The State Water Project in pictures
Posted on | November 8, 2010 | 2 Comments
Water pumped up the foothills of the Tehachapi Mountains. Source: Aquafornia. Click on the image to be taken to Aquafornia's new slide show on California's State Water Project.
Aquafornia, the newsfeed of the Water Education Foundation, today published an educational side show on the history of the State Water Project. For those who wonder just how big a challenge to keep California hydrated Governor Jerry Brown inherited on November 2nd, click here to learn about the massive water-moving endeavor that his father, Governor Pat Brown, began in the 1950s.
The beginning of the slide show is straight up California heraldry. Glorification of the Department of Water Resources might seem a bit Soviet to those who never knew a winter without fresh fruit or vegetables. But keep clicking to follow the water. Once you do, the steadfast tracing of the project will equip you to understand news stories also running daily on Aquafornia about the California water bond that we are told we so desperately need but won’t pass, about water banking deals that drain the Bay Delta while enriching a Beverly Hills billionaire, about the energy needed to move water to Southern California, about canals buckling because of subsidence caused by groundwater pumping, about what’s pushing California salmon to extinction — our water withdrawals or Sacramento and Stockton sewage? Aquafornia shows us the dams, reservoirs, canals, pumps and pipes behind our grandeur and fragility.
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November 8th, 2010 @ 11:15 am
Yeah, love it or hate it, there it is, the State Water Project. I remember hearing Dorothy Green speak at a meeting once, saying how the projects were environmentally devastating yet beautifully engineered.
And love them or hate them, the projects have made California what it is today. And it was a different time back then. After World War II, everyone wanted to come to California, and California wanted them to come here. California industries and residents grew and prospered as a result.
There is a legacy of boosterism written into the history of California, starting after the transcontinental railroad was completed and continuing past World War II. I think it still exists to some degree today.
So while I worry about what the long-term effect of all of this large-scale nature re-organizing and altering that we have done in California will be – and there is plenty to be worried about – I am also awed by how man and engineering have accomplished the enormous task.
November 8th, 2010 @ 11:45 am
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Matt Weiser – Sacbee, Emily Green. Emily Green said: New slideshow on State Water Project from Aquafornia is perfect for teachers or confused readers of newspapers http://bit.ly/dsj88D […]