small hydroelectric plants producing a maximum of 4.95 MW and owned by the Department of Public Works.
Water from the reservoir can be bypassed through a tunnel called the Azusa Conduit to another power plant downstream of Morris Dam. The power plant is located on the south side of the San Gabriel River directly below the mouth of San Gabriel Canyon; the original power plant was first built in 1898, by the San Gabriel Electric Company, during its first few decades of operation powered electric railway lines in Los Angeles. At the time, this 2000 kilowatt plant drew water directly from the San Gabriel River. In 1917, the plant was sold to Southern California Edison, before being incorporated into the Pasadena municipal electric system; the completion of San Gabriel Dam in 1939 ensured a steadier water supply for the
Big Dalton Dam
Big Dalton Dam is a multiple arch concrete dam in Los Angeles County, built for the Los Angeles County Flood Control District and completed in August 1929. The dam is one of the earliest of the multiple arch "double-wall" buttress designs of engineer Fred A. Noetzli; the 991 acre-foot dam provides water conservation and controls flooding from Big Dalton Canyon, a watershed within the San Dimas Experimental Forest, part of the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains. It is about 4 miles northeast of the city of Glendora and is operated by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. List of dams and reservoirs in California
Whittier Narrows Dam
Whittier Narrows Dam is a 56-foot tall earth dam on the San Gabriel River and the smaller, parallel Rio Hondo. The dam is located, at the Whittier Narrows, it provides water conservation storage and is the central element of the Los Angeles County Drainage Area flood control system. Its reservoir has a capacity of 67,060 acre⋅ft; the Whittier Narrows are a natural gap in the hills that form the southern boundary of the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California. Both the Rio Hondo, a tributary of the Los Angeles River, the San Gabriel River flow through this gap and are impounded by the reservoir; the Pomona Freeway passes through the reservoir flood control basin and the San Gabriel River Freeway passes along the eastern boundary of the basin. In September 2017, the United States Army Corps of Engineers officials warned local residents that the dam no longer met the agency’s'tolerable-risk' guidelines and could fail in the event of a large rare storm, similar to exceptionally intense California storms which occurred between December 1861 and January 1862, a so-called ARkStorm Authorization for the project construction is contained in the Flood Control Act of 18 August 1941 and the initial funds for construction were provided in the 1949 Appropriations Bill.
The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers completed construction of the dam in 1957; the purpose of the project is to collect runoff from the uncontrolled drainage areas upstream along with releases into the San Gabriel River from the Santa Fe Dam. The Rio Hondo outlet has four main outlet passages plus a small diversion passage; the San Gabriel outlet has nine large gates installed on top of a spillway. Dimensions are furnished in the table below; the "stand-by" position of the gates on the Rio Hondo outlet is wide open. On the San Gabriel side one gate is open about.5 ft with the remaining gates closed. The reservoir is empty, a "crossover weir" within the reservoir keeps the flows from the Rio Hondo and the San Gabriel River separated; the natural flow to each river therefore passes through the dam unhindered. During the initial stages of a flood event, the gates on the Rio Hondo side are closed to build a water conservation pool; as long as the pool on the Rio Hondo side of the reservoir is below elevation 201.6 ft NGVD29, releases are made to accommodate the capacity of the spreading grounds downstream along the Rio Hondo.
The spreading grounds are operated by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works to recharge the groundwater basin. Flow reaches the spreading grounds either directly by way of the diversion passage or from a diversion structure in the Rio Hondo downstream of the dam. Both the diversion passage direct from the dam and the diversion structure in the Rio Hondo are operated by the county; when the water conservation pool on the Rio Hondo side of the reservoir is exceeded, the releases to the Rio Hondo are increased to match inflow until either the capacity of the Rio Hondo or the Los Angeles River downstream are reached. If the water conservation pool on either side of the reservoir is exceeded, discharges on the San Gabriel side can be increased to 5000 ft³/s; the San Gabriel outlet has automatic spillway gates. When the pool in the reservoir exceeds flood control storage these gates will begin to open automatically; the top of the flood control storage pool is at elevation 228.5 ft NGVD.
The capacity of the Rio Hondo downstream from Whittier Narrows Dam is 36,500 ft³/s. The capacity of the Los Angeles River downstream of its confluence with the Rio Hondo is 127,000 ft³/s, the capacity of the San Gabriel River downstream of the dam is 13,000 ft³/s. List of dams and reservoirs in California Whittier Narrows "Whittier Narrows Dam". Army Corps of Engineers
California
California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U. S. the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento; the Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, the country's second most populous, after New York City. California has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, its largest county by area, San Bernardino County; the City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. California's $3.0 trillion economy is larger than that of any other state, larger than those of Texas and Florida combined, the largest sub-national economy in the world. If it were a country, California would be the 5th largest economy in the world, the 36th most populous as of 2017.
The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies, after the New York metropolitan area. The San Francisco Bay Area PSA had the nation's highest GDP per capita in 2017 among large PSAs, is home to three of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people. California is considered a global trendsetter in popular culture, innovation and politics, it is considered the origin of the American film industry, the hippie counterculture, fast food, the Internet, the personal computer, among others. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are seen as global centers of the technology and entertainment industries, respectively. California has a diverse economy: 58% of the state's economy is centered on finance, real estate services and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.
S. state. California is bordered by Oregon to the north and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; the state's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the east, from the redwood–Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. Although California is well-known for its warm Mediterranean climate, the large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains. Over time and wildfires have become more pervasive features. What is now California was first settled by various Native Californian tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries; the Spanish Empire claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its successful war for independence but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War.
The western portion of Alta California was organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850. The California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom; the word California referred to the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. The name derived from the mythical island California in the fictional story of Queen Calafia, as recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo; this work was the fifth in a popular Spanish chivalric romance series that began with Amadis de Gaula. Queen Calafia's kingdom was said to be a remote land rich in gold and pearls, inhabited by beautiful black women who wore gold armor and lived like Amazons, as well as griffins and other strange beasts. In the fictional paradise, the ruler Queen Calafia fought alongside Muslims and her name may have been chosen to echo the title of a Muslim leader, the Caliph. It's possible.
Know ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California close to that part of the Terrestrial Paradise, inhabited by black women without a single man among them, they lived in the manner of Amazons. They were robust of body with great virtue; the island itself is one of the wildest in the world on account of the craggy rocks. Shortened forms of the state's name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000; the Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups were diverse in their political organization with bands, villages, on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash and Salinan.
Trade, intermarriage a
Media related to Mulholland Dam at Wikimedia Commons
