American Lightning by Howard Blum Page A

Lippincott, the smooth-talking chief engineer of the U.S. Reclamation Service, arrived and went from ranch to ranch explaining that the government was determined to bring water to over 200,000 acres of adjacent desert land. This land would be irrigated at government expense by government engineers. It would be, he conceded, a complex undertaking involving an intricate network of canals and sluices. But in time this tract of desert would bloom, too. And best of all, Lippincott told the ranchers, when the construction was finished, they would be able to buy back the irrigated land from the U.S. government at the bargain price of $23 an acre. There was one small catch: To avoid delays, Lippincott urged the valley residents and their municipal water companies to turn over their rights and claims to the undeveloped desert land and to the Owens River water. The government, he promised, would protect their interests. The transfer of ownership was merely a legal technicality. The land and the water rights would be returned to the original owners once the project was completed.
    What a deal! the ranchers thought. They would sign over worthless desert land, and then after it was improved at the government’s expense, they would buy it back for a song. With no investment of their own, a valueless asset would be transformed into something substantial. The trusting ranchers eagerly complied, and the government survey of the valley began. The fieldwork dragged on for several years, producing a flurry of maps and charts and stream measurements.
    Unknown to them, a bemused Billy went on, the real hub of activity was down in Los Angeles—in the offices of a cabal of politicians and businessmen. And a deal too good to be true would prove to be just that.
    Lippincott was a fraud. He did work for the federal government, but he was also receiving a salary from the city of Los Angeles. And he had known that the Owens Valley reclamation project would never happen because all along another, grander plan was covertly taking shape.
    The well-coordinated plot proceeded on several fronts simultaneously, said Billy. In Owens Valley, as the government engineers scurried about, two men appeared. The one who did all the hail-fellow talking was Fred Eaton, a former mayor of Los Angeles. The other, scholarly and taciturn, was William Mulholland, chief of the Los Angeles Water Department. Eaton introduced himself as Lip-pincott’s agent, and using the government-funded surveys of the valley as his guide, he began buying additional land.
    But Eaton wasn’t purchasing land for the government. He was the front man for a group of Los Angeles businessmen—Otis prominent among them—who had other plans for the Owens River. They wanted to bring its water to Los Angeles.
    Their intention was to construct an aqueduct into the river and then divert this stream of water to the city 250 miles away. It would be a complex engineering feat and a costly one. Under Mullholland’s supervision, however, the plan for the world’s longest aqueduct was secretly formulated.
    Once Eaton had acquired all the necessary land, the government officially announced that it was no longer interested in developing Owens Valley. On cue, with the front page of the
Los Angeles Times
leading the way, the plan for the aqueduct was revealed in 1906 to the city’s citizens. And with this front-page story, a public relations campaign began.
    The
Times
hammered away, relentless in its doomsday fervor. Without the aqueduct, the city’s future would be dire. A single drought would ruin Los Angeles. Expansion, prosperity—all would be impossible. The bustling metropolis would revert to the parched desert town it had once been. The city had only one hope: The voters would have to approve $22.5 million in bonds to build an aqueduct from the Owens River to Los Angeles.
    Concerned, even frightened, the voters dutifully fell into line, Billy explained. The sale of the bonds was approved. And the