Haiwee Dam Los Angeles Aqueduct, California

The base of the Haiwee dam is where the "double barrels" of the Los Angeles Aqueduct are loaded. The Los Angeles Aqueduct supplies Los Angeles with about 70% of its drinking water. For much of it's 350 mile course, the aqueduct is actually two parallel aqueducts, a few hundred feet apart from one another. The first aqueduct was finished in 1913, and the second built in 1970. 430 million gallons a day comes through this aqueduct system after spilling down from the Eastern Sierras. The Los Angeles aqueduct system at the time of construction was the largest single water project in the world, and was an unprecedented engineering feat comprised of a number of sizable engineering projects. In its original total length of 226 miles were 142 tunnels totaling 43 miles in length; 34 miles of open unlined channel; 39 miles of concrete-lined channel; 98 miles of covered conduit; and 12 miles of siphoning steel pipe (pipe manufactured back-east and brought around Cape Horn by boat). Over the years, the reach of the aqueduct system expanded. More Owens Valley land purchases were made by the city, and more streams were captured. In the 1930's, the aqueduct was extended up to the Mono Basin by drilling an 11 mile tunnel. By stealing the water from the creeks feeding Mono Lake, the lake began evaporating, just as Owens Lake (now totally evaporated) had been years before.