[Script Info]
Title: 
[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,0:00:00.01,0:00:07.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> I have no apologies. I was a crusader for the development of water. I was the
Dialogue: 0,0:00:07.75,0:00:15.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Messiah! I was the evangelist that went out and argued persuasively to develop
Dialogue: 0,0:00:15.47,0:00:45.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,our rivers and water supplies for the benefit of the people.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:49.98,0:00:55.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> In the American desert, we have built a great new civilization in less than a
Dialogue: 0,0:00:55.39,0:01:09.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,century. Where none could possibly be in the natural order of things. We have
Dialogue: 0,0:01:09.24,0:01:15.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,made the land wet where it was dry and dry where it was wet. We have lifted
Dialogue: 0,0:01:15.73,0:01:20.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,great rivers out of their ancient beds and moved them over half a continent. Our
Dialogue: 0,0:01:20.75,0:01:43.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,great cities stand in a desert that is drier than the plains of North Africa. It
Dialogue: 0,0:01:43.97,0:01:54.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,would all be impossible without the breathtaking manipulation of water. We
Dialogue: 0,0:01:54.02,0:01:55.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,fought over water, thrived on water, and finally we engineered the desert out of
Dialogue: 0,0:01:55.34,0:02:03.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,existence.>> Next to God, there's water.>> Everybody is conscious of water. If
Dialogue: 0,0:02:03.79,0:02:06.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you head for the river with a bucket-- an empty bucket, you are liable to get
Dialogue: 0,0:02:06.45,0:02:15.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,shot.>> Can you imagine today in American city acquiring an entire river?
Dialogue: 0,0:02:15.27,0:02:20.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> The idea of subduing nature has captivated the whole country.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:20.26,0:02:38.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Congress cannot appropriate enough money fast enough to build more dams.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:38.76,0:02:39.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> We built the dams for all the right reasons when they were desperately needed
Dialogue: 0,0:02:39.76,0:02:53.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,with little thought to the consequences. The developing world watched and envied
Dialogue: 0,0:02:53.26,0:03:03.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,our success.>> The engineering marvel that is inaudible dam inspected by Emperor
Dialogue: 0,0:03:03.24,0:03:04.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.>> Supplying water to the population growing that
Dialogue: 0,0:03:04.26,0:03:09.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,fast is extremely difficult.>> It's a little bit like the sorcerer's
Dialogue: 0,0:03:09.04,0:03:11.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,apprentice. You've got to have more water, more water, more water.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:11.48,0:03:16.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> They are going to dam this canyon.>> There is no end to these people who had
Dialogue: 0,0:03:16.86,0:03:23.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,plans to dam San Francisco Bay,pipelines beyond your wildest dreams. This wasn't
Dialogue: 0,0:03:23.50,0:03:30.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,about curing oil. This was about carrying water.>> We have forgotten that the
Dialogue: 0,0:03:30.86,0:03:37.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,natural West is barren and fatally dry. And that our new bountiful West is a
Dialogue: 0,0:03:37.20,0:03:47.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,fragile construction. Here and there are reminders
Dialogue: 0,0:03:47.13,0:03:55.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of what happens when the water is turned off. Or when the water works fail.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:55.17,0:04:00.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Somehow the water stopped flowing. You have a desert again overnight.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:00.15,0:04:02.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> The dam's gone.>> The whole thing is gone now?
Dialogue: 0,0:04:02.35,0:04:05.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> The whole thing is gone. It rolled over about five minutes ago.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:05.20,0:04:10.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Okay.>> If you can give us any help on radio or whatnot get the people
Dialogue: 0,0:04:10.50,0:04:14.09,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,started there out.>> All right. Where do you want the people evacuated?
Dialogue: 0,0:04:14.11,0:04:36.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Well, we would like to get them off the river in low-lying inaudible
Dialogue: 0,0:04:36.71,0:04:40.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Well, it's 6:22 at 710 Talk KMPC, I'm Dominic with Air Watch Traffic and I've
Dialogue: 0,0:04:40.85,0:04:44.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,got to tell you the jackknifed big rig in Pasadena has the 210 eastbound in
Dialogue: 0,0:04:44.22,0:04:47.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,trouble right at Rosemead where the right three lanes are out of commission, the
Dialogue: 0,0:04:47.72,0:04:50.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,jackknifed big rig there and about a quarter-mile slow. On the westbound side
Dialogue: 0,0:04:50.75,0:04:54.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,almost across the fence from it right at Sierra Madre. Right lane is blocked to
Dialogue: 0,0:04:54.62,0:04:57.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the inaudible so get ready it's slow from the 605 and how are things in Orange
Dialogue: 0,0:04:57.74,0:05:02.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,County?>> Hey, Scott! inaudible>> -- in Ronald Reagan Freeway on the west
Dialogue: 0,0:05:02.76,0:05:13.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,inaudible Reseda Boulevard inaudible Foreign Language Spoken
Dialogue: 0,0:05:13.55,0:05:14.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> A car that spun out and hit the center divider and the two left lanes are
Dialogue: 0,0:05:14.72,0:05:20.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,protected by CHP vehicles.>> Use alternate routes such as Laurel Canyon or even
Dialogue: 0,0:05:20.52,0:05:32.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Mulholland today.>> I think my grandfather has a vision with the city like
Dialogue: 0,0:05:32.25,0:05:39.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Dublin. Which was the city of his childhood. And it was a vision I think of a
Dialogue: 0,0:05:39.14,0:05:49.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,19th century city. Where people ambled on streets and a new one another and
Dialogue: 0,0:05:49.92,0:05:59.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,enjoyed the theater and the opera and the University. A civilized 19th century
Dialogue: 0,0:05:59.25,0:06:05.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,city.>> No other Buick dealership in California has been best in its class for
Dialogue: 0,0:06:05.26,0:06:09.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,seven years. That's because no other Buick dealership has sold more than 10,000
Dialogue: 0,0:06:09.34,0:06:13.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Buicks in the last 10 years. The list goes on and on. Right now we have lots of
Dialogue: 0,0:06:13.43,0:06:18.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,traffic to talk about, too. First of all the KABC traffic alert--
Dialogue: 0,0:06:18.69,0:06:23.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> The thing that you have to remember about Los Angeles is that it never really
Dialogue: 0,0:06:23.60,0:06:29.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,had a reason to be there. It had no minerals, no metals, no forests, and other
Dialogue: 0,0:06:29.86,0:06:38.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,words, everything that any major American city used to develop itself, LA
Dialogue: 0,0:06:38.54,0:06:47.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,lacked. And above all it lacked water.>> Since the beginning of time this was a
Dialogue: 0,0:06:47.71,0:06:54.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,place of earthquakes and perpetual drought. First claimed by the Spaniards, and
Dialogue: 0,0:06:54.89,0:07:03.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,then conquered by the Americans.Virtually everyone here had come from somewhere
Dialogue: 0,0:07:03.14,0:07:10.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,else. In 1878 William Mulholland arrived from the Green Hills of Ireland. He had
Dialogue: 0,0:07:10.82,0:07:13.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,stowed away on a sailing ship worked as a lumberjack failed as a gold miner and
Dialogue: 0,0:07:13.46,0:07:18.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,had walked across Panama to save $25 and train fare. He was fond of one armed
Dialogue: 0,0:07:18.61,0:07:25.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,chin-ups and grand Opera.Mulholland found work as a ditch digger on the growing
Dialogue: 0,0:07:25.80,0:07:31.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,town's dilapidated water system.>> LA was desperate to become a modern city. It
Dialogue: 0,0:07:31.77,0:07:35.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,had been a backwater for so many decades.>> But its water system, on the other
Dialogue: 0,0:07:35.93,0:07:39.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,hand, was pretty much the same old Jerry built thing. A bunch of old
Dialogue: 0,0:07:39.96,0:07:46.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,waterwheels. The falling apart system.>> He worked hard, read Shakespeare, and
Dialogue: 0,0:07:46.84,0:07:57.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,hydraulic engineering late into the night. Taught himself to keep the entire LA
Dialogue: 0,0:07:57.67,0:07:58.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water system in his head and climbed through the ranks. In 1886 when his boss
Dialogue: 0,0:07:58.76,0:08:02.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,suddenly dropped dead, William Mulholland found himself superintendent of the LA
Dialogue: 0,0:08:02.16,0:08:09.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water system. The little desert Pueblo had grown to 100,000 people thanks to the
Dialogue: 0,0:08:09.46,0:08:18.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Chamber of Commerce and a new railroad. And by 1903 LA had sucked dry the tiny
Dialogue: 0,0:08:18.34,0:08:25.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Los Angeles River. It's only source of water.>> My mother would tell me these
Dialogue: 0,0:08:25.13,0:08:31.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,stories of growing up without water. One bath a week on Saturday night and I
Dialogue: 0,0:08:31.40,0:08:34.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,washed in a big zinc tub that was dragged into the
Dialogue: 0,0:08:34.41,0:08:40.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,kitchen and water heated and Poppa got the first bath, mama got the second and
Dialogue: 0,0:08:40.93,0:08:44.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the kids-- mother told me you know they were not what you would call white trash
Dialogue: 0,0:08:45.00,0:08:52.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but she told me she never had a bath in pure clean water. Now I was raised with
Dialogue: 0,0:08:52.80,0:08:59.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a real sense that water was a precious item and not to be squandered.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:59.68,0:09:03.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Superintendent Mulholland tried to make Los Angeles live within its means.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:03.20,0:09:11.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But growth sabotaged everything he did. By 1903, the chief knew that LA would
Dialogue: 0,0:09:11.50,0:09:18.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,have to stop growing or he would have to find a new source of water. His friend,
Dialogue: 0,0:09:18.84,0:09:23.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Mayor Fred Eaton and told him of a great Valley 200 miles to the north.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:23.52,0:09:32.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Pomacentrus phonetic Paiutes had lived along the Owens River. White settlers who
Dialogue: 0,0:09:32.82,0:09:38.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,colonized Owens Valley found Paiutes irrigating natural grasses with several
Dialogue: 0,0:09:38.18,0:09:44.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,miles of small irrigation canals.>> My grandmother told my only sister that when
Dialogue: 0,0:09:44.82,0:09:52.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the whites came they started to push the Indians up into the rocky places where
Dialogue: 0,0:09:52.18,0:10:00.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the water was scarce because they wanted the other for their cattle and things.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:00.27,0:10:05.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And they came in and they fenced everything up. They start saying if you want to
Dialogue: 0,0:10:05.48,0:10:09.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,use my water, you have to have special permission and the Indians always let the
Dialogue: 0,0:10:09.64,0:10:15.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water run. It was never something that belonged to one individual person. It
Dialogue: 0,0:10:15.19,0:10:23.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,belonged to the whole community.>> By 1904, settlers from New England,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:23.75,0:10:28.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Switzerland, and Scotland had taken the Indians land, established farms in a
Dialogue: 0,0:10:28.51,0:10:39.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,dozen towns and a steamboat service on the age old Owens Lake. They dug and
Dialogue: 0,0:10:39.54,0:10:54.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,elaborate irrigation system diverting the Owens River into hundreds of miles of
Dialogue: 0,0:10:54.27,0:10:55.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,ditches. Former Mayor Fred Eaton convinced Mulholland to set out northward
Dialogue: 0,0:10:55.27,0:10:56.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,across the Mojave Desert in the fall of 1904 toward Owens Valley.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:56.82,0:10:59.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> They went by Buck boy phonetic which was the only way you can go it took them
Dialogue: 0,0:10:59.98,0:11:04.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,about two weeks to get there. I think there was a trail of whiskey bottles all
Dialogue: 0,0:11:04.13,0:11:11.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the way out.>> In two weeks, Mulholland and Eaton were on the banks of the Owens
Dialogue: 0,0:11:11.41,0:11:19.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,River.>> At certain times of the year, in what years, anyway, you can get a
Dialogue: 0,0:11:19.28,0:11:33.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,little glimpse of what the river must've been like then and how it must have
Dialogue: 0,0:11:33.69,0:11:37.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,impressed Mulholland. The Owens Valley is one of the most dramatic places in the
Dialogue: 0,0:11:37.85,0:11:47.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,world.You have on the one side the Sierra Nevada, virtually every mountain over
Dialogue: 0,0:11:47.08,0:11:56.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,14,000 feet, and then you have a drop of 2 miles to the valley floor and then a
Dialogue: 0,0:11:56.03,0:12:04.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,rise of almost 2 miles up to the White Mountain range. Because the mountains
Dialogue: 0,0:12:04.26,0:12:10.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,stop virtually all weather, it is in the rain-- and there is no rain in the
Dialogue: 0,0:12:10.08,0:12:16.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Owens Valley. It is a true desert looking up onto huge snow-covered peaks. And
Dialogue: 0,0:12:16.66,0:12:21.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,through the middle of it comes what you almost could call a-- Mississippi River
Dialogue: 0,0:12:21.56,0:12:30.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,given the setting. It is so improbable in this harsh desert to see River that
Dialogue: 0,0:12:30.56,0:12:41.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,used to be as engorged-- And not only was this river that could take care of the
Dialogue: 0,0:12:41.78,0:12:48.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,next 20, 30, probably inaudible 50 years of population growth in LA but it could
Dialogue: 0,0:12:48.78,0:12:58.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,flow all the way by gravity.Inaudible>> -- so full of enthusiasm he said you
Dialogue: 0,0:12:58.05,0:13:05.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,know I've seen something here-- water that will last us into the next century.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:05.23,0:13:11.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> And I think Mulholland suddenly must have changed and he saw himself as a
Dialogue: 0,0:13:11.34,0:13:19.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,sort of a builder of a Roman masterwork as somebody who kept a great hydraulic
Dialogue: 0,0:13:19.41,0:13:23.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,engineering tradition alive. I can't tell you what went through his head, but
Dialogue: 0,0:13:23.89,0:13:28.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,suddenly he was a convert. Having been more of an efficiency guy and a
Dialogue: 0,0:13:28.26,0:13:36.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,conservationist, suddenly he became an empire builder almost overnight.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:36.05,0:13:40.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> And now, they were going to capture a river. The only River that kind of
Dialogue: 0,0:13:40.55,0:13:46.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,accidentally flowed through this desert and they were going to move the whole
Dialogue: 0,0:13:46.66,0:13:52.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,river across this 200-plus miles of terrain that they just covered at some risk
Dialogue: 0,0:13:52.80,0:13:59.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,probably to their lives.>> The problem facing Mulholland was at the river was
Dialogue: 0,0:13:59.14,0:14:04.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,owned. All the water rights were owned by farmers who were irrigating something
Dialogue: 0,0:14:04.08,0:14:09.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,like 60,000 acres.This was a thriving agricultural area at the time and it was
Dialogue: 0,0:14:09.78,0:14:17.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,being further developed by the Bureau of reclamation. Now how in the world were
Dialogue: 0,0:14:17.74,0:14:21.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you going to arrest that water away from these farmers and the federal
Dialogue: 0,0:14:21.45,0:14:26.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,government? That was the dilemma.>> Can you imagine today and American city
Dialogue: 0,0:14:26.44,0:14:33.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,acquiring an entire River for its future? Of course. It goes without saying. It
Dialogue: 0,0:14:33.79,0:14:39.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,could be done but it was done then.>> inaudible his ages for a federal project
Dialogue: 0,0:14:39.86,0:14:45.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,meant to irrigate Owens Valley Holland's men went to the county courthouse.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:45.19,0:14:52.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There they convinced clerks to show them these, maps, and records the stream
Dialogue: 0,0:14:52.06,0:15:09.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,flows. Within days, Eaton was quietly buying property and water rights.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:09.19,0:15:21.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Inaudible-- to a local irrigation project but to the city of Los Angeles.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:21.72,0:15:24.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Without telling Mulholland, former Mayor Fred Eaton about the only dam site in
Dialogue: 0,0:15:24.37,0:15:29.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Owens Valley for himself.>> Once the city knew who had the best water rights and
Dialogue: 0,0:15:29.09,0:15:32.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who was likeliest to sell those rights, it was basically a done deal.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:32.86,0:15:38.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> It didn't take very long for them to capture most of that river.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:38.38,0:15:42.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Two people who had ultimately benefited and who knew the whole story of this
Dialogue: 0,0:15:42.21,0:15:46.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,scheme were the publishers of the Los Angeles times. Harrison Gray Otis and
Dialogue: 0,0:15:46.67,0:15:52.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Harry Chandler. They were the big promoters and boosters but they were sworn to
Dialogue: 0,0:15:52.49,0:15:56.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,secrecy as this was going on. They did not let the cat out of the bag until they
Dialogue: 0,0:15:56.74,0:16:01.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,couldn't help themselves and finally under a headline that said Titanic project
Dialogue: 0,0:16:01.12,0:16:07.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to give the city River they talked about how the whole thing had gone. And you
Dialogue: 0,0:16:07.08,0:16:10.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,know when you read that today and imagine a major city newspaper just kind of
Dialogue: 0,0:16:10.80,0:16:20.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,gloating over the triumph of you know it's artifice and chicanery, it makes you
Dialogue: 0,0:16:20.17,0:16:25.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,real in a sense. But that was what Los Angeles was like in those days. It was--
Dialogue: 0,0:16:25.85,0:16:43.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the climate was one of just getting what you want any way you can get it.
Dialogue: 0,0:16:43.05,0:16:44.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> The Owens Valley paper saw the future differently. The still secret aqueduct
Dialogue: 0,0:16:44.05,0:16:47.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,route would pass through the San Fernando Valley on its way to LA. And someone
Dialogue: 0,0:16:47.15,0:16:56.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was buying up near worthless land in the San Fernando. Now, another cat out of
Dialogue: 0,0:16:56.65,0:17:02.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the bag. It was a real estate syndicate that would make millions of Owens River
Dialogue: 0,0:17:02.30,0:17:07.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water irrigated their newly acquired San Fernando Valley land.
Dialogue: 0,0:17:07.14,0:17:11.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> What was happening all the while these water rights in the Owens Valley were
Dialogue: 0,0:17:11.42,0:17:15.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,being acquired was that the San Fernando Valley is being bought up by a
Dialogue: 0,0:17:15.03,0:17:20.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,syndicate of people who represented the power structure of Los Angeles with the
Dialogue: 0,0:17:20.40,0:17:26.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,kind of exquisite sense of proportion.>> I suppose you could make a case for
Dialogue: 0,0:17:26.58,0:17:31.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,this being this incestuous cabal of hidden you know Jonathan inaudible
Dialogue: 0,0:17:31.73,0:17:39.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,California inaudible oligarchy. Old boys' wasp network-- no Jews, darks,
Dialogue: 0,0:17:39.95,0:17:46.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Blacks, Mexicans allowed.>> Quietly, the entire San Fernando Valley was bought
Dialogue: 0,0:17:46.26,0:17:52.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,up by the arch capitalists of Los Angeles for the purpose of irrigating it when
Dialogue: 0,0:17:52.82,0:17:56.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the Owens River finally arrived because Los Angeles would need all that water
Dialogue: 0,0:17:56.55,0:18:00.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for a long time.>> If water could be brought to the San Fernando, from the Owens
Dialogue: 0,0:18:00.98,0:18:07.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Valley, that rangy grassland that semi-arid terrain could be turned into an
Dialogue: 0,0:18:07.19,0:18:15.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,absolute Inaudible>> With all the cats out of all the bags, citizens would now
Dialogue: 0,0:18:15.86,0:18:28.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,vote on the inaudible. Mulholland campaigned with a vengeance. Opponents spread
Dialogue: 0,0:18:28.91,0:18:33.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,rumors that he was secretly dumping water at night to create a shortage but in
Dialogue: 0,0:18:33.53,0:18:38.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the middle of a drought, with the temperature climbing toward 105, the people of
Dialogue: 0,0:18:38.57,0:18:43.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,LA voted 10 to 1 to pay for Mulholland's aqueduct to bring them the river they
Dialogue: 0,0:18:44.00,0:18:54.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,had just purchased.>> I think one thing that gets overlooked in discussing the
Dialogue: 0,0:18:54.81,0:19:02.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,aqueduct is that it was a popular move from the President of the United States
Dialogue: 0,0:19:02.43,0:19:09.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,down to the voters in the city of Los Angeles. This was highly approved project.
Dialogue: 0,0:19:09.44,0:19:16.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Pres. Theodore Roosevelt citing the greatest good for the greatest number
Dialogue: 0,0:19:16.72,0:19:21.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,made Owens Valley off-limits to further development by surrounding it with a
Dialogue: 0,0:19:21.34,0:19:25.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,national forest.>> It suddenly became part of the Inyo National forest the only
Dialogue: 0,0:19:25.24,0:19:29.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,national forest in America with hardly any trees. The only trees were the
Dialogue: 0,0:19:29.20,0:19:33.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,orchard trees that were being irrigated and were about to die.
Dialogue: 0,0:19:33.71,0:19:39.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> With the law and the president on his side, Mulholland set out in 1905 to
Dialogue: 0,0:19:39.28,0:19:51.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,build his aqueduct across the desert.>> It was a great drama. It was a great
Dialogue: 0,0:19:51.86,0:19:55.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,epic drama the building of that aqueduct. You had kneeled teams and you had
Dialogue: 0,0:19:55.87,0:20:07.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,men. And they were working in desert heat, arid conditions, water was a
Dialogue: 0,0:20:07.20,0:20:12.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,problem. Ironically enough, here in this giant water project they had to worry
Dialogue: 0,0:20:12.80,0:20:19.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,about adequate water for the working stock and the men.
Dialogue: 0,0:20:19.34,0:20:28.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> It could be almost freezing at night and then 110 degrees in the daytime,
Dialogue: 0,0:20:28.73,0:20:33.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,practically. Mulholland was there all the time.>> Chief engineer Mulholland had
Dialogue: 0,0:20:33.40,0:20:38.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,no formal training in civil engineering. He had in fact never graduated from
Dialogue: 0,0:20:38.50,0:20:43.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,grade school.>> The automobile had barely been invented. Clipper ships were
Dialogue: 0,0:20:43.42,0:20:47.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,still sailing the seas and this was an engineering project the likes of which
Dialogue: 0,0:20:47.80,0:20:55.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the world had really never seen before.>> Mulholland ordered the 12 foot steel
Dialogue: 0,0:20:55.89,0:21:01.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,pipe forged in Germany and shipped around the horn. 100,000 men and women worked
Dialogue: 0,0:21:01.02,0:21:05.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,on the aqueduct but never more than a few thousand at a time because the
Dialogue: 0,0:21:05.62,0:21:13.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,exhausting and dangerous work kept turnover so high. They had been farmhands,
Dialogue: 0,0:21:13.16,0:21:18.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,cowboys and hard rock miners but now they were city employees civil servants
Dialogue: 0,0:21:18.27,0:21:25.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,like the chief himself. With no air conditioning, no refrigeration, no
Dialogue: 0,0:21:25.78,0:21:30.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,hardhats, in 110 degree heat they crossed the Mohave in five years with a pipe
Dialogue: 0,0:21:30.30,0:21:37.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,big enough to hold a locomotive.>> This was, you know, and aqueduct that would
Dialogue: 0,0:21:37.69,0:21:43.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,have reached all the way across Massachusetts and then almost all the way back.
Dialogue: 0,0:21:43.60,0:21:50.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Through a desert with mountains.What they were really building was the world's
Dialogue: 0,0:21:50.33,0:21:57.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,largest garden hose.>> Surveyors said they could build the aqueduct simply by
Dialogue: 0,0:21:57.14,0:22:02.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,following the trail of whiskey bottles Mulholland and Eaton has thrown off the
Dialogue: 0,0:22:02.02,0:22:19.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,back of their buckboard in 1904. In the end, the chief and his lieutenants
Dialogue: 0,0:22:19.09,0:22:21.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,finish the job under budget and ahead of schedule. William Mulholland built his
Dialogue: 0,0:22:21.13,0:22:23.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,original aqueduct so well that to this day it still carries the Owens River to
Dialogue: 0,0:22:23.31,0:22:35.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the people of Los Angeles.>> The phrase grandpa's aqueduct were among my first
Dialogue: 0,0:22:35.33,0:22:41.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,words. The day of the dedication of the aqueduct was without a doubt the high
Dialogue: 0,0:22:41.87,0:22:51.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,point of my grandfather's life.>> A crowd of 30,000 to 40,000 Los Angelenos
Dialogue: 0,0:22:51.71,0:22:55.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,phonetic had gathered at the base of the spillway. There was a formal program
Dialogue: 0,0:22:55.86,0:23:02.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but once the water spilled down the Cascade the formal program was abandoned
Dialogue: 0,0:23:02.55,0:23:09.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because thousands of people rushed with their tin cups to drink the water.
Dialogue: 0,0:23:09.94,0:23:13.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> When the water came cascading down, Mulholland who was really exhausted at
Dialogue: 0,0:23:13.24,0:23:19.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the time gave what I think is the most concise dedication speech in history. He
Dialogue: 0,0:23:19.68,0:23:37.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,unfurled an American flag he turned to the water and he said, there it is. Take
Dialogue: 0,0:23:37.65,0:23:39.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it.>> Based on Mulholland's predictions, it was four times more water than Los
Dialogue: 0,0:23:39.67,0:23:50.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Angeles could use.>> Oh, so slow from oso parkway. If you are on to San Diego
Dialogue: 0,0:23:50.34,0:23:53.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,South at Magnolia that accident clear to the right shoulder. We are clear back
Dialogue: 0,0:23:53.80,0:23:57.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to the Westminster Mall with bumper-to-bumper through the beat cities. And you
Dialogue: 0,0:23:57.62,0:23:58.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,are going to be making your way on the 91 freeway--
Dialogue: 0,0:23:58.62,0:24:03.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> That moment actually has to be seen not just in terms of human history
Dialogue: 0,0:24:03.09,0:24:06.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,however brief human history is. It has to be seen in terms of geological time.
Dialogue: 0,0:24:06.61,0:24:13.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Here you have the eons-old environment now being profoundly changed by the
Dialogue: 0,0:24:13.64,0:24:20.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,changing course of the river and that water in effect created contemporary Los
Dialogue: 0,0:24:20.07,0:24:24.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Angeles.>> It's your earthquake damage repair at remodeling headquarters.
Dialogue: 0,0:24:24.43,0:24:28.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> This week get inaudible to Honolulu for only 199+ tax round-trip. Sun trips
Dialogue: 0,0:24:28.57,0:24:33.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,your pipeline to paradise. With air watch traffic--
Dialogue: 0,0:24:33.23,0:24:39.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> One of the big banquets in the city celebrating this great event he made a
Dialogue: 0,0:24:39.57,0:24:45.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,speech and made the very interesting observation he said we are doomed to
Dialogue: 0,0:24:45.09,0:24:53.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,success. Might be a motto for the city, do you think?
Dialogue: 0,0:24:53.79,0:25:00.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> When water came after 1913, it prepared for an absolute golden age of
Dialogue: 0,0:25:00.46,0:25:20.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,building and construction that lasted through-- Inaudible
Dialogue: 0,0:25:20.33,0:25:24.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,At one point in the early 20s there was some 67 lumber ships at the San Pedro
Dialogue: 0,0:25:24.02,0:25:27.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Harbor lined up just waiting to get the wood off so they could keep the
Dialogue: 0,0:25:27.46,0:25:31.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,construction going. You also had the beginnings of the great Hollywood figures
Dialogue: 0,0:25:31.43,0:25:39.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,coming out-- DW Griffith, Cecil B DeMille coming just a few months after the
Dialogue: 0,0:25:40.01,0:25:47.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water. At nowhere as you moved to Los Angeles were you not in the presence of
Dialogue: 0,0:25:47.29,0:25:55.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,lawns, hedges, palm trees-- great palm trees which sway above Los Angeles now
Dialogue: 0,0:25:55.03,0:25:59.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,like nodding giraffes are taken as the signature of the city. Palm trees were
Dialogue: 0,0:25:59.55,0:26:01.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,not native to the region they were planted by the hundreds in the hundreds in
Dialogue: 0,0:26:01.93,0:26:09.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,this era. Here you had a semi-arid region where coyotes roamed where tumbleweeds
Dialogue: 0,0:26:09.99,0:26:15.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,were blown by the wind which in a very short time was turned into arguably the
Dialogue: 0,0:26:15.74,0:26:20.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,most exquisite invented garden in history. Now if you link that with the
Dialogue: 0,0:26:20.87,0:26:26.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,adjacent citrus groves, which were still in full bloom in the teens and 20s, I
Dialogue: 0,0:26:26.70,0:26:33.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,wasn't there, but it must've been wonderful.>> You had a general sensibility of
Dialogue: 0,0:26:33.87,0:26:43.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that time of turning the desert into and Eden.>> Charlie Chaplin and Alice
Dialogue: 0,0:26:43.59,0:26:48.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Huxley came from England. William Faulkner from Mississippi. Frank Lloyd Wright
Dialogue: 0,0:26:48.32,0:27:04.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from Wisconsin. Everyone came from everywhere.LA was suddenly growing 11 times
Dialogue: 0,0:27:04.27,0:27:14.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,faster than New York. Faster even than Calcutta. A million people by 1922 of
Dialogue: 0,0:27:14.99,0:27:17.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,whom 31,000 were licensed real estate agents. Now over Mulholland's objections,
Dialogue: 0,0:27:17.32,0:27:22.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Los Angeles began annexing 52 surrounding communities. Soon the city limits
Dialogue: 0,0:27:22.14,0:27:28.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,would cover 400 mi.? more than any city in America.
Dialogue: 0,0:27:28.39,0:27:29.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> There are going to be a lot of irate citizens when they find out that they
Dialogue: 0,0:27:29.68,0:27:32.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,are paying for water that they are not going to get.
Dialogue: 0,0:27:32.98,0:27:37.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Oh, that's all taken care of. See, Mr. Gitts phonetic, either you bring the
Dialogue: 0,0:27:37.55,0:27:47.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water to LA or you bring LA to the water.>> What he simply meant was that you
Dialogue: 0,0:27:47.81,0:27:55.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,would bring the water to where you wanted to bring it and call that place LA and
Dialogue: 0,0:27:55.88,0:28:03.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,therefore you could get Los Angeles taxpayers to pay what in effect were a cabal
Dialogue: 0,0:28:03.91,0:28:11.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of real estate speculators to have the city pay millions of dollars for them to
Dialogue: 0,0:28:11.06,0:28:14.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,pump water down to land that was not in fact part of the city and then cause
Dialogue: 0,0:28:14.80,0:28:19.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,them to vote that is part of the city and thereby increase the value of that
Dialogue: 0,0:28:19.22,0:28:26.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,land which they had purchased and held 1000 fold. So they were causing one city
Dialogue: 0,0:28:26.41,0:28:30.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in effect to pay for them to develop another city by-- and then saying well,
Dialogue: 0,0:28:30.96,0:28:37.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it's really same city.>> As the Owens River was finally being relocated across a
Dialogue: 0,0:28:37.44,0:28:44.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,quarter of the state of California, it became immediately obvious that there was
Dialogue: 0,0:28:44.45,0:28:49.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,way more water than Los Angeles needed. And so because the water was coming in
Dialogue: 0,0:28:49.95,0:28:54.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to the San Fernando Valley, it ended up irrigating the San Fernando Valley. It
Dialogue: 0,0:28:54.46,0:29:00.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was basically an artificial imported River for agriculture there rather than the
Dialogue: 0,0:29:00.07,0:29:03.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,agriculture that had been essentially put out of business in the Owens Valley.
Dialogue: 0,0:29:03.40,0:29:11.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> A syndicates arid tracks in the San Fernando Valley blossomed into orange and
Dialogue: 0,0:29:11.66,0:29:18.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,lemon groves, peach orchards, fields of winter tomatoes by 1920, LA County was
Dialogue: 0,0:29:18.42,0:29:26.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the most productive farm county in America.>> It may have been legal, but move a
Dialogue: 0,0:29:26.24,0:29:31.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,whole River ostensibly for public good and end up making a bunch of capitalists
Dialogue: 0,0:29:31.93,0:29:36.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,even richer than they already were by giving them brand-new water supply was
Dialogue: 0,0:29:36.91,0:29:42.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,really a kind of a remarkable feat.>> They are conning LA into building it but
Dialogue: 0,0:29:42.40,0:29:45.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the water is not going to go to LA.It's coming right here..
Dialogue: 0,0:29:45.17,0:29:50.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> What?>> Everything you can see. Everything around us. I was at the Hall of
Dialogue: 0,0:29:50.41,0:29:58.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,records today.>> The original title for Chinatown I actually had-- was going to
Dialogue: 0,0:29:58.73,0:30:05.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,call it water and power. Because you know that's what it came. And water was
Dialogue: 0,0:30:05.78,0:30:19.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,power. It was money. And those who knew how to manipulate it like much more
Dialogue: 0,0:30:19.36,0:30:22.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,directly than anybody could ever manipulate a stock market could make money off
Dialogue: 0,0:30:22.10,0:30:28.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of it. And you could see it. It was a palpable thing. Running through your
Dialogue: 0,0:30:28.70,0:30:35.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,movie. You know? I mean just a river of greed.>> Do you have any idea what this
Dialogue: 0,0:30:35.28,0:30:40.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,land would be worth with the study water supply? About 30 million more than they
Dialogue: 0,0:30:40.75,0:30:46.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,paid for it.>> The syndicate began plowing under their newly developed San
Dialogue: 0,0:30:46.99,0:30:52.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Fernando orange groves for tract homes. Advance guard of the largest subdivision
Dialogue: 0,0:30:52.69,0:30:59.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in history. The value of their land had gone up tenfold.
Dialogue: 0,0:30:59.07,0:31:04.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> This is a great age of salesmanship. Because these were masters of the art of
Dialogue: 0,0:31:04.18,0:31:09.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,encouraging people to envision on an empty hillside the great cities, the towns,
Dialogue: 0,0:31:09.73,0:31:14.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the schools, the churches, the synagogues, which would one day be there had they
Dialogue: 0,0:31:14.31,0:31:19.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but the faith that the salesman had. Owning your own home in this region was
Dialogue: 0,0:31:19.48,0:31:23.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,given an almost quasi-religious value that your children would not be delinquent
Dialogue: 0,0:31:23.64,0:31:27.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,if you had a home. That your marriage would be happy but many of the ills of our
Dialogue: 0,0:31:27.32,0:31:32.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,society were due to the fact that people lived in cities and rented.
Dialogue: 0,0:31:32.97,0:31:37.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Mulholland himself did not profit directly from the syndicates dealings but
Dialogue: 0,0:31:37.57,0:31:43.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,he was now the highest-paid public employee in California. The University of
Dialogue: 0,0:31:43.70,0:31:47.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,California gave an honorary degree to a doctor Mulholland the penniless
Dialogue: 0,0:31:48.01,0:31:52.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,immigrant who never finished grade school but could keep the entire LA water
Dialogue: 0,0:31:52.13,0:31:59.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,system in his head. LA now had a Mulholland school, Mulholland dam, Mulholland
Dialogue: 0,0:31:59.74,0:32:09.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,reservoir. And it named its new winding scenic drive the Mulholland Highway.
Dialogue: 0,0:32:09.27,0:32:12.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Every kid in LA knew-- it was one of the first names you learned when you
Dialogue: 0,0:32:12.72,0:32:17.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,hit-- when you were old enough to get a junior operator's license because that's
Dialogue: 0,0:32:17.18,0:32:23.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,where you parked your car to make out. You know? So you know that's one
Dialogue: 0,0:32:23.71,0:32:28.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,association with Mulholland is where you took your girl.
Dialogue: 0,0:32:28.84,0:32:33.09,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> The men in the family that was a staple of conversation-- waterworks. There
Dialogue: 0,0:32:33.11,0:32:38.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was always a Dodge to get the family to go out and it was usually either to see
Dialogue: 0,0:32:38.46,0:32:42.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the wildflowers in the spring but it somehow always ended up that we were
Dialogue: 0,0:32:42.88,0:32:50.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,standing in front of some big turbine or waterworks and with the men discussing
Dialogue: 0,0:32:50.29,0:32:55.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,all of just the way you know I had to discuss impressionist paintings with a
Dialogue: 0,0:32:55.90,0:33:01.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,friend at the County Museum.>> The city which never had a reason to be now had
Dialogue: 0,0:33:01.96,0:33:08.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,1000 oil wells, its own automobile and airplane factories, and before long, 90%
Dialogue: 0,0:33:08.25,0:33:14.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of all the worlds movies would be made in LA. The imported Owens River allow the
Dialogue: 0,0:33:14.60,0:33:18.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,city to expand and three times the rate Mulholland had used in his aqueduct
Dialogue: 0,0:33:18.96,0:33:24.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,calculations.>> It wasn't a prophet. He couldn't foresee that LA would grow the
Dialogue: 0,0:33:24.95,0:33:28.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,way it did.And that's what upset a lot of the balance.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:28.06,0:33:34.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> A inaudible committee tried to nominate William Mulholland for mayor. He said
Dialogue: 0,0:33:34.06,0:33:37.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,he would rather give birth to a porcupine backwards than the mayor of Los
Dialogue: 0,0:33:37.96,0:33:44.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Angeles.>> It was a scramble. I mean the city kept growing and the Chamber of
Dialogue: 0,0:33:44.96,0:33:49.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Commerce kept booming and there were all these marvelous come-ons from to the
Dialogue: 0,0:33:49.68,0:33:54.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,railroad companies and from the Chamber of Commerce and he used to joke and say
Dialogue: 0,0:33:54.44,0:33:58.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that he thought the only thing that can stop LA from growing was to kill Frank
Dialogue: 0,0:33:58.47,0:34:03.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Wiggins and Frank Wiggins was the president of the Chamber of Commerce who spent
Dialogue: 0,0:34:03.51,0:34:10.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,his lifetime booming LA all over the country. And encouraging more people and so
Dialogue: 0,0:34:10.52,0:34:16.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it was a little bit like the sorcerer's apprentice. You start the process going
Dialogue: 0,0:34:16.61,0:34:20.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and you got to have more water and more water and more water. And you, the
Dialogue: 0,0:34:20.68,0:34:25.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,father of the city's water system are supposed to continue to provide this
Dialogue: 0,0:34:25.52,0:34:29.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water. It's a terrible place to be. And you've got to be ingenious and inventive
Dialogue: 0,0:34:29.92,0:34:38.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and come up with new ideas for getting water.>> Now there were 60,000 realtors.
Dialogue: 0,0:34:38.31,0:34:42.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The Chamber of Commerce sent millions of promotional brochures to the Midwest
Dialogue: 0,0:34:42.52,0:34:49.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and New England to Guatemala City and Paris. Only 10 years after Mulholland
Dialogue: 0,0:34:49.61,0:34:54.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,finished his great aqueduct with a fourfold surplus, LA was running out of
Dialogue: 0,0:34:54.97,0:35:03.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water. And he was pondering new sources.The Colorado, Mono Lake, or the Sierras.
Dialogue: 0,0:35:03.03,0:35:07.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Maybe the best example of the metamorphosis of Mulholland into an obsessive
Dialogue: 0,0:35:07.66,0:35:15.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water seeker was described to me by Horace Albright who was back in the 20s a
Dialogue: 0,0:35:15.45,0:35:19.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,superintendent at Yosemite national Park. And he was at a banquet table with
Dialogue: 0,0:35:19.63,0:35:26.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Mulholland and Mulholland started waxing eloquent about how beautiful the valley
Dialogue: 0,0:35:26.20,0:35:31.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is and then he said what he would do if he were in charge is he would send
Dialogue: 0,0:35:31.35,0:35:36.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,photographers into the valley and let them photograph all day long all night
Dialogue: 0,0:35:36.59,0:35:42.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,every season and just have the most astounding collection of Yosemite
Dialogue: 0,0:35:42.22,0:35:46.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,photographs that you could ever imagine. Put them in books and send them free to
Dialogue: 0,0:35:46.18,0:35:52.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,every library in the world and then he would go in there and build a great big
Dialogue: 0,0:35:52.26,0:36:22.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,dam and stop the God damned waste.>> Just to the north of Yosemite, late John
Dialogue: 0,0:36:39.71,0:36:48.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Muir's beloved Hetch Hetchy Valley.Here, LA's rival San Francisco was in fact
Dialogue: 0,0:36:48.48,0:36:53.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,planning a dam which would soon permanently submerge Hetch Hetchy under 300 feet
Dialogue: 0,0:36:53.57,0:37:03.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of water. Owens Valley had in fact gotten off easy compared to Hetch Hetchy.
Dialogue: 0,0:37:03.10,0:37:06.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Mulholland's aqueduct had only dewatered the southern half of the valley.
Dialogue: 0,0:37:06.74,0:37:12.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Leaving the northern towns and farms to flourish during World War I.
Dialogue: 0,0:37:12.20,0:37:15.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Well, Owens Valley was an absolute you might say showplace. It produced
Dialogue: 0,0:37:15.84,0:37:21.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,fruit-- of the people from LA would go nuts over to get this fruit from here. I
Dialogue: 0,0:37:21.17,0:37:24.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,can remember when the sky would get black with flights of ducks. This was one of
Dialogue: 0,0:37:24.63,0:37:30.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the major flyaways. Oh, absolutely black with them. I mean that. The sky would
Dialogue: 0,0:37:30.19,0:37:33.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,be black and even for a day or two or for hours and hours.
Dialogue: 0,0:37:33.79,0:37:40.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> It was a great time to live up here. It was a very close knit community. You
Dialogue: 0,0:37:40.95,0:37:42.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,know? Every Saturday night they would keep the opera house open all night and
Dialogue: 0,0:37:42.29,0:37:48.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they would show the movie and when the movie was over they would push the chairs
Dialogue: 0,0:37:48.15,0:37:51.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,back and everybody would dance all night. Then they'd have a breakfast and
Dialogue: 0,0:37:51.49,0:37:54.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,everybody would go home back to their branches at sunup, you know? Did this
Dialogue: 0,0:37:54.74,0:38:07.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,every Saturday night and it was a great time to live in the Owens Valley.
Dialogue: 0,0:38:07.68,0:38:15.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> What few people knew was that William Mulholland was about to turn his
Dialogue: 0,0:38:15.71,0:38:22.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,attention to what remained of the Owens River.>> This growing city of Los
Dialogue: 0,0:38:22.69,0:38:29.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Angeles becomes like a vampire making a direct connection to the major artery of
Dialogue: 0,0:38:29.28,0:38:34.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the Owens Valley which is the Owens River. And of course imagine those ranchers
Dialogue: 0,0:38:34.10,0:38:37.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who were initially told that Los Angeles would be their partner, their friend,
Dialogue: 0,0:38:37.86,0:38:41.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that they would grow and prosperity along with the city began to see that the
Dialogue: 0,0:38:41.54,0:38:45.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,vampire was sucking the lifeblood and that their fertile fields were becoming
Dialogue: 0,0:38:45.70,0:38:52.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,parched and nonproductive.>> In the wet years since 1905, relations between the
Dialogue: 0,0:38:52.49,0:38:58.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,city and the Valley had been surprisingly cordial but now there was drought. The
Dialogue: 0,0:38:58.32,0:39:03.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,city sunk 52 turbine wells into the valley floor to pump groundwater into the
Dialogue: 0,0:39:03.16,0:39:07.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,aqueduct crippling surrounding ranches.>> What people resented here is they
Dialogue: 0,0:39:07.47,0:39:11.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,didn't have the option. They didn't have a choice. And the pressure that had
Dialogue: 0,0:39:11.21,0:39:15.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,built over 20 years and the inaudible was done and this whole water we're
Dialogue: 0,0:39:15.17,0:39:20.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,talking about they could care nothing about this property.
Dialogue: 0,0:39:20.84,0:39:25.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> On Sunday my mother would take me for drives and she would always talk about
Dialogue: 0,0:39:25.22,0:39:30.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,apple orchards and peach orchards. And it wasn't until years later that I
Dialogue: 0,0:39:30.62,0:39:34.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,realized because growing up in Bishop, there was always a-- we were surrounded
Dialogue: 0,0:39:34.02,0:39:39.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,by sagebrush. It was always dry. It was always dusty. There was always dust in
Dialogue: 0,0:39:39.30,0:39:43.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the air. And I couldn't even imagine what my mother was talking about. I
Dialogue: 0,0:39:43.61,0:39:49.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,couldn't imagine. And it took me until a young adult to realize that it was much
Dialogue: 0,0:39:49.86,0:40:01.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,different at one time. I would have liked to have seen what my grandparents saw
Dialogue: 0,0:40:01.75,0:40:07.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,there. I'd like to see the green. I'd like to see the orchards. It must've been
Dialogue: 0,0:40:07.09,0:40:11.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,gorgeous. It must've been gorgeous. I mean I think that the Owens Valley is
Dialogue: 0,0:40:11.41,0:40:18.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,beautiful now. I grew up there. And is beautiful now. So can you imagine what it
Dialogue: 0,0:40:18.60,0:40:24.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was like when my grandfather was there? When my great-grandfather was there? It
Dialogue: 0,0:40:24.15,0:40:36.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,could make me cry.>> Anger mounted as Mulholland's men cut ranchers canals. The
Dialogue: 0,0:40:36.29,0:40:41.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,city bought more land, siphoned off more and more water. Half the crops were
Dialogue: 0,0:40:41.47,0:40:48.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,gone by 1924.Schools and businesses began to close. Owens Lake went bone dry.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:48.02,0:41:00.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Rumors of resistance began to fly. Someone blew a hole in the siphon. And then,
Dialogue: 0,0:41:00.22,0:41:05.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,just before Thanksgiving in 1924, the local bank president and 100 citizens
Dialogue: 0,0:41:05.50,0:41:13.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,seize the aqueduct. They opened the floodgates and sent the entire flow of the
Dialogue: 0,0:41:13.69,0:41:26.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Owens River down a ditch and back into its ancient channel in the valley floor.
Dialogue: 0,0:41:26.88,0:41:30.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> They organized a caravan of these old model T's that drove I think probably
Dialogue: 0,0:41:30.97,0:41:37.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,dozens of cars down to the Alabama gates on the aqueduct where there was a
Dialogue: 0,0:41:37.18,0:41:39.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,turnout valve will they could basically stop the flow of water to Los Angeles.
Dialogue: 0,0:41:39.78,0:41:46.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Talk about community involvement. I know that my grandfather was there. I
Dialogue: 0,0:41:46.24,0:41:51.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,have spoken recently with my mother's cousin and she said that she remembers
Dialogue: 0,0:41:51.98,0:41:58.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that it was a party that her mother got her up early and got her dressed up and
Dialogue: 0,0:41:58.38,0:42:06.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,she was only four. So, there was a-- I me that was a great step and those people
Dialogue: 0,0:42:06.48,0:42:12.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,didn't move from the Alabama gates. They didn't move. That took a lot of
Dialogue: 0,0:42:12.92,0:42:13.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,courage. That did.Inaudible>> There wasn't any guns involved. There wasn't that
Dialogue: 0,0:42:13.92,0:42:24.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,type of thing. There'd only been a inaudible from there and he was sympathetic
Dialogue: 0,0:42:24.78,0:42:33.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to his inaudible if you will.So there was a whole bunch of oh, arbitration but
Dialogue: 0,0:42:33.18,0:42:44.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,discussion but interest focused on this thing is mainly what they were after.
Dialogue: 0,0:42:44.03,0:42:45.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> The crowd grew to 700 picnicking, singing Onward Christian Soldiers, playing
Dialogue: 0,0:42:45.81,0:42:57.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Enrico Caruso on a hand cranked phonograph. Superintendent Mulholland sent city
Dialogue: 0,0:42:57.81,0:43:27.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,police to take back the water but the local sheriff stood between the officers
Dialogue: 0,0:43:28.68,0:43:30.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and the citizens.>> This news did travel around the world. This was a great big
Dialogue: 0,0:43:30.50,0:43:36.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,story at the time. And it was embarrassing for Los Angeles. Because they were
Dialogue: 0,0:43:36.25,0:43:46.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,being cast as the villain. And you know it was hard to see that any other way.
Dialogue: 0,0:43:46.97,0:43:51.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Mulholland saw this as number one an instance of civil insurrection but saw
Dialogue: 0,0:43:51.93,0:43:56.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that nothing less than the survival of Los Angeles itself was at stake and that
Dialogue: 0,0:43:56.20,0:44:02.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,basically that had to be a cleansing of farmers from that region. That the two
Dialogue: 0,0:44:02.24,0:44:06.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,communities were incompatible. And that they would have to be bought out.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:06.80,0:44:10.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> And so they decided to try to sit down with some of the leaders of the Owens
Dialogue: 0,0:44:10.62,0:44:16.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Valley and negotiate some kind of a settlement.>> After week, the local bank
Dialogue: 0,0:44:16.57,0:44:20.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,president told the Raiders that a Los Angeles consortium would negotiate a fair
Dialogue: 0,0:44:20.79,0:44:25.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,price for the remaining water rights in Owens Valley. LA would even consider
Dialogue: 0,0:44:25.80,0:44:30.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,sharing the water. With cheers and congratulations, the ranchers and their
Dialogue: 0,0:44:30.99,0:44:36.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,families went home. Only to learn later that the deal had fallen through.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:36.74,0:44:43.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> As these negotiations such as they were are going on, the city is busily
Dialogue: 0,0:44:43.14,0:44:48.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,buying more rights, land and water rights in the Valley. Basically buying the
Dialogue: 0,0:44:48.79,0:44:55.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,whole place up.>> While ranchers occupied the aqueduct, city agents had secured
Dialogue: 0,0:44:55.42,0:44:59.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,legal options on virtually all remaining land and water rights in Owens Valley.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:59.72,0:45:08.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They bought whole towns. Even the county seat and County jail.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:08.79,0:45:15.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> More trouble. And it's not the first time either. The last bombing was four
Dialogue: 0,0:45:15.08,0:45:20.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,years ago and ranchers objecting to the city cutting across their property are
Dialogue: 0,0:45:20.73,0:45:26.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,suspected. It's one of the main line pipes about 150 miles north of Los Angeles
Dialogue: 0,0:45:26.93,0:45:31.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that supplies water to the big town. It's a lucky Los Angeles has an emergency
Dialogue: 0,0:45:31.49,0:45:36.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,watershed or this might have resulted in a terrible drought disaster. The police
Dialogue: 0,0:45:36.93,0:45:41.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,are after the fiends who did this rotten job let's hope they get them. There is
Dialogue: 0,0:45:41.18,0:45:51.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,no punishment too strong for them.>> They received a phone call and this is like
Dialogue: 0,0:45:51.14,0:45:56.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,telling Leonardo da Vinci that someone has just slashed the Mona Lisa. I mean he
Dialogue: 0,0:45:56.37,0:46:08.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was just appalled outraged and furious and at that point, a certain ugly turn of
Dialogue: 0,0:46:08.87,0:46:15.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,events occurred. The mood changed.>> Now, night after night, saboteurs dynamited
Dialogue: 0,0:46:15.47,0:46:20.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Mulholland's masterwork. The great aqueduct inaudible
Dialogue: 0,0:46:20.19,0:46:30.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> They had numerous stories about my grandfather taking off and blowing up
Dialogue: 0,0:46:30.55,0:46:39.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,dynamiting the aqueduct. It took great pride in the fact of that the many raids
Dialogue: 0,0:46:39.10,0:46:43.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to blow up the aqueduct.>> They would go along and dynamite sections and then
Dialogue: 0,0:46:43.70,0:46:48.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they'd go right off back up into the hills, would camp out for weeks and weeks
Dialogue: 0,0:46:48.03,0:46:53.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and weeks after they had bombed it they were afraid to come home and have them
Dialogue: 0,0:46:53.30,0:46:58.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,have their wives and kids had to basically hold family and Fort together.
Dialogue: 0,0:46:58.50,0:47:03.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> The city named three women and 15 men as ringleaders. But could never win a
Dialogue: 0,0:47:03.94,0:47:08.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,single conviction.>> They were heroes you know in your own mind. You know, those
Dialogue: 0,0:47:08.98,0:47:13.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,guys are great for what they did and everything. But we always thought that you
Dialogue: 0,0:47:13.28,0:47:16.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,wish we'd been there if we were kids, you know, but--
Dialogue: 0,0:47:16.81,0:47:22.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Interestingly enough, then he went on to be a California State Sen. So he
Dialogue: 0,0:47:22.13,0:47:26.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,wasn't a crazy man. He was just a man on a mission and a purpose.
Dialogue: 0,0:47:26.37,0:47:35.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Mulholland and his colleagues said look, this can't go on. This is-- you are
Dialogue: 0,0:47:35.16,0:47:41.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,threatening the water supply for a great city. This is criminal. And they sent
Dialogue: 0,0:47:41.91,0:47:46.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,machine guns up there and it stopped.>> Train loads of them were going up to the
Dialogue: 0,0:47:46.69,0:47:50.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Owens Valley and basically imposing martial law. There were searchlights and
Dialogue: 0,0:47:50.79,0:47:57.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,floodlights up and down that Valley sweeping across the aqueduct all night long.
Dialogue: 0,0:47:57.45,0:48:02.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Mulholland sent 600 heavily armed police to secure the city's water supply.
Dialogue: 0,0:48:02.26,0:48:07.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Backed by the full force of state and federal law, endorsed by the Chamber of
Dialogue: 0,0:48:07.94,0:48:16.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Commerce.>> As Jean Renoir said, everyone has his reasons. And I'm sure he had
Dialogue: 0,0:48:16.41,0:48:22.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,his reasons and he justified it because he had to. I can see how it would've
Dialogue: 0,0:48:22.89,0:48:27.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,been very easy to get carried away by powerful men saying see what you can do
Dialogue: 0,0:48:27.66,0:48:32.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for the city. You know? What a great man you will be. You know?
Dialogue: 0,0:48:32.40,0:48:39.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> When I was a kid, you know, he was a bad guy. He was the guy with the black
Dialogue: 0,0:48:39.57,0:48:44.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,hat. He was-- we all hated him, you know? I mean we all talked about a lot and
Dialogue: 0,0:48:44.34,0:48:50.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you know what evil guy he was, but he had a fantastic vision but he didn't care
Dialogue: 0,0:48:50.75,0:48:54.09,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who he stepped over to get it. He didn't care what happened to the Owens Valley.
Dialogue: 0,0:48:54.09,0:48:57.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> I would say that when I was a little girl it was not good to be a Mulholland
Dialogue: 0,0:48:57.99,0:49:04.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in Owens Valley and I was never taken there and my folks if they should chance
Dialogue: 0,0:49:04.19,0:49:09.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to travel my mother told me they always registered at a hotel using her maiden
Dialogue: 0,0:49:09.60,0:49:17.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,name. Because we were just not well liked in Owens Valley and it was not a good
Dialogue: 0,0:49:17.17,0:49:23.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,name to carry.>> Well, Mulholland was a very honest man. Because he said that
Dialogue: 0,0:49:23.88,0:49:28.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,everyone in Bishop was a son of a bitch and that there wasn't enough pine trees
Dialogue: 0,0:49:28.91,0:49:33.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to hang the natives on which they deserved whereas the rest of them they went
Dialogue: 0,0:49:33.62,0:49:38.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,with the protocol and with inaudible and so on but not Mulholland.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:38.08,0:49:44.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> He knew that it was a vein hope I mean to think that they could go back I
Dialogue: 0,0:49:44.19,0:49:50.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,mean the water had been taken. It was the fait accompli. There was no turning
Dialogue: 0,0:49:50.51,0:49:56.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,back. Owens Valley was not going to be reverted back to what it had been in
Dialogue: 0,0:49:56.02,0:50:01.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,1905. That deed had been done.>> Somebody did put up a sign and that said Los
Dialogue: 0,0:50:01.31,0:50:07.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Angeles city limits way out in the Owens Valley as kind of a bitter joke. It was
Dialogue: 0,0:50:07.03,0:50:11.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,really than everyone knew William Mulholland had triumphed. He had one the
Dialogue: 0,0:50:11.88,0:50:18.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Valley was really his.>> Before long, city bulldozers began knocking down
Dialogue: 0,0:50:18.02,0:50:25.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,farmhouses and feeling and irrigation ditches.>> Well first we had the Valley
Dialogue: 0,0:50:25.82,0:50:29.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,then the sellers came in and took away from us in the city of Los Angeles came
Dialogue: 0,0:50:29.40,0:50:43.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and they took it away from them.>> All Mulholland needed now was a place to
Dialogue: 0,0:50:43.55,0:50:49.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,store water for the growing city.But former LA Mayor Fred Eaton owned the only
Dialogue: 0,0:50:49.50,0:50:53.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,reservoir site in Owens Valley.And was demanding $1 million for it. So
Dialogue: 0,0:50:54.00,0:51:01.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Mulholland build a huge dam in the hills just 40 miles from downtown LA. It was
Dialogue: 0,0:51:01.24,0:51:06.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the largest arch support dam in North America. The final link in a decade of
Dialogue: 0,0:51:06.30,0:51:13.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,triumph. By the spring of 1928, the reservoir in San Francisquito Canyon was a
Dialogue: 0,0:51:13.50,0:51:18.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,full to the brim with a year's supply of Owens River water. Far from the scene
Dialogue: 0,0:51:18.13,0:51:24.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of battle. On March 12, workers noticed a small leak on the north side.
Dialogue: 0,0:51:24.97,0:51:32.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Mulholland inspected the leak pronounced the dam sound and went home to bed.
Dialogue: 0,0:51:32.55,0:51:39.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> My grandfather was awakened from his sleep with a phone call saying the dam
Dialogue: 0,0:51:39.46,0:51:47.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,had gone out. And his first response was he stumbled toward the phone was oh
Dialogue: 0,0:51:47.47,0:52:00.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,please God don't let people be killed.>> There was no warning. There was no
Dialogue: 0,0:52:00.76,0:52:08.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,warning system. And it started wiping out whole communities.
Dialogue: 0,0:52:08.72,0:52:19.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> You had so much water in that dam. That there were 1000 ton blocks of
Dialogue: 0,0:52:19.16,0:52:26.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,concrete riding the crest. It was not water at a certain point. It was trees,
Dialogue: 0,0:52:26.67,0:52:36.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,homes, blocks of concrete, rocks, rubble. It was a semisolid wall advancing at
Dialogue: 0,0:52:36.65,0:52:53.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,20 or 30 miles an hour 40 and 50, 60 feet high. You couldn't run from it.
Dialogue: 0,0:52:53.64,0:53:06.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> I was five years old when the St. Francis dam broke. And with my limited
Dialogue: 0,0:53:06.64,0:53:11.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,perceptions I realized some dreadful thing. It was like bringing a dark curtain
Dialogue: 0,0:53:11.10,0:53:20.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,down over a lighted area. My father took me-- he was-- my father was stunned and
Dialogue: 0,0:53:20.42,0:53:26.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,he took me in the car. My mother was not well at the time. And we drove up to
Dialogue: 0,0:53:26.32,0:53:33.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the dam site and on the way up, he taught me how to say San Francisquito Canyon
Dialogue: 0,0:53:33.73,0:53:38.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and we rehearsed it over and over as if it were some kind of a catechism lesson
Dialogue: 0,0:53:38.95,0:53:46.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of what it did for me was imprint that name forever in my mind as a scene of
Dialogue: 0,0:53:46.31,0:53:55.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,some terrible fate which had befallen our family.
Dialogue: 0,0:53:55.51,0:54:08.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Mulholland surveyed the greatest man-made disaster in California history. His
Dialogue: 0,0:54:08.45,0:54:38.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,St. Francis dam had killed as many people as the San Francisco earthquake.
Dialogue: 0,0:54:39.14,0:54:44.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> I've always been moved all my life at the pictures that were taken of in the
Dialogue: 0,0:54:44.55,0:54:52.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,morning that he was-- went up and surveyed the ruins of the dam failure. It's
Dialogue: 0,0:54:52.40,0:54:59.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,like looking at the most stricken human being I've ever seen. It's a dead stark
Dialogue: 0,0:54:59.41,0:55:04.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,look at his on his face as he stands amid the rubble of something he had
Dialogue: 0,0:55:04.87,0:55:11.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,created. It was an engineer's most horrible fate any engineer could have to
Dialogue: 0,0:55:11.03,0:55:21.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,build a structure that fails and also kills.>> So Mulholland was in a state of
Dialogue: 0,0:55:21.38,0:55:28.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,shock. He made an initial effort really. It wasn't much of an effort-- to blame
Dialogue: 0,0:55:28.44,0:55:31.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the whole thing on dynamiters phonetic which was the term he now used
Dialogue: 0,0:55:31.50,0:55:35.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,generically to refer to anybody in the Owens Valley.
Dialogue: 0,0:55:35.22,0:55:40.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But it was soon very obvious that the dam had failed by itself and nobody had
Dialogue: 0,0:55:41.01,0:55:48.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,sabotaged it and that Mulholland had paid a visit to the dam just hours earlier
Dialogue: 0,0:55:48.33,0:55:55.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and said that the dam was fine. So his reputation which had-- he had been a God
Dialogue: 0,0:55:55.63,0:56:02.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,figure in Los Angeles.>> Mulholland went from being of the father of the city,
Dialogue: 0,0:56:02.18,0:56:17.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the founder of the city to standing possible indictment.
Dialogue: 0,0:56:17.55,0:56:23.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> The precise cause was never found. No criminal charges were ever filed, but
Dialogue: 0,0:56:23.79,0:56:30.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the coroner's jury held William Mulholland responsible. He accepted the blame.
Dialogue: 0,0:56:30.08,0:56:33.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Broke down in sobs and said that he envied the dead.
Dialogue: 0,0:56:33.33,0:56:51.09,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> They kept slowly taking away the water from the canals and the ditches and
Dialogue: 0,0:56:51.11,0:56:55.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,everything slowly but surely they got everything siphoned down and so the land
Dialogue: 0,0:56:55.33,0:57:00.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of the trees and the whole form says they all died off and all the old orchards
Dialogue: 0,0:57:00.34,0:57:02.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,died off and they are all gone now all the houses are all gone. So they just
Dialogue: 0,0:57:02.76,0:57:11.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,turned back into a desert as it was, basically.>> When we traveled to Los
Dialogue: 0,0:57:11.92,0:57:16.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Angeles we watched the aqueduct. My parents would
Dialogue: 0,0:57:16.03,0:57:23.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,always say, there is our water. Girls, that water came from the Owens Valley.
Dialogue: 0,0:57:23.56,0:57:31.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And as a child I remember feeling animosity towards Los Angeles. You always
Dialogue: 0,0:57:31.74,0:57:38.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,knew. He always felt that they took our water.>> Mulholland resigned in
Dialogue: 0,0:57:38.83,0:57:43.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,disgrace. His real achievements clouded by the disaster and by the suffering in
Dialogue: 0,0:57:43.73,0:57:49.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Owens Valley. His plans for still greater aqueducts lay on the drawing board but
Dialogue: 0,0:57:49.26,0:57:54.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to the people of LA he was an embarrassment. Officials began referring to the
Dialogue: 0,0:57:54.14,0:58:02.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Mulholland reservoir as the Hollywood reservoir. Owens Valley was history but
Dialogue: 0,0:58:02.06,0:58:06.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,fantasy and folklore lived on.The myth of rampaging bullies destroying a
Dialogue: 0,0:58:06.56,0:58:10.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,paradise, gallant ranchers defending their homes.>> These gentlemen bring word
Dialogue: 0,0:58:10.03,0:58:14.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from the capital. The inaudible Valley has been condemned.
Dialogue: 0,0:58:14.58,0:58:18.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Condemned?>> What do you mean?>> It seems that Metripol phonetic City needs
Dialogue: 0,0:58:18.96,0:58:23.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,more water and power. So the state has decided to build a dam across cut stone
Dialogue: 0,0:58:23.98,0:58:28.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Canyon and turn the Valley into a reservoir.>> Just let them start trying to
Dialogue: 0,0:58:28.08,0:58:32.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,build a dam around here.>> The state authorized me to build a dam. And it's
Dialogue: 0,0:58:32.65,0:58:38.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,going to be built whether you like it or not.>> Take it easy, you don't know the
Dialogue: 0,0:58:38.37,0:58:54.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,kind of people you're dealing with, Mister.>> But he will find out.
Dialogue: 0,0:58:54.51,0:58:59.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> In 1934 using Mulholland's original plans, the Metropolitan water District
Dialogue: 0,0:58:59.61,0:59:03.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,lasted a new aqueduct all the way to the Arizona State line to its second River,
Dialogue: 0,0:59:04.00,0:59:14.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the Colorado.>> Unless we take immediate steps to bring in water from an outside
Dialogue: 0,0:59:14.68,0:59:20.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,source, the people of Southern California will be up against a serious water
Dialogue: 0,0:59:20.05,0:59:24.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,shortage. But we are fortunate in having within our reach a water source capable
Dialogue: 0,0:59:24.69,0:59:31.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of supplying our needs. This source is the Colorado River.
Dialogue: 0,0:59:31.19,0:59:35.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Inaudible>> The governor of Arizona deployed his state militia to the river's
Dialogue: 0,0:59:35.89,0:59:44.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,bank to stop Los Angeles from taking Colorado River water.
Dialogue: 0,0:59:44.65,0:59:57.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> It was to no avail.>> Final resolution would not come until 30 years later
Dialogue: 0,0:59:57.86,1:00:01.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,after one of the longest court cases in American history.
Dialogue: 0,1:00:01.33,1:00:05.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> On the day when the waters of the Colorado River rushes into this aqueduct
Dialogue: 0,1:00:05.83,1:00:12.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the greatest engineering feat of its kind ever accomplished will take its place
Dialogue: 0,1:00:12.05,1:00:18.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,among the wonders of the world.>> It is a wonderful thing to contemplate this
Dialogue: 0,1:00:18.59,1:00:24.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,new conquest of the great Southwest were everything that man desires is
Dialogue: 0,1:00:24.39,1:00:29.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,present. Everything except sufficient water. With sufficient water we can be
Dialogue: 0,1:00:29.99,1:00:37.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,assured of a great and a stable civilization.>> Wow. What a day. I'm afraid
Dialogue: 0,1:00:37.99,1:00:43.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we're going to be busy. Hi, Greg. It was a high-speed pursuit earlier this
Dialogue: 0,1:00:43.27,1:00:46.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,morning. They have the San Bernardino westbound on and off ramps at Atlantic
Dialogue: 0,1:00:46.47,1:01:08.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,closed down because of a police investigation.Bumper to bumper to Puente.
Dialogue: 0,1:01:08.69,1:01:10.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Foreign Language Spoken>> -- we'd like to welcome you all aboard Universal
Dialogue: 0,1:01:10.27,1:01:13.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Studios Hollywood super trim presented by Texaco. Oh, yeah. Uh-oh. I think I
Dialogue: 0,1:01:13.38,1:01:27.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,hear something. It might get a little bit wet.>> Hey, watch out for that tree
Dialogue: 0,1:01:27.96,1:01:36.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,back there!>> He brought enough elements together, water, population, wealth so
Dialogue: 0,1:01:36.94,1:01:43.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that Los Angeles was now almost condemned to grow and grow and grow.
Dialogue: 0,1:01:43.60,1:01:55.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> So after the 1920s, Los Angeles' history is almost defined by an obsessive
Dialogue: 0,1:01:55.46,1:02:02.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,constant search for more and more water. Hoover dam was authorized in 1928,
Dialogue: 0,1:02:02.57,1:02:09.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,finished by the mid-30s then Mono Lake which is north of the Owens Valley was
Dialogue: 0,1:02:09.85,1:02:13.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,hooked up to the aqueduct. And began draining all the streams that feed this
Dialogue: 0,1:02:13.86,1:02:20.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,irreplaceable natural wonder out there.>> Mulholland had long had his eye on
Dialogue: 0,1:02:20.05,1:02:26.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Mono Lake, 100 miles north of Owens Valley. In 1936, his successors dusted off
Dialogue: 0,1:02:26.03,1:02:31.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,his plans and pushed the aqueduct north to mono seeking again the greatest good
Dialogue: 0,1:02:31.47,1:02:35.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for the greatest number.>> People really shouldn't have any problem with our
Dialogue: 0,1:02:35.06,1:02:40.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water system and take it for granted or the water people are doing their job
Dialogue: 0,1:02:40.36,1:02:46.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,well. I always felt that I was working for a good purpose. I wasn't doing
Dialogue: 0,1:02:46.65,1:02:53.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,something that in my view really didn't basically benefit society. I felt that I
Dialogue: 0,1:02:53.95,1:02:58.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was working on something that was a fundamental benefit to society. I was proud
Dialogue: 0,1:02:58.81,1:03:04.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of that.>> The people of LA could not depend on water from ancient streams
Dialogue: 0,1:03:04.41,1:03:16.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,feeding Mono Lake.>> This is the desert. This is the grim waterless waste that
Dialogue: 0,1:03:16.03,1:03:20.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,covered most of Los Angeles even within the memory of living men. Here between
Dialogue: 0,1:03:20.27,1:03:21.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the mountains and the sea, Los Angeles was built. Here is a living breathing
Dialogue: 0,1:03:21.33,1:03:25.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,proof that energy and vision can build a metropolis almost overnight. Angelenos
Dialogue: 0,1:03:25.98,1:03:33.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,phonetic are likely to live on a ranch still within city limits. Perhaps a few
Dialogue: 0,1:03:33.38,1:03:37.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,years ago they were residents of Iowa, Illinois, New Jersey. Here they quickly
Dialogue: 0,1:03:37.32,1:03:41.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,abandon old conventions of inaudible. Dress as they please make the most of
Dialogue: 0,1:03:41.79,1:03:48.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,their mild seductive climate. The inaudible introduction to this promised land
Dialogue: 0,1:03:48.12,1:03:55.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of exotic people, sunshine, stucco, money, optimism. Success is her pattern.
Dialogue: 0,1:03:55.50,1:04:09.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is LA.This is America.>> The rise of Nazis in Germany and the fleeing of
Dialogue: 0,1:04:09.72,1:04:10.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,all that talent have the creation of a euro Southern California. Otto Preminger
Dialogue: 0,1:04:10.94,1:04:13.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who was of course fleeing the Nazis was at the Hillcrest country club and people
Dialogue: 0,1:04:13.72,1:04:16.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,playing cards and people were talking. And these two people started talking in
Dialogue: 0,1:04:16.62,1:04:22.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Hungarian and they were talking white Hungarian phonetic. Otto Preminger said,
Dialogue: 0,1:04:22.05,1:04:23.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,what's the matter, he says, why are you talking in Hungarian? This is Los
Dialogue: 0,1:04:23.57,1:04:39.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Angeles. He said, talk German.>> From Berlin, New York, Alabama, from all over
Dialogue: 0,1:04:39.02,1:04:45.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the world people flooded into Southern California. They said it was just like
Dialogue: 0,1:04:45.91,1:04:57.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,everyone else only more so.>> There was a new paradise. It's something like--
Dialogue: 0,1:04:57.58,1:05:01.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you know love and good health. You really miss it by its absence very often. I
Dialogue: 0,1:05:01.35,1:05:06.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,mean it just wasn't aware-- I was never aware growing up, but how wonderful it
Dialogue: 0,1:05:06.95,1:05:20.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was until it was gone and that was the air itself. The air was wonderful. If you
Dialogue: 0,1:05:20.65,1:05:28.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,stop and think about the mean temperature of the climate here year-round, it's
Dialogue: 0,1:05:28.32,1:05:33.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,probably the most perfect climate to you know, sort of walk around and with
Dialogue: 0,1:05:33.44,1:05:48.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,almost no clothing because the air you just feel that is almost an extension of
Dialogue: 0,1:05:48.46,1:05:49.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,your own skin. It doesn't-- it's not too hot, it's not too cold.
Dialogue: 0,1:05:49.46,1:05:51.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> The machinery of water acquisition overworked the Owens River, the Colorado,
Dialogue: 0,1:05:51.60,1:05:58.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and the Mono basin. In 1964, the Metropolitan water District proposed diverting
Dialogue: 0,1:05:58.58,1:06:03.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the Columbia River to Southern California. The future had arrived.
Dialogue: 0,1:06:03.38,1:06:08.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Somebody finally decided rather than just go after another source of water
Dialogue: 0,1:06:08.65,1:06:13.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,every 10 or 20 years, why don't we go to where there's so much water we will
Dialogue: 0,1:06:13.25,1:06:19.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,have enough for 200 years. And where was that place? Alaska. It would have
Dialogue: 0,1:06:19.06,1:06:25.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,brought this water down in huge jolts, irrigated Nevada, irrigated Eastern
Dialogue: 0,1:06:25.47,1:06:28.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Oregon on the way. Some of it would've gone all the way to Mexico. It was going
Dialogue: 0,1:06:28.43,1:06:33.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to go to Arizona, it was going to go to Texas.>> Nobody really blinked. There
Dialogue: 0,1:06:33.59,1:06:37.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,were lots of people in the business who thought well, yeah. It's maybe a little
Dialogue: 0,1:06:37.03,1:06:39.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,premature, but this is going to happen someday because it has to.
Dialogue: 0,1:06:39.69,1:06:47.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> This is not a mirage. But rather a preview of an atomic Marvel of tomorrow. A
Dialogue: 0,1:06:47.49,1:06:53.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,milestone in man's development. A nuclear powered Agro industrial complex. With
Dialogue: 0,1:06:53.10,1:06:58.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a nuclear reactor as the energy source, and a D salting plant as the fresh water
Dialogue: 0,1:06:58.58,1:07:03.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,source, the desert may be transformed into a nuclear powered Agro industrial
Dialogue: 0,1:07:03.72,1:07:11.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,complex.>> There were plans to last so you know icebergs and tell them down. You
Dialogue: 0,1:07:12.00,1:07:18.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,know,it was like the flimflam man. I mean there was no end to these people who
Dialogue: 0,1:07:18.70,1:07:27.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,had plans to dam San Francisco Bay, to pipelines beyond your wildest dreams.
Dialogue: 0,1:07:27.94,1:07:32.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,These-- and this wasn't about carrying oil. This was about carrying water. This
Dialogue: 0,1:07:32.22,1:07:38.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is water.>> When these reactors are coupled to a desalting plant, approximately
Dialogue: 0,1:07:38.80,1:07:41.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,1 billion gallons of fresh water will be produced per day.
Dialogue: 0,1:07:41.98,1:07:51.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Of course at the time, nobody was challenging the idea of using 8 gallons of
Dialogue: 0,1:07:51.40,1:07:59.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water per flush in a toilet. Or irrigating your lawn to the point where it's
Dialogue: 0,1:07:59.04,1:08:03.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,standing an inch deep in water. Nobody thought about conservation. People only
Dialogue: 0,1:08:03.06,1:08:08.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,thought about supply.>> The city had long since exhausted supply from the tiny
Dialogue: 0,1:08:08.23,1:08:16.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Los Angeles River and cemented over its channel by 1960. The DWP built a
Dialogue: 0,1:08:17.01,1:08:20.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,reservoir to store supply of Owens River water near the center of Los Angeles.
Dialogue: 0,1:08:20.59,1:08:23.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> The Los Angeles city police helicopter is here. The Los Angeles city fire
Dialogue: 0,1:08:23.61,1:08:31.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,department helicopters here. The police are on the ground with motorcycles and
Dialogue: 0,1:08:31.29,1:08:35.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,automobiles. Trying to effectively activate people from here so there can't
Dialogue: 0,1:08:35.99,1:08:42.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,possibly be any more loss of life than there is. Property no telling how much
Dialogue: 0,1:08:42.05,1:08:49.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,property has already been lost.>> A triangle shaped wedge tears out of the
Dialogue: 0,1:08:49.54,1:08:50.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,asphalt and concrete lined wall of the earth-filled phonetic dam of the Baldwin
Dialogue: 0,1:08:50.68,1:08:51.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Hills reservoir. And millions of gallons of water raced down the canyon toward
Dialogue: 0,1:08:51.68,1:08:53.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the homes below in the community between downtown Los Angeles and International
Dialogue: 0,1:08:53.43,1:09:08.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Airport. Almost 300 million gallons of water in 77 minutes. An incredible
Dialogue: 0,1:09:08.85,1:09:20.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,disaster.>> The Department of water and power had no choice but to carry on
Dialogue: 0,1:09:20.38,1:09:29.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,since it now served 3 million people. In 1966, LA acquired its third River like
Dialogue: 0,1:09:29.13,1:09:33.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a giant version of Mulholland's Owens Valley project, the California State
Dialogue: 0,1:09:33.13,1:09:37.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,aqueducts now brought the Feather River from 600 miles north. Enough water to
Dialogue: 0,1:09:37.87,1:09:46.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,fill the Rose Bowl every 90 minutes.>> Los Angeles by the 70s was reaching 200
Dialogue: 0,1:09:46.58,1:09:51.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,miles in one direction, 250 miles in another direction and 600 miles in a third
Dialogue: 0,1:09:51.78,1:10:01.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,direction. For water. And it still wasn't enough.>> In 1970 the Department of
Dialogue: 0,1:10:01.23,1:10:05.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water and power using Mulholland's original sketches finished the second
Dialogue: 0,1:10:05.71,1:10:16.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,barrel, a parallel aqueduct not far from the original. Sucking now twice as much
Dialogue: 0,1:10:16.98,1:10:18.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water from Mono Lake. The million year old Lake now fell 2 feet every year. It
Dialogue: 0,1:10:18.33,1:10:24.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was the only stop for a million migrating seabirds on their way from the Arctic
Dialogue: 0,1:10:24.84,1:10:31.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to Bolivia.>> You could see the lake going down and down and down. Pretty soon
Dialogue: 0,1:10:31.17,1:10:33.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it it was not even growing around the lake anymore. Everything was drying up all
Dialogue: 0,1:10:33.85,1:10:41.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the little springs were dying. You know. That was really devastating because we
Dialogue: 0,1:10:41.15,1:10:47.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,thought the whole Lake is going to be like this. And when you think of God's
Dialogue: 0,1:10:47.17,1:10:51.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,given like you think it should be like it was.>> The local people had already
Dialogue: 0,1:10:51.23,1:10:54.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,resigned themselves to the fact that the lake was going to dry up or get to a
Dialogue: 0,1:10:54.81,1:11:05.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,very small level. Just because of the adversary Department of water and power is
Dialogue: 0,1:11:05.84,1:11:07.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,too big to fight. It was not anything that anybody can do.
Dialogue: 0,1:11:07.14,1:11:11.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Great alkali dust storms began boiling up off the exposed shores of Mono and
Dialogue: 0,1:11:11.55,1:11:17.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the dry bed of Owens Lake. By 1974, Owens Valley the Switzerland of America had
Dialogue: 0,1:11:17.51,1:11:24.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the worst particulate pollution in the country.>> The sense that somehow LA had
Dialogue: 0,1:11:24.37,1:11:32.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,sinned against another people became a central imagery in this whole water
Dialogue: 0,1:11:32.23,1:11:35.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,story. And one that I've always had a lot of trouble
Dialogue: 0,1:11:35.65,1:11:41.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,with. Because I've always sympathized with the underdog but at the same time
Dialogue: 0,1:11:41.53,1:11:45.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I've been proud of my grandfather so it's given me a great deal of conflict to
Dialogue: 0,1:11:45.89,1:11:51.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,have to come to terms with that.>> Why are you doing it? How much better can you
Dialogue: 0,1:11:51.61,1:11:54.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?
Dialogue: 0,1:11:54.37,1:12:00.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> The future, Mr. Gibbs. The future.>> And the crimes that they committed in
Dialogue: 0,1:12:00.40,1:12:06.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the name of the future, against the future is really the history of water in
Dialogue: 0,1:12:06.55,1:12:15.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,California here in LA. I mean it's-- it's just the supreme irony.
Dialogue: 0,1:12:15.46,1:12:19.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> See, Mr. Gibbs, most people never have to face the fact that at the right
Dialogue: 0,1:12:19.43,1:12:24.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,time and the right place they are capable of anything.
Dialogue: 0,1:12:24.29,1:12:29.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Sometimes they are so monstrous that they can't figure out how to punish them
Dialogue: 0,1:12:29.52,1:12:35.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,so they actually sort of reward them. And inaudible name is on the scenic route
Dialogue: 0,1:12:35.51,1:12:42.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of the city and inaudible of those names are on plaques as city founders. Rather
Dialogue: 0,1:12:42.40,1:12:48.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,than in jail where they belonged.>> When I think of a movie like Chinatown as an
Dialogue: 0,1:12:48.84,1:12:55.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,easy out it oversimplifies it's melodramatic. It's not true I may not literally
Dialogue: 0,1:12:55.03,1:13:03.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,not true. But it provides a rather easy explanation of events and for people who
Dialogue: 0,1:13:03.43,1:13:15.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,like to bash LA is perfect.New York Times loves to hold it up as a piece of
Dialogue: 0,1:13:15.33,1:13:20.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,history.>> The movie Chinatown was bad at contorted history but it was powerful
Dialogue: 0,1:13:20.70,1:13:26.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,myth.Rekindling violence against the Department of water and power. Now
Dialogue: 0,1:13:26.20,1:13:31.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,headquartered in a building that cost as much as Mulholland's original aqueduct.
Dialogue: 0,1:13:31.60,1:13:37.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> There was violence here before a long time ago back in 1924 angry farmers and
Dialogue: 0,1:13:37.35,1:13:42.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,ranchers lined the wall armed with shotguns and rifles. They blew holes in the
Dialogue: 0,1:13:42.87,1:13:48.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,aqueduct 17 times. This year it took this form a dynamite blast at the gates of
Dialogue: 0,1:13:48.58,1:13:54.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the first aqueduct the water for Los Angeles stopped briefly instead--
Dialogue: 0,1:13:54.12,1:13:58.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Resistance was futile. The Department of water and power by now had more
Dialogue: 0,1:13:58.49,1:14:03.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,manpower than the population of Bishop more in fact than the entire population
Dialogue: 0,1:14:03.55,1:14:10.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of Owens Valley. But this time something had changed. David Gaines a young
Dialogue: 0,1:14:10.17,1:14:14.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,biologist from LA and a dozen University of California students had begun a
Dialogue: 0,1:14:14.95,1:14:20.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,careful study of Mono Lake's singular ecosystem. They found it on the brink of
Dialogue: 0,1:14:20.45,1:14:27.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,collapse.>> We knew about Owens like of course. Now it's just a dry ditch you
Dialogue: 0,1:14:27.63,1:14:31.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,know 100 miles to the south. We realized that Mono Lake could look like that
Dialogue: 0,1:14:31.41,1:14:36.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,someday and once we realized both here, that all that would be lost we couldn't
Dialogue: 0,1:14:36.67,1:14:42.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,let it just go down without making some effort to save it.
Dialogue: 0,1:14:42.57,1:14:48.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> By 1976, Mono Lake had fallen 40 feet. Exposing mineral towers which had
Dialogue: 0,1:14:48.60,1:14:56.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,formed underwater over the ages. It had become three times saltier than the
Dialogue: 0,1:14:56.15,1:14:59.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,ocean.>> What we are asking what Mono Lake is asking all of us is where we going
Dialogue: 0,1:14:59.85,1:15:04.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to draw the line? If we don't share some water with Mono Lake will be next? Will
Dialogue: 0,1:15:04.53,1:15:09.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it be like Tahoe, will be the Eagle River? The Yukon? Will it be on and on until
Dialogue: 0,1:15:09.73,1:15:13.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the last of our singing rivers and beautiful lakes are gone because we've taken
Dialogue: 0,1:15:13.59,1:15:19.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,every last drop we watched the last waterfall and the last salmon follow the
Dialogue: 0,1:15:19.42,1:15:24.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,California State emblem the California grizzly into oblivion? It is a
Dialogue: 0,1:15:24.49,1:15:28.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,battleground in that sense. It's asking us how much are we going to share with
Dialogue: 0,1:15:28.54,1:15:36.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the Earth?>> Well it was very primitive. I mean there was 12 people only one or
Dialogue: 0,1:15:36.27,1:15:40.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,two cars everybody else did their research via bicycle. They did take their
Dialogue: 0,1:15:40.79,1:15:44.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,binoculars and their backpack and their lunch and then hop on their bikes and
Dialogue: 0,1:15:44.33,1:15:48.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they'd ride down the dirt roads and dump their bikes and hike out for a couple
Dialogue: 0,1:15:48.33,1:15:55.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,miles and then walk through mud and you know they were really the quintessential
Dialogue: 0,1:15:55.71,1:16:00.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,researchers out there braving the elements.>> All those college boys come over
Dialogue: 0,1:16:00.48,1:16:04.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they all want to look like professors you know they got big beers you know and
Dialogue: 0,1:16:04.75,1:16:11.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,so Mr. Gaines he was one of them. You know?And he looked just like the rest of
Dialogue: 0,1:16:11.05,1:16:15.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,them. You know? Kind of like a hippie I'd say but I don't want to say you know
Dialogue: 0,1:16:15.62,1:16:22.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,he wasn't a hippie but he looked that way.But he was pretty smart that guy. He
Dialogue: 0,1:16:22.08,1:16:27.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,would start a thing going-->> When I grew up in Los Angeles I never learned
Dialogue: 0,1:16:27.79,1:16:33.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,where water came from. And it was only after doing some complex calculations
Dialogue: 0,1:16:33.03,1:16:38.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that we learned that if diversions continued this Lake will fall another 40 to
Dialogue: 0,1:16:38.30,1:16:44.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,60 vertical feet. What we will be left with is an alkaline waste land a sterile
Dialogue: 0,1:16:44.89,1:16:49.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,chemical sump where there is now one of the most beautiful and life productive
Dialogue: 0,1:16:49.29,1:17:02.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,places on earth.>> Far more than natural beauty was threatened at Mono Lake.
Dialogue: 0,1:17:02.47,1:17:07.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> What was at stake was a big aquatic ecosystem that was very simple but very
Dialogue: 0,1:17:07.86,1:17:12.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,productive. I mean the numbers are astronomical. You got algae and then the
Dialogue: 0,1:17:12.75,1:17:15.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,brine shrimp eat the algae and then you've got millions of birds coming every
Dialogue: 0,1:17:15.68,1:17:23.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,summer to eat the brine flies and the brine shrimp. A far off dream was out
Dialogue: 0,1:17:23.37,1:17:28.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,there but I don't think we gazed up at it too much. It might be too
Dialogue: 0,1:17:28.07,1:17:33.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,discouraging. I mean to have a handful of biologists fighting the Department of
Dialogue: 0,1:17:33.36,1:17:38.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water and power of the city of Los Angeles with a multimillion dollar budget was
Dialogue: 0,1:17:38.26,1:17:43.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,too big of a contrast.>> When William Mulholland took water from Owens Valley
Dialogue: 0,1:17:43.77,1:17:49.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and Mono Lake years before, no one questioned the damage to nature. But an
Dialogue: 0,1:17:49.56,1:17:54.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,environmental movement had come of age in America. Along with powerful new laws
Dialogue: 0,1:17:54.93,1:18:00.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and a great shift in public opinion. Committees at Mono Lake and Owens Valley
Dialogue: 0,1:18:00.81,1:18:05.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,together with the Audubon Society, went to court to stop the water conquest
Dialogue: 0,1:18:05.93,1:18:10.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Mulholland had set in motion in 1905.>> If you're angry and have nothing else--
Dialogue: 0,1:18:10.55,1:18:16.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,no other recourse I think dynamite comes to mind. And they were ranchers. They
Dialogue: 0,1:18:16.34,1:18:22.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,understood dynamite. We were college biologists. No experience with dynamite. We
Dialogue: 0,1:18:22.40,1:18:26.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,knew facts and figures and we knew that we could you know we were educated
Dialogue: 0,1:18:26.68,1:18:32.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,people and we could probably figure out how to find lobbyists to go to help us
Dialogue: 0,1:18:32.19,1:18:36.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in Sacramento and how to find lawyers.People were saying well, ask for a lot. Go
Dialogue: 0,1:18:36.49,1:18:40.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,way high and then you compromise down with the politicians and the agencies and
Dialogue: 0,1:18:40.69,1:18:45.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we were all biologists and we kind of said that doesn't sound right. Why can't
Dialogue: 0,1:18:45.79,1:18:50.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we just start with what we know is the truth and it just stay there forever? And
Dialogue: 0,1:18:50.61,1:18:56.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that's what we did.>> The courts ruled that drying out the Owens River or
Dialogue: 0,1:18:56.17,1:19:02.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,streams feeding Mono Lake was not in the public interest. In 1988, the state
Dialogue: 0,1:19:02.76,1:19:06.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,forced the city to return water to Mono for the first time in half a century.
Dialogue: 0,1:19:06.13,1:19:11.100,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Los Angeles began water conservation on a scale never before seen in America.
Dialogue: 0,1:19:12.02,1:19:18.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And now shares the water in a fragile peace with Owens Valley and Mono Lake.
Dialogue: 0,1:19:18.98,1:19:25.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> One local person said, if you guys say the lake I'll eat my hat. It turns out
Dialogue: 0,1:19:25.25,1:19:30.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that we saved the lake and we have the regulations and people seem much happier.
Dialogue: 0,1:19:30.07,1:19:35.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We see water running down the creek fish in the creek. Maybe some of them
Dialogue: 0,1:19:35.50,1:19:38.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,remember the great numbers of ducks and geese that were down at the lake and
Dialogue: 0,1:19:38.32,1:19:45.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they look forward to that being in the future again.
Dialogue: 0,1:19:45.81,1:19:49.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> I didn't think that they would succeed in persuading the inaudible to let the
Dialogue: 0,1:19:49.62,1:19:57.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,water in again.>> What you think they would not succeed?
Dialogue: 0,1:19:57.78,1:20:04.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> Well, how can you fight the city of Los Angeles? So really this is a victory.
Dialogue: 0,1:20:04.74,1:20:13.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,A great victory.>> David Gaines did not live to see the victory. He had died a
Dialogue: 0,1:20:13.90,1:20:28.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,year before in an automobile accident not far from Mono Lake.
Dialogue: 0,1:20:28.48,1:20:34.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>> And so finally, the machine that Mulholland had set in motion just kind of
Dialogue: 0,1:20:34.96,1:20:42.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,began to fall apart. The whole posture of the Los Angeles Department of water
Dialogue: 0,1:20:42.20,1:20:48.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and power and the city changed. The city negotiated with Mono Lake folks and
Dialogue: 0,1:20:48.05,1:20:53.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,decided to give more water back to the lake. It gave up on the idea of importing
Dialogue: 0,1:20:53.57,1:21:00.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Klamath River water or Columbia River water.>> I think ultimately, it was
Dialogue: 0,1:21:00.41,1:21:07.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,people's feeling why bring more water in if it just encourages more growth that
Dialogue: 0,1:21:07.27,1:21:12.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,forces us to bring more water in. You know?It's sort of a death vortex. It's the
Dialogue: 0,1:21:12.21,1:21:17.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,red Queen in Alice in Wonderland running faster and faster just to stay in
Dialogue: 0,1:21:17.45,1:21:25.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,place. And that mentality has sort of died a respectful death. And you know if
Dialogue: 0,1:21:25.60,1:21:30.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,there's an occasional shortage well that's too bad. We are in a desert here. We
Dialogue: 0,1:21:31.00,1:21:38.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,are not supposed to be like Miami all the time every day of the year to
Dialogue: 0,1:21:38.07,1:21:50.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,infinity.>> After the dam failure, my grandfather underwent the most profound
Dialogue: 0,1:21:50.47,1:21:59.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,change that you can imagine and-- but he had been a vigorous functioning
Dialogue: 0,1:21:59.47,1:22:05.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,70-year-old man or 72-year-old man at the time the dam failed. And he simply
Dialogue: 0,1:22:05.58,1:22:11.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,shriveled. He'd come out to the ranch and he sits in the living room with his
Dialogue: 0,1:22:11.65,1:22:18.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,cigar and the conversation would go around and he would just shut his eyes. He
Dialogue: 0,1:22:18.42,1:22:30.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,would sit there like some kind of a sleeping giant. I was so struck as a child
Dialogue: 0,1:22:30.87,1:22:37.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,when I attended the funeral and his body lay in state and city hall and the
Dialogue: 0,1:22:37.85,1:22:44.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,working men who came to pay their last respects to him. Some of them cried and
Dialogue: 0,1:22:44.20,1:22:47.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,when I was 12 years old and that made a big impression on me because I'd never
Dialogue: 0,1:22:47.88,1:22:55.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,seen grown men cry.And so, I derived from that that this was a man who had
Dialogue: 0,1:22:55.22,1:23:01.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,commanded a lot of love and respect in his day. And I've spent a lifetime trying
Dialogue: 0,1:23:01.04,1:23:06.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to drive that with all the attacks that had been made on him by people who
Dialogue: 0,1:23:06.35,1:23:15.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,didn't know him.>> Freeways are settling down, believe it or not. We check on
Dialogue: 0,1:23:15.82,1:23:19.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the 405 and the 101 leaving the Hollywood Hills. Not bad at all. No need to take
Dialogue: 0,1:23:19.97,1:23:24.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,alternate routes such as Laurel Canyon, Coldwater Canyon, or even Mulholland
Dialogue: 0,1:23:24.46,1:23:35.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Drive. I'm Dr. Roadmap flying for Capt. Jorge inaudible 'copter 790.
Dialogue: 0,1:23:35.78,1:23:36.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Music