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California Annual Rainfall
35
31.18
30 USA average (1901-2000)
25
23.45
20 CA average (1901-2000)
17.85 19.89
15 17.05 18.79
10 13.84

5 7.93
Lowest in recorded history
0
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Rainfall (inches) * Source: National Climatic Data Center,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

that the only land of any value was that near a California’s Owens Valley, a lush farming region
sizable creek or river. The lucky ones were quick sometimes called the "Switzerland of America."
to monopolize the water rights to their local The problem? The world’s longest and largest
streams. This resulted in the establishment of aqueduct would be required to transport the
the prior appropriation principle, also known water across hundreds of miles of deserts and
as "first in time, first in right," that still governs rugged mountains. Under Western water law,
Western water today. In other words, the first the farmers of the Owens Valley already had
person to claim the water has a right superior first rights to that water, but this didn't stop
to anyone else, as long as he or she can put it to the determined city whose thirsty population
"beneficial use." In the early West, this generally had tripled in the first decade of the twentieth
meant irrigation, and often— century alone.
because of climate, soil In an unrivaled
conditions, and demand for The scene is straight out of display of deceit, city
livestock feed—water-hungry the Third World: townsfolk officials—including
crops like alfalfa, rice, and crowd around the water Mayor Fred Eaton—
cotton. But as the region posed as ranchers and
developed, cities and industry truck each day when it farmers to buy up land,
began to compete for the arrives, jostling for position and thus water rights,
water. with their jars and rusty in the valley. Others
In the early 1900s, metal cans. stalled government
the booming city of Los efforts to build a dam
Angeles—in a notorious and convinced the U.S.
episode immortalized by the 1974 film Forest Service to grant them a right of way
Chinatown—was fast exhausting its local wells through federal land. When the people of Owens
and streams. The next closest river was in eastern Valley finally caught on, they fought back by

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