Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
The opening of the Panama Canal gave California agriculture a speed-
ier route to world markets. The trivial cost of local water transit in the
bay-delta region helped as well. Back then, every piece of fruit, can of fish,
wooden plank, and workaday commuter needing to get from one shore to
another traveled across the water. At the time, four navigation companies
ran 26 steamboats and numerous barges out of Sacramento. Vessels car-
ried both freight and passengers between Sacramento and San Francisco.
“If a farmer had freight, he would put up a little flag . . . boats would stop
for even one bag of potatoes,” writes Robert Kelley. “Carrying the equiv-
alent of twenty-two carloads of freight, boats from the Valley could tie
up directly beside ocean-going vessels in San Francisco harbor, short-
circuiting all the switching and handling of railroads.”
That intimate connection with the bay and rivers that locals got from
their ferry rides, fishing trips, and goods deliveries via water changed for-
ever with the advent of the automobile and bridges to convey the four-
wheeled wonders from shore to shore.
Controlling Water Supply and Floods
The region's growth soon increased demand in the valley and around the
bay for a more stable water supply system. California suffered several dev-
astating floods in the early 1900s and equally challenging multiyear
droughts in 1917-1920 and 1923-1924, not to mention a six-year dry spell
starting in 1929. The droughts and diversions generated water and power
shortages in rural and urban areas, and spawned lawsuits and battles over
water rights. California's perpetual water wars had begun. The competi-
tion for this precious liquid kicked off an era when the natural watershed
would be re-engineered on a grand scale to serve human needs. These al-
terations, and those that followed, changed the entire flow of water around
the state, and set in motion the virtual collapse of the estuarine ecosystem
75 years later.
Engineers built dams, laid pipe, dug aqueducts, and greased pumps to
bring water from the Tuolumne and the Mokelumne rivers to the fast-
growing urban centers in the Bay Area, and eventually to take water from
the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers to the deserts of the Central Val-
ley—to irrigate lands never before farmed—and to Los Angeles. These
water-development projects grew in tandem with completion of Sacra-
mento River flood-control projects begun in the prior century. Many proj-
ects had multiuse aims, designed to generate hydropower, store and de-
liver water supplies, regulate floods and flows, and improve vessel access
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search