Owens Valley
Owens Valley is the arid ranching valley of the Owens River in eastern California in the United States. The valley stretches for approximately 75 mi (120 km) between the Sierra Nevada on the west and the Inyo and White Mountains on the east. The mountains on either side (including Mount Whitney) reach above 14,000' in elevation, while the floor of the Owens Valley is at 4000', making the valley one of the deepest in the United States. The bed of Owens Lake, now a dry alkali flat, sits on the southern end of the valley. The valley is the source of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, a source of drinking water for Los Angeles, and is famous as the scene of one of the fiercest and long-running episodes of the California Water Wars.
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The Owens Valley stretches from Haiwee Reservoir in the south to the Sherwin Summit in the north (just north of the town of Bishop). Other towns in the Owens Valley include Lone Pine, Independence and Big Pine.
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2 History 3 References 4 External links |
Geology
Beginning about 3 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada and White Mountains fault systems became active with repeated episodes of slip (earthquakes) gradually producing the impressive relief of the eastern Sierra Nevada and White Mountain escarpments that bound the northern Owens Valley-Mono Basin region.
Owens Valley is a graben: a downdropped block of land between two vertical faults. Owens Valley is the westernmost graben in the Basin and Range Province.
The western flank of much of the valley has large moraines coming off the Sierra Nevada. These unsorted piles of rock, boulders and dust were bulldozed to where they are by glaciers during the last ice age. An excellent example of a moraine is on California Highway 168 as it climbs into Buttermilk Country.
This graben was formed by a long series of earthquakes, such as the 1872 Lone Pine earthquake, that have moved the graben down and helped move the Sierra Nevada up. The graben is in fact much larger than the depth of the valley infers; gravity studies suggest that 10,000 feet of sedimentary rock mostly fills the graben and that a very steep escarpment is buried under the western length of the valley. The topmost part of this escarpment is exposed at Alabama Hills.
See also: Inyo and Mono Craters. Small versions of the Devils Postpile, can be found, for example, by Little Lake.
The Sierra Nevada casts the valley in a rain shadow, which makes Owens Valley "the land of little rain". In the early 20th century the valley became the scene a struggle between local residents and the city of Los Angeles over water rights. William Mulholland, superindendent of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) planned the Los Angeles Aqueduct, completed in 1913, which diverted water from the Owens River. Much of the water rights were acquired through subterfuge, with purchases splitting water cooperatives and pitting neighbors against each other. The purchases led to anger among local farmers, which erupted in violence in 1924, when parts of the water system were sabotaged by local farmers.
During World War II a Japanese American Internment camp operated in the valley at Manzanar near Independence, California.
As of December 17,2003, LADWP settled a lawsuit brought by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, the Owens Valley Committee, and the Sierra Club. Under the terms of the settlement, LADWP will return water to the lower Owens River by 2005, which should mitigate the alkali dust storms.
History
Eventually Los Angeles acquired a large fraction of the water rights to the valley such that inflows to Owens Lake were almost completely diverted. The lake subsequently dried up competely, leaving the present alkali flat which plagues the southern valley with alkali dust storms. References
External links