Lest our city shrivel and die, we must have more water, we must built a great new aqueduct to the Colorado.
William Mulholland, Los Angeles, 1925, as quoted in Vincent Ostrom’s Water and Politics
jfleck at inkstain
A few thoughts from John Fleck, a writer of journalism and other things, living in New Mexico
He was lying (or crazy):
In 1923 — one year after proclaiming Los Angeles had four times its water requirements — Mulholland proposed that a Colorado River Aqueduct (CRA) bring water from the Colorado River to “parched” Southern California (Milliman, 1956a).6
6. Surplus water dumped from the LAA was already damaging crop roots in the San Fernando Valley. Mil-
liman (1956a) says that Mulholland either lied or exaggerated when arguing for the CRA. Mulholland did
not announce an extension of the LAA to Mono Lake (a cheaper source of additional water) until 1930|after
the BCP was approved.
From my diss: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1129046