5 | The Land of Flowing Water

Here's u c l A Professor John Christensen, uh, just you know, one of the most beautiful places on earth, with the Sierra Nevada peace rising ten thousand feet above you dramatically on your western side, and then the desert mountains stretching out on the eastern side in this long, grassy valley, and a river running down the middle of it um the Owens River. Today this region is known

as Owens Valley. For thousands of years, the valley was green and lush, nourished by water that flowed down the mountains and through a river that emptied into a huge lake. The Piets drew water from the river to irrigate their crops. So it's providing this constant flow of water coming down the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada and running through

Owens Valley. John Christensen has spent plenty of time in the Owens Valley, but this paradise he's describing, he's never actually seen it, So, I mean, I've never saw it like that. That started changing in the early twentieth century. Today Owens Valley is the site of one of the worst environmental disasters in the United States. If you look at aerial images on Google Earth, instead of a green valley in Blue Lake, you'll see a vast white salt flat.

The lake dried up in the nineties, leaving behind only dust. Here's Mike Praither. He's a longtime resident of Owens Valley. So when the lake disappeared, immediately when these large storms in the winter came in, the valley would fill up like a bath tub of dust. And there's extreamly hazardous your mouth and your nose, you tasted salt. You would close all the windows in your house and you would still have a layer of dust on the on the

dining room table. It dried up and for many years, you know, created these dust storms that do create the worst air pollution in the United States. How did the Owens Valley go from a paradise to a disaster zone. The water didn't just disappear, it was taken. It's a story so crazy that it inspired an Oscar winning film. The original title or Chinatown. It's gonna call it Water and Power, and water was and you could see it. It was a palpable thing running through your movie, just

a river of grade. California's big cities are built on water that comes from somewhere else, from Owens Valley, from Shasta Lake, and especially from out of state. It's an interconnected system already under stress from climate change, which is why it's shocking to hear Marcus from cal Exit say this water. We have no water problem in California. Everybody's wrong.

Today we're going to tell you the story of water in California, how it built huge empires, how it destroyed Owens Valley, and how shrinking supplies are intensifying a between California and nearby states, strict water restrictions coming to effect for millions of Californians shortly is the West coast of America continues to experience a crippling drought. All of this leads us to two big questions. First, why do some people think calgs it might cause a water crisis. Pulling

away from another country is not easy at all. Who controls water? What are the negotiations around that? The second could Marcus Ruise Evans actually be right about California's water problem. There is no water issue in California. We have no water problem at all. Everybody's dead wrong from Interval presents an awfully nice This is the last resort. I'm shoots got Episode five, The Land of Flowing Water? Who controls water? Money? This is a crisis mlike anything that we've seen before.

You cut off our water, We cut off your food water pounder water is love, so get love black no water, fine squirl get fun say. The reason that we're here today is that we wanted to point out to everybody in California that the American system is broken and that you, as a California and have a choice to make. Do you go down with that ship out of tradition or do you sail on your own. In November, the day after Trump's election, callegs that supporters gathered for a rally

in Sacramento. Marcus Ruiz Evans said a few words. The fact is is that everyone knows California basically operates as a nation already. We could be a nation. That's not the question. The question is if you are willing to vote and move us along that path to do that. Marcus was at the Capitol that day for a simple reason to ask for help. He and Lewis were about to start an ambitious new phase of the Colleges at campaign, and they couldn't do it alone. How does the state

legally seced from the United States? What's that process look like? Becauld. Some experts say, well, you can. The only way out is war, but others, including Marcus and Lewis, think that collegs it can happen legally and peacefully if they accomplished these three steps. First, Californians have to vote for it. Second, the state has to ask the Feds for permission to leave, and third, a majority of the other states need to agree. Back in Marcus and Lewis were focused on the first step,

getting a vote on cal exit. So you have to have some sort of vote amongst your population where a majority of your people said yes, we want to go. They first needed to file an application with the state. Once approved, they'd have a few months to collect about six hundred thousand signatures. If they couldn't do it in time, they'd have to start all over again. So before filing, Marcus and Louis needed to recruit volunteers across California to

help them collect signatures. Here's Marcus, if you have six months, you can build chapters, you can train people, you can get them ready for before the ballot initiative comes. But Trump's victory accelerated the plan. So we had forty people on board in about a week, and they said, I want to succeed now and I want the initiative right now, and so we had to move six month timeline up to two weeks, which there's pros and cons to that.

Marcus and Lewis had a tough choice. They cut some corners in order to move fast or wait until they were fully organized. The pro is that people are enthusiastic right They are excited now. They may not know what they're doing, but they're going out there asking for signatures. The cons are that you're not able to prepare. It was here's your initiative, get out there and get going. Marcus and Lewis decided to go for it, and so on November one, they officially filed paperwork for a Calley

ballot initiative. It was a big step. A political group submitted a new petition calling for California to leave the United States. Organizers hope to get enough support to get it on the November two ballot. You're like, oh my god, we actually understand the law correctly, and oh my god, you really can succeed. That was the attitude. It was an exciting moment. The ballot initiative began Step one of the colleagues that plan to put it to a vote. Meanwhile,

Marcus and Lewis were worried about step two. Remember, the state had to officially ask the federal government to leave, which presents it a problem. Somebody has to go from California to the federal government Congress and ask for permission to leave. We didn't want the governor or the legislator to be able to say, I don't care California's voted for this, I'm not gonna do it. Marcus and Lewis

wrote the initiative to get around this potential problem. So you can write ballot initiatives to say it's not up to you, guys, it's going to be some specially appointed person and they're going to go direct will of the voters. So step one, get a vote calls it was on its way. Steps two ask the Feds Marcus and Lewis design in their proposal to make sure that would happen, which only left step three to get a majority of the other states to agree to let California go. But

why exactly would they do that? Marcus thinks some states might agree just thatt a hatred. And when we talked to red states and say did you know you could have in America without California, they immediately start listening. They don't like us. But there's another big reason why some states might really welcome california succession. Water. Here's John Christensen again. So you have all kinds of rights that are enjoyed by California that depend on being part of the United States.

If California were to succeed, it's possible that California could lose it all. Today, California gets a lot of its water from other states, and if cal exit happens, it's susible that supply could be shut off. The reasons why go back to the early nineteen hundreds, the Owens Valley and a period known as the water Wars. Sometime in nineteen o five, a rancher named Thomas Ricky received a

visit from a surprising guest. Ricky was in his late sixties and one of the biggest landowners in Owens Valley. His visitor was a well dressed man named Frederick Eaton. Eaton had once been mayor of Los Angeles, but now he wanted to try his hand at cattle ranching, and all he was curious was Ricky's property for sale. Ricky told him no, but Eaton was persistent, offering way more than the land was worth, and in the end, Ricky agreed to sell. I was making deals like this all

over the valley. Story spread about the dumb city slicker who dreamed of being a rancher paying crazy prices for land, and he found plenty of willing sellers, but he and didn't really care about ranching. He was there because of money and because of water, power and possessions and pleasure, and the day have ruined history that caused so much suffering throughout forever, power, possessions and pleasure. And with those guys, it's power and it's money. They want money. Fred Eaton

wasn't just the former mayor of Los Angeles. He also used to run the Los Angeles Water Company, and he knew that without access to more water, the city was going to be in serious trouble. The Owens Valley, on the other hand, had plenty of water. Los Angeles just needed to figure out how to get it. We need to get that water in the way. You get the water as you control the land, because that's the whey

it works in California. Here, if you own the land, you control the water under it and flowing through it. Here's John Christensen. Eaton was buying up land, not telling people why he was buying it up. You know, I think you could call that surreptitiously or secretly. They were buying up this lant to be able to put that water into a aqueduct to bring it to Los Angeles. Maybe eating really was trying to help Los Angeles, but there's no doubt that he was also trying to help himself.

He bought the land in Owens Valley under his own name, not on behalf of the city. It was his intention to turn around and sell that not the land. Really the water. You do own the land, that's not the most valuable part of it. Later that year, Los Angeles voters approved a measure to buy land and water rights in Owens Valley, and who was now a major owner of those rights, former Mayor fred Ian. This was only half of the scheme. Iatan had bought the source of

the water. An aqueduct would now be constructed to take the water to l A, which left only one question where would the aqueduct end enter the San Fernando Valley Land Syndicate. The San Fernando Valley Land Syndicate was made up of some of the most wealthy people in Los Angeles, and they saw that if water was brought to Los Angeles, and particularly you know that the terminus was in the San Fernando Valley, that there could be the potential for

enormous increase in those land values. The San Fernando Valley is just north of Los Angeles, and at the time it was mostly under developed and it wasn't even part of the city. Yet they brought up land she uh some sixteen thousand acres for thirty five dollars, an acre that they later sold for millions. This story became the inspiration for the film Chinatown that we told you about earlier. Going to be a lot of irate citizens when they find out that they're paying for water that they're not

going to get. It's all Haydn Carol. So Mr Gitts, you're bringing the water to LA, or you bring LA to the water. How are you going to do that? Buying corporating the value of the city A simple as that. Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford? The future, Mr Gitts, The future in the aqueduct was completed and water from the Owens Valley began to flow into l A,

changing both places forever. Los Angeles blocked off the river and shunted the water into that ditch to go south. So sixty two miles of the Owens River dried up, and over the next ten years Owens Lake disappeared. The water from Owens Valley enabled Los Angeles as we know it today. I think without it, Los Angeles would probably be a very different place. Los Angeles built an amazing city,

incalculable wealth, known everywhere on the planet. They were skipping around and dancing at the built more, making movies in Hollywood. People were choking on dust up here, every man, woman, and child were choking on hazardous dust. How much were those lungs and lives worth of all those people, all those kids growing up breathing that stuff. Los Angeles X bloated in size as the city grew, so did its thirst. So it wasn't long before city leaders went looking for

even more water than Owens Valley could provide. That search led them to the Colorado River. Of all the rivers in the world, the Colorado is one of the most beautiful and most useful. The river's source is high on the rocky mountains, fed by the clear mountain springs and melting snows of Northern Colorado. This river it drains nearly a quarter of a million square miles of black including parts of seven states. For millions of years, the Colorado

has shaped the Southwest. It's the river that carved the Grand Canyon. By the plans were underway to draw more water from the river to fuel California's growth. The other states along the river worried California would take more than its share, so all seven states, including California, got together to make a deal on how the water would be shared. A compact between states on the Colorado River was negotiated to end Western water wars, and it's a kind of

peace compact. The deal divided the river into two parts, an upper basin including states like Colorado, and a lower basin, which included California, and then they divided it up amongst themselves based on the usage at that time. So California got the lion's share of the lower Colorado River supply. There was another rub to this. The upper states guaranteed that they would deliver water to the lower River regardless of the supply the weather drought. What does this mean.

It means that upper states like Colorado have to send the same ridge amount of water to California every year, even if they won't have enough for themselves. Back in the nineties twenties, this wasn't a problem, but today it's become a huge one because the Colorado River it's drying up. The forty million Americans who rely on the Colorado River are facing the prospect of their water running dry. This

is a crisis unlike anything that we've seen before. And I hate to be drastic or a downer, but really it's going to involve a change of life as we know it throughout here in the Southwest. Your her massive drought worsened by climate change is shrinking water supplies all over the Southwest. And this is just the beginning. Our water systems are not capable of managing this new weather and water pattern. There's crisis brewing all over the American West.

When people say that cal legs it might cause a water crisis, this is what they're talking about. If California left the United States, it could trigger the end of the Colorado River water sharing deal. The other states could then keep more water by cutting California off. California could try to make up the difference by pulling more from Owens Valley or from groundwater, but those sources are already

supplying more than they can even sustain. Also say that things could potentially get really, really bad if you lost the Colorado River. The worst case scenario would be that you would find a metropolitan area of twenty million people then danger of running out of water. You might even see you know, your water supply cut off. You're not gonna get water unless it's trucked in, and then you can go out in the street or down to your local community center and fill up a five gallon drug

and it's gotta last you for a week. Marcus and Lewis don't think California's will ever end up dragging around jugs of water. The United States could cut off some of California's water, but it wouldn't be smart. Here's Marcus, of all the fruits and vegetables that Americans eat come from California. Most Americans don't get this. Well, if you push it that hard where you cut off our water, we're not gonna lose. We'll make sure that we divert water to l a to compensate for the amount you

cut off from the Colorado River. But that water is going to come from somewhere, and that's for watering the crops that went to food to feed you. So is Marcus right when he says that California doesn't have a water problem. Here's John Christensen. That's nuts. California as we know it today would not exist without the great engineering projects of the water system that moves water from northern California to southern California, from the Colorado River to San Diego,

from Owens Valley to Los Angeles. All of that history is both a kind of delicately negotiated packed between different interests that could blow up at any minute, you know. And it's a negotiated pact really between us and the environment as well. So to say we have no problem is ignoring that we have all kinds of problems. It's true that California grows more food than we need to feed ourselves. We could save water by growing less. But it's also true that our water systems are in serious trouble.

With or without Calexy, our rivers are literally running dry. So sure, maybe California could cut a new deal to keep its Colorado River water, But that doesn't mean there wouldn't be a water problem. The impact would just hit someone else first. The taps could keep flowing in l a while they start to dry up in Colorado or Wyoming. In other words, it's just a modern day version of the story of Owens Valley. It's taking water from one place to save another, and the consequences of a decision

like that are gonna follow us for a long time. Huh, I'm hearing that's a Sora rail. That's a bird you almost never see, but you hear it. Secretive marsh birds are in group on a Saturday last April, Mike Craiter took us on the tour of Owens Lake to show us what it's like today. Because Mike isn't just a resident. He's an activist who has spent most of his life fighting Los Angeles, trying to get them to undo the damaged caused by Fred Eaton and his cronies over a

century ago. A mobotanist and a naturalist and a bird person that I've been on the Innua County Water Commission. I was on it for ten years. I chaired it. I did meetings in l A. I know all those people. They lookuponents is most often as a nuisance. We're just a nuisance, and we're just a bunch of hellbillies. And they're wrong, They're completely wrong. Mike moved to the Owens Valley in the nine eighties when toxic dust storms regularly

consumed the regime. The storms didn't just hurt Californians. The dust would regularly blow into Nevada as well as the Big Pine Piot Reservation. For decades, the state did nothing, but Mike and others persisted. Water is life and you have to feel that in your bones to have any hope of dealing with real adversity, sooner or later, there has to be some justice. Nowadays we call it environmental justice. Making something right. When you do it, you know it

doesn't matter. I mean, as sooner the better, but if it takes a long time, you should still make things right. In two thousand and one, it was actually a federal agency, the e p A, that finally forced Los Angeles to take action not just for the benefit of Owens Valley, but for all people impacted by the disaster. Mike Prather has been key to the restoration efforts. Today, thanks in parts of his work, a small amount of water is once again flowing into Owen's Lake, enough to help with

the dust and to help bring back the birds. One's Lake now has forty five square miles a dust control built by Los Angeles to control the hazardous regional dust that was created here. And so they spent a couple of billion dollars so far. Yeah, created lots of bird habit at ponds and marshes and things, and that's that's a great change. Some people complain that the federal government interferes too much in local affairs, But if California was its own nation with no oversight from the E. P. A.

Owen's Lake might still be dry. Last episode, we heard from Terry Roposa from the state of Jefferson. He defined freedom as the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want. But as Owens Valley shows us, there's no world in which we can be truly independent from each other pollution, water, climate change, they don't respect any border. That's not to say calls it can't or should it happen. It's just to say that this version of freedom is

a fantasy. California is not an island. It will always have to consider the interests of its neighbors, of the United States, which brings us to another obvious point. It's probably not in the best interests of the United States to let calls happen. Here's Barbara Walter. She wrote a book called how Civil War Start. If a piece of territory wants to pull away from its home country, that government almost never, ever, ever lets it go without a

brutal fight. And we saw that here in the United States, right when the South tried tried to succede. We fought this brutal, brutal, costly civil war. And so you know, we can say California can succeed, but don't think the govern meant is going to let you do this. Marcus and Lewis have always said they want calls it to be peaceful. Their plans started with filing paperwork and collecting signatures, notwith building an army. But what happens if part three

of their plan doesn't work? What if California's vote for calls and the United States says no. What if the only way out is war? If calls it does end up meaning a war with the United States, California is gonna need allies. Maybe that helps explain what happened on December when a truly crazy story hit the international news got some shocking news to report. Now California secessionists have

claimed they've opened an embassy in Moscow. Louis Mirinelli told the l A Times quote, we want to start laying the groundwork for a dialog dog about an independent California joining the United Nations right now. What was Louis doing in Russia? As report is quickly discovered, he was living there. I have also lived for some time in Russia as an English teacher. Referendum for independence. On that topic, our

friends in Moscow as you named them. Uh support our goal and we work together when it comes to that issue. The election of Donald Trump had brought incredible momentum to ca Legs, but the revelation of Louis's ties to Russia just a few months later sent the movement into a tailspin. You live in Russia, you declare the opening of a

California embassy in Moscow? Do you think people might grow skeptical and concern this movement is just part of some sort of a bigger strategy by the Kremlin to destabilize the West. Suddenly it's Russian spies, Russian intrigue. Why is this guy in Russia? Russia? Russia? Russia? By the winter of cal because it was facing a civil war within

the movement itself. I didn't really understand who Lewis was until he informed me that he was moving to Moscow, and at that point I told him that he must immediately resign as a leader in the organization because if he didn't, then the media would use him going there against us as a very powerful weapon. All of that was true, Russian infiltration in fighting and civil war. That's next time, on the last resort, the last Resort is

an Interval Presents original production from Awfully Nice. From Interval Presents. The executive producers are Alan Coy and Jake Kleinberg. Executive producers from Awfully Nice are Jesse Burton and Katie Haig. Just written and produced by Jesse Burton and Dana Bulut. Associate producer is Suzanne Gaber. Project management by Kadi Kama Katee. Editing, sound design and mix by Nick Sabriano and Keiana McClellan of Bang Audio. Post original music by my Boy Mattaway,

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