Colorado River Aqueduct

I have always found it amazing, the ingenuity, drive and strength of the "Greatest Generation". Even before it was necessary, the Los Angels water board decided to figure out how to get water from the Colorado River over 200 miles away. In the late 20's William Mulholland gave the idea and a designer named Frank Weymouth did the implementing of it. 

One of the first things they did was dam the Colorado River so as to have a body of water they could then send to Los Angeles. This dam, Parker Dam, created Lake Havasu on the California/Arizona border. It might surprise you just looking at the dam that it is referred as the "deepest dam in the world". This because 73% of the dams structure is below the stream bed.

When the dam was started in 1932, 5 pumping stations such as this one at Eagle Mountain were being built. Although the pumps take the water from 300 to 600 feet, depending on the location, it takes enormous amounts of electricity to do the job. The first 5 years in service from 1941 to 1946 only 2% of the water capacity was delivered...too much water and too few customers. I would say these gentlemen were sure ahead of the curve.

There are 63 miles of open canals, some with

signs such as this. I feel sorry for the poor guy that decides to jump in and take a bath...that water was moving fast. So fast that in the previous photo you will see some knotted ropes touching the water. This is because ten feet out of camera range the water goes down into an underground buried conduit and siphon. If you miss the rope I sure hope you have "gills".

Here the water, while still in the underground conduit, heads for one of the many tunnels.

A closer look at the cut in the mountain where the water disappears into a tunnel for the next 4 or 5 miles.

Some of the statistics of the project that started in 1933 and completed in 1942.

One dam...Parker

Two reservoirs...Havasu and Mathews

Five pumping plants

63 miles of canals

84 miles of buried conduits and siphons

95 miles of tunnels...this I have to repeat,

95 MILES of tunnels in the 30's with the equipment they had? Amazing.

I saw some of the underground conduits in Desert Hot Springs last year and I have read about the 13 mile tunnel under San Jacinto near Palm Springs which took six years to complete...then another 30 years in court with lawsuits.