Every Last Drop: Exposés on the L.A./Eastern Sierra Water Wars
There are times when life comes full circle in an endearing pattern. And then there are those times when serendipity takes on the importance of ancestral work. That is what it feels like to be writing the Every Last Drop: Exposés on the L.A. / Eastern Sierra Water Wars, a biweekly newsletter of the Keep Long Valley Green Coalition (keeplongvalleygreen.org).
Our diverse coalition includes Tribal governments, ranchers, county and city governments, businesses, and local and national environmental groups working to prevent the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power from draining every last drop from Payahuunadü, “the land of flowing water,” which is what the Paiute people call the Eastern Sierra.
Every Last Drop aims to distill the turbulent history and complex issue of water into manageable, drop-sized installments for the benefit of residents of Inyo, Mono and Los Angeles counties. Armed with knowledge, we may stand united in seeking solutions for water justice. The “Murky Waters” section will allow our coalition members, many of whom have been on the front lines engaging with DWP for decades, to tell their own stories. By highlighting relevant news, research and personal interviews, Every Last Drop will strive to bring to the surface accountability and solutions that ultimately will drive LADWP to deliver water to the people of Los Angeles at a reasonable price while preserving the ecosystems of the Eastern Sierra for truly fair and sustainable water sharing (“conservation dividends”).
In Every Last Drop, we will expose murky waters and suggest conservation dividends that will merge into a powerful current for change.
In this first issue, we invite you to read a thoughtful piece by Eastern Sierra Author and Every Last Drop Writer/Editor Jamie Della, on how we were swept into the current maelstrom. We hope this read will inspire you to subscribe to our newsletter, share our mission with your friends and family, and become an action ally with the Keep Long Valley Green Coalition.
On a mission for water justice
By Jamie Della
Direct contact with the natural world is crucial in shaping our ability to extend our ethics beyond our own self-interest. In this land of flowing waters, tall green grass danced in the winds that, like breath, blew up and exhaled down the Eastern Sierra range. The Paiute people created miles of irrigation canals to water gardens for medicine and food. From spring through fall, the creeks rose and fell with snow melt. The water brought life, turning chalk white Aspen bark into chartreuse trunks that sprouted bright green leaves.
As the City of Los Angeles grew, its leaders looked to Payahuunadu’s snow-capped mountains and claimed water belonging to another community for their own. Through lies, intimidation and at gunpoint, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) built the aqueduct and drained the water from the Great Basin, literally a bowl, to fill their bowl of Los Angeles, without answering to the community from which they took. The land grew barren and all indigenous life in the area suffered without a voice at the table.
Recently, the people of Los Angeles have made great strides to reduce their water use and yet LADWP has not shared the conservation dividends with the Eastern Sierra. Despite the hard-earned savings by Angelinos, DWP is purposefully confusing their customers and brushing over the fact that they are not sharing in their conservation dividends. Claims for legal entitlement hide the nearly 50 noncompliance issues, a brutal history, and current mitigation costs that are passed along to the ratepayers.
The drying out of the Owens Lake and River did not take into account its unintended effect of creating a deadly toxic dust that caused death through dust pneumonia for hundreds of people. In our next newsletter, discover how the Eastern Sierra dust bowl currently affects this land, flora, fauna and perhaps even you.
The Keep Long Valley Green coalition believes DWP should give the people, economy, and ecosystems of Payahuunadu a seat at the table. It is time for a shared water ethic. We ask that you tell people about this newsletter so that we can collectively deliver the message that we know DWP can meet the water needs of Los Angeles and decrease its take from the Eastern Sierra. Please share this newsletter with others and subscribe.
My connection to water runs deep and long in southern California. My ancestor, Bernardo Yorba, namesake of the San Bernardino Mountains and city of Yorba Linda, was an admired California Don for his ingenious diversion of water from the Santa Ana River up to his gardens and orchards that fed more than 100 people on Rancho Cañón de Santa Ana during the Spanish Ranchero period around 1810-1850s. Other Spanish Dons and then German Americans growing grapes in Anaheim often requested that he visit their ranchos and teach them how to irrigate uphill.
Unique for the times, Don Bernardo Yorba treated Kizh people, Native population of the area, with respect, taught them trades and paid them in cash rather than the slave or feudal system popular with other California Dons. He opened a school and endeavored to help the Kizh adopt to the changing times. He gave them titles such as Zanjeros for those who were assigned to watch the irrigation ditches (zanjas).
Manifest Destiny arrived in Spanish Californio during the Mexican American War of 1846-48. Soon squatters came, land was stolen for petty reasons and the power changed hands once again. When Don Bernardo Yorba died in 1858, one hundred Native people carried his body in a wailing procession to Los Angeles, the closest cemetery of blessed earth. The people never returned to the rancho because they had learned enough skills and acquired enough money to live on their own.
When I watch how the Paiute people demonstrate ancestral evidence of their water irrigation in the Paya movie, I wonder if the Kizh taught my ancestor how to move water uphill.
Water has always been at the forefront of my mind as a natural resource that must be shared, respected and preserved. At one point I admired my Spanish ancestors for their gallantry, and now only one among them, Don Bernardo Yorba, stands tall. Instead, my attention is focused on equality and fair treatment for all, especially those who have walked this land long before us and have a deeper wisdom and relationship with the earth.
In September of 2019, I carried a vial of water from Hilton Creek to the top of the Yorba Castle in Cataluyna. Inspired by the recent formation of the Keep Long Valley Green coalition, I poured the water on the sandy turret with the wish that powerful conquerors’ thirst would be slaked and no one would take more than their share. And now, nearly two years later I am exposing the corruption of Los Angeles water grabs from the Eastern Sierra in an accountability campaign.
“No sabemos lo que vale el agua hasta que se seca el pozo,” is my favorite Spanish dicho, also known as proverb, that means, “We don't know the value of water until the well runs dry.”
