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Old Posted Oct 1, 2020, 2:24 PM
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sopas ej sopas ej is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: South Pasadena, California
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mrnyc View Post
this is what columbus did and still continues to do to some extent, basically say ok you can access water, but you have to be annexed. meanwhile cleveland gave up their water rights for basically nothing and now its long surrounded by a bunch of crotchety minor fiefdom 'burbs all existing and duplicating services for no good reason. guess who the winners are here? that's right los angeles and columbus in ohio. the lesson is even in waterworld areas like the great lakes, water is always the key!
Yeah...

Los Angeles in the early 20th Century was very powerful in terms of water; this is why the San Fernando Valley, which originally was agricultural, allowed itself to be annexed by LA just for the water---with Burbank and San Fernando being the only independent municipalities in the SFV (I was never sure if Glendale is part of the SFV). Los Angeles built the LA Aqueduct, getting water from the Owens Valley in central California. But by the Great Depression, I believe, the MWD was created (Metropolitan Water District), which gets water from the Colorado River, and sells it wholesale to cities that contract with it, so by then, communities didn't have to rely on the City of LA anymore for water.

According to my city's (South Pasadena) website, its source of water is from: (1) groundwater pumped from wells in the Main San Gabriel Groundwater Basin, (2) surface water imported by Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (Metropolitan) from the Colorado River, and (3) groundwater from the City of Pasadena.

Whole books have been written about the (often dramatic) story/stories of the quest for water in Los Angeles. I don't doubt that other big cities in the US have equally interesting stories about getting water for their growing populations.
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