Right of Way

Case 15: Water

Access to clean, safe, and affordable water is a fundamental human right essential for a healthy population, environment, and economy. Low-income communities and communities of color in particular can lack access to water due to poor governance, low or underinvestment, outmoded technologies, ineffective systems of operation and maintenance, and the failure to involve local residents in decision-making processes.

This is especially true for unincorporated communities that do not have their own municipal governments and are consequently not able to exercise political power over water and other public works. Where residential areas are adjacent to industrial sites or waste disposal operations, aquifers used for drinking water may be polluted. Indeed, water systems that serve communities with lower median incomes, lower rates of home ownership, and higher proportions of non-white residents have been associated with higher levels of nitrate, arsenic, lead, mercury, manganese, and chemical byproducts of industrial waste.

On display in this case are reports conducted by city, state, and federal water agencies on groundwater, drainage, wastewater reclamation, and the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct; articles about the controversy surrounding acquisition of Owens Valley lands to build the Aqueduct; a magazine article commemorating the St. Francis Dam disaster, in which several hundred migrant farmworkers were killed; correspondence regarding proportional ownership and water rights were the San Fernando Valley to secede from the City of Los Angeles; and a flyer for an event protesting dumping of nuclear waste in a location that presented the potential for radioactive seepage into the water table on sacred Native American desert land.

You've reached the end of the tour for the Right of Way: Justice and Equity in the Growth of Los Angeles exhibit. Thanks for listening - we hope you've enjoyed spending time here today.

• 1

  U.S. Department of the Interior, "Underflow Tests of the Drainage Basin of Los Angeles River," 1905TC 801 U2

• 2

  Flyer, "Owens Valley: Where the Trail of the Wrecker Runs," circa 1927Duane L. Georgeson Collection

• 3

  Construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct: Final Report, 1916TD 255 L7 A35

• 4

  "That Dreadful Night," Westways, March 1961Catherine Mulholland Collection

• 5

  "Report Upon the Reclamation of Water from Sewage and Industrial Wastes in Los Angeles County, California," 1949TD 525 L8 L67 1949

• 6

  Letter to City Council Member Mike Hernandez, June 3, 1998Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment Collection

• 7

  Flyer, "! Salven al Valle de Ward y el Agua de L.A.!," 1997Juana Beatriz Gutiérrez Mothers of East Los Angeles (MELA) Collection

• 8

  The GridironJanuary 27, 1931

• 9

  "Southern Part … Inset of Photograph of Los Angeles Aqueduct Relief Map"Duane L. Georgeson Collection