Owens Valley

Owens Valley is the arid ranching valley of the Owens River in southeastern California in the United States. The valley stretches for approximately 75 mi (120 km) between the Sierra Nevada on the west and the Inyo and White Mountains on the east. The mountains on either side (including Mount Whitney) reach above 14,000 ft (4,300 m) in elevation, while the floor of the Owens Valley is at 4000 ft (1,200 m), making the valley one of the deepest in the United States. The bed of Owens Lake, now a dry alkali flat, sits on the southern end of the valley. The valley is the source of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, a source of one-third the drinking water for Los Angeles, and is famous as the scene of one of the fiercest and long-running episodes of the California Water Wars.

Historical events in Owens Valley inspired aspects of the film Chinatown.

 from  tableland.
Enlarge
Owens River from Bishop Tuff tableland.
Owens Valley
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Owens Valley

The Owens Valley stretches from Haiwee Reservoir in the south to the Sherwin Summit in the north (just north of the town of Bishop). Other towns in the Owens Valley include Lone Pine, Independence and Big Pine.

Contents

Geology

Beginning about 3 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada and White Mountains fault systems became active with repeated episodes of slip (earthquakes) gradually producing the impressive relief of the eastern Sierra Nevada and White Mountain escarpments that bound the northern Owens Valley-Mono Basin region.

Owens Valley is a graben: a downdropped block of land between two vertical faults. Owens Valley is the westernmost graben in the Basin and Range Province.

The western flank of much of the valley has large moraines coming off the Sierra Nevada. These unsorted piles of rock, boulders and dust were bulldozed to where they are by glaciers during the last ice age. An excellent example of a moraine is on California Highway 168 as it climbs into Buttermilk Country.

This graben was formed by a long series of earthquakes, such as the 1872 Lone Pine earthquake, that have moved the graben down and helped move the Sierra Nevada up. The graben is in fact much larger than the depth of the valley infers; gravity studies suggest that 10,000 feet (3 km) of sedimentary rock mostly fills the graben and that a very steep escarpment is buried under the western length of the valley. The topmost part of this escarpment is exposed at Alabama Hills.

See also: Inyo and Mono Craters. Small versions of the Devils Postpile, can be found, for example, by Little Lake.


History

The Sierra Nevada casts the valley in a rain shadow, which makes Owens Valley "the land of little rain".

The valley was inhabited in late prehistoric times by the Timbisha (also called Panamint or Koso) in the extreme south end around Owens Lake and by the Eastern Mono (also called Owens Valley Paiute) in the central and northern portions of the valley. The Timbisha speak a Uto-Aztecan language related to Shoshoni and Comanche. The Eastern Mono speak a dialect of the Mono language which is also Uto-Aztecan, but is more closely related to Northern Paiute. The Timbisha presently live in Death Valley on Furnace Creek although most families also have summer homes in the Lone Pine colony. The Eastern Mono live in several colonies from Lone Pine to Bishop.

During World War II a Japanese American Internment camp operated in the valley at Manzanar near Independence, California.

California Water Wars

See main article: California Water Wars

In the early 20th century the valley became the scene a struggle between local residents and the city of Los Angeles over water rights. William Mulholland, superindendent of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) planned the 223 mile (359 km) Los Angeles Aqueduct, completed in 1913, which diverted water from the Owens River. Much of the water rights were acquired through subterfuge, with purchases splitting water cooperatives and pitting neighbors against each other. The purchases led to anger among local farmers, which erupted in violence in 1924, when parts of the water system were sabotaged by local farmers.

Eventually Los Angeles acquired a large fraction of the water rights to over 300,000 acres (1,200 km²) of land in the valley such that inflows to Owens Lake were almost completely diverted. The lake subsequently dried up competely, leaving the present alkali flat which plagues the southern valley with alkali dust storms.

In 1970, LADWP completed a second aqueduct from Owens Valley. More surface water was diverted and groundwater was pumped to feed the aqueduct. Owens Valley springs and seeps dried and disappeared, and groundwater-dependent vegetation began to die.

Years of litigation followed. In 1997, Inyo County, Los Angeles, the Owens Valley Committee, the Sierra Club, and other concerned parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding that specified terms by which the lower Owens River would be rewatered by June 2003. LADWP missed this deadline and was sued again. Under another settlement, this time including the State of California, Los Angeles promised to rewater the lower Owens River by September 2005. As of February 2005, LADWP announced it was unlikely to meet this extended deadline.

In July 2004, Los Angeles mayor James Hahn proposed barring all future development on its Owens Valley holdings, by proposing a conservation easement for all LADWP land. As of October, 2004, Inyo County officials seem to be resisting the offer of the easement [1] (http://www.inyoregister.com/articles/2004/10/22/news/224new02.prt), perhaps due to the prior history of mistrust over LADWP actions.

Groundwater pumping continues at a higher rate than the rate at which water recharges the aquifer, resulting in a long-term trend of desertification in the Owens Valley.

References

  • Deepest Valley: a Guide to Owens Valley, its roadsides and mountain trails, Jeff Putnam, Genny Smith, eds., 2nd edition, Genny Smith books, (1978), ISBN 0931378141
  • Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner, revised edition, Penguin USA, (1993), ISBN 0140178244
  • Roadside Geology of Northern and Central California, Alt, Hyndman (Mountain Press Publishing Company, Missoula; 2000) ISBN 0-87842-409-1
  • Geology Underfoot in Death Valley and Owens Valley, Sharp, Glazner (Mountain Press Publishing Company, Missoula; 1997) ISBN 0-87842-362-1
  • The Land of Little Rain, Mary Austin, University of New Mexico Press, (1974), contains the complete text of the first edition of 1903, ISBN 0-8263-0354-7

See also: List of guidebooks about the Sierra Nevada

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