A Remarkable Journey to Quench Southland’s Thirst : Engineering: The state project travels 700 miles and is a symbol of defying nature to transport water.

On the western slope of the Diamond Mountains in the northern Sierra, high above Wildcat Ridge and Moonlight Peak, a narrow mountain stream fed by melting snow courses down a sheer granite face.

This is the source. This is the water that eventually flows more than 700 miles, into mountain creeks, through dams and deltas, onto canals and out of pipelines until it reaches Southern California.

From the snowmelt in the north to the tap in the south, the State Water Project’s remarkable journey is a symbol of how Southern Californians have managed to defy nature. The project scales mountain ranges, bisects earthquake faults and challenges gravity by pumping rivers uphill. It creates dams and reservoirs where there are no natural streams, and changes the course of rivers on their race to the sea.

In California, most of the water is in the north, but most of the state’s population is in the arid south. Because people did not go to the water, the state took the water to the people. The water was transported to Southern California in a manner appropriate to the lifestyle of the region--by a paved freshwater freeway called the California Aqueduct.

The 440-mile aqueduct may be concrete-lined and have a concrete bottom, but it is still a river, the longest river in California. People fish from the aqueduct, picnic along the banks and bicycle along the bikeways. They gather at the chain-link fencing at sunset, gravitating toward the nearest body of water, and listen to the curious sound of water rushing over concrete.

While residents endlessly debate the merits of the controversial project, engineers from throughout the world continue to visit Sacramento and study how so much water is transported so far.

Two additional water projects--one originating in the Owens Valley, and the other at the Colorado River--transport water to Southern California. However, the State Water Project provides more water, surmounts greater geographical barriers and transports it a longer distance than any state-operated water system in the country.

To better understand this massive project--which includes 19 reservoirs, 17 pumping plants, eight hydroelectric power plants and almost 200 miles of pipeline--a reporter and photographer recently followed the serpentine path of water.

The journey began in the mountains north of Reno, where the crystal-clear water rushes down high country streams. The color and consistency of the water gradually change as it courses down the dusty foothills, through muddy rivers in the flatlands, past sewage outflow and pesticide runoff in the Sacramento Delta.

The water streams past the urban sprawl of Southern California, where the rusting hulks of stolen cars, stripped and dumped, and the occasional drowning victim are dredged from the bottom of the aqueduct. Finally, when the water reaches filtration plants, it is chlorinated and treated so that it will bear some resemblance to the once-pristine mountain creek water.

The source of this water is at an elevation of more than 7,000 feet where Indian Creek forms in a crevice, fills with snowmelt and flows down the mountains into Antelope Lake. The water from Indian Creek, and dozens of other streams that feed into the project’s three mountain reservoirs, is periodically released downstream and eventually joins a branch of the Feather River.

On a recent spring morning, Conrad Lahr crouched beside a bend in Indian Creek and studied the flow. The banks were dusted with snow and the narrow creek was filled with runoff. It was a crystalline day and the air was scented with pine and fir. Above the trees, an eagle caught an updraft and soared between two ridges.

“It’s a long way from L.A.,” said Lahr, a water services supervisor for the state. “But eventually, this water’s going to end up there, in people’s bathtubs, sinks and water glasses.”

In its circuitous journey south, the Feather River winds through lush mountain meadows, dappled with purple wildflowers and framed by a series of towering, snow-covered peaks. The river drops down a series of steep canyons, slick with snowmelt and threaded by waterfalls from mountain tributaries.

Those who live in the small ranching communities alongside the Feather River have mixed feelings about their water ending up in Southern California. Some complain that since the wild rivers and creeks were dammed, the water flow has dropped and the fishing has deteriorated. Others say the project’s lakes and reservoirs have brought business to an economically depressed area.

“You always hear the gripe: ‘Southern California’s taking all our water so they can fill their swimming pools,’ ” said Carol Kingdon, who lives on a hillside near Indian Creek. “But then you’ve got the business people around here who are for the project. As long as we have enough water for ourselves, it’s going to be looked on as sort of a trade-off. But if they start taking more of our water, then you’ll see the sparks flying.”

After winding about 70 miles through the Sierra, and dropping thousands of feet through the mountains and foothills, several branches of the Feather River spill into Oroville Dam, through a series of canyons.

Because the canyons are so steep, and the water level can rise so rapidly, the Oroville Dam is the highest earthen dam in the country--770 feet at its crest.

When the dam was being constructed during the mid-1960s, state water officials called for California residents to send in rocks they had collected, with their histories, to be buried during construction. The rocks came from the Great Wall of China, the Great Hole diamond mine in South Africa, from the Acropolis, and from Robert E. Lee’s home in Virginia.

“We got thousands of rocks from all over. . . . Someone even sent in a rock from Hitler’s bunker during World War II,” said Charles Von Berg, a spokesman for the dam. “I don’t think we used that one, but the others were used as fill for the dam.”

Beneath the dam, in a cavern blasted out of rock, a power plant captures water flowing out of Oroville and transforms the energy into electricity. The plant is built hundreds of feet below the dam, for engineering and security reasons.

“This was constructed during the time of the Cold War,” Von Berg said, “and people were afraid of the big bombs falling back and forth, and this dam getting the big boom.”

Water released from the dam rejoins the Feather River downstream, through the Sacramento Valley, where the air is smoky with burning rice hulls. At twilight, a snowy egret floated over the river, a glittering swath of silver and pink, slowly flowing south.

The river winds through rice fields, through peach and almond orchards, the trees sprouting feathery blossoms, until it joins the Sacramento River and flows through the capital. This is where the massive project is operated, in a dim control room on the 16th floor of the Department of Water Resources building in downtown Sacramento.

Dispatchers work around the clock to transport water through a vast network of pipelines and canals to water agencies from the San Joaquin Valley to Southern California. The dispatchers monitor digital readings of control gates and water levels, study computerized delivery schedules and punch the buttons that move more than 600 billion gallons of water a year.

They always have to be prepared for mishaps, said Bob Huss, a senior dispatcher. If someone drowns in a canal, Huss has to shut down the flow of water so divers can search for the body. If a tumbleweed clogs an intake pump, he has to be prepared to reroute the water. If a crop duster knocks out a power line, Huss has to find another source of energy to pump the water.

“Events that happen hundreds of miles away can affect how much water L.A. gets that day,” Huss said. “Even events that happen thousands of miles away can affect water deliveries to L.A. . . . because our electrical power is tied in with a number of other Western states.”

After the water winds through Sacramento it flows toward the delta, a vast maze of waterways fed by the Sacramento and other rivers. The delta is a sensitive estuary that supports numerous species of fish and wildlife, some threatened because of too much pumping. This is the critical transfer point for the water, where environmentalists and state officials battle over how much freshwater should stream into the San Francisco Bay and how much should be shipped south.

The water is transported out of the delta through a remarkable engineering feat. The project alters the flow of the Sacramento and other rivers as they flow toward San Francisco Bay by sucking the water 30 miles south, with 35,000-horsepower pumps, to the southern edge of the delta. The water is then pumped 245 feet uphill, through huge pipes, and into the California Aqueduct for its long journey south.

While a natural river flows steadily from the source, the water in the aqueduct must be artificially transported. In a rhythmic series of rises and falls, the water drifts down a long section of the aqueduct--built at a grade--and then is propelled high atop a pumping station and piped into another section of aqueduct.

This artificial river is even dammed up in spots like a mountain creek to create reservoirs for surplus supplies. Instead of coursing down a mountainside, at the San Luis Dam near Los Banos, the water is pumped uphill to reach the immense reservoir.

After the water is released from San Luis, it winds through the western San Joaquin Valley, through farmland made profitable by imported water. At one time this land was semidesert, arid and dusty. Now, there are endless acres of cotton, melons and fruit trees, crops that bring employment and income to the area.

This water can also bring death and deformity to many bird species in the valley, critics say. Not far from the aqueduct are evaporation ponds that farmers use to hold water drained from their land. Because the land has a high degree of salts and naturally occurring chemicals--concentrated to extremely high levels as the water trickles through the soil--these ponds can prove deadly to migrating birds.

After the water leaves the valley, it is delivered primarily to urban areas. First, the project must confront its greatest geographical challenge--the Tehachapi Mountains. A flood of water is pumped uphill in stages. At the final, dramatic stage at the A.D. Edmonston pumping plant, it is shot out of massive pipes over the mountains--a lift of almost 2,000 feet--and down into Los Angeles County.

When water from the project was first pumped over the Tehachapis into Southern California in 1971, a group of conservationists gathered in the San Francisco Ecology Center office for what they called a wake.

“Farewell to the sweet waters. . . . We remember them well,” said T.H. Watkins, an author and critic of the project, as mourners popped champagne corks.

Northern Californians strongly opposed sending the water from their rivers and streams south. The 1960 political campaign for funding the State Water Project was one of the most divisive in the state’s history. All Southern California counties voted for it, and all Northern California counties--except one that anticipated financial benefits--opposed it.

Today, the water is distributed throughout Southern California. After it is pumped over the Tehachapis, the aqueduct splits into a large V--the west branch heading toward Castaic Lake in the Angeles National Forest and the east branch toward Lake Perris in Riverside County.

On a recent weekend afternoon at Castaic, few of the windsurfers and fishermen had any idea that the water had traveled such a long and tortuous path. When asked the origin of the water that filled the lake, most guessed.

“Maybe it comes from a river around here,” said Joe Stevens, who was fishing on the rocks.

“Melted snow from Gorman,” said windsurfer Raymond Carrillo.

“The Owens Valley,” said fisherman Ralph Sanger.

From Castaic, the eastern branch of the aqueduct winds through earthquake country, the fissure-ridden landscape of the San Andreas Fault. The aqueduct parallels the San Andreas through Palmdale, past a vast patchwork of new housing tracts. This is just one of the spots where the project crosses fault lines.

The project was built to withstand a massive earthquake, and has held up well during temblors, with only minor damage to facilities, said Rich Kuphaldt, a supervising engineer for the state. Engineers have expressed concern about the proliferating housing tracts in Palmdale, built a few hundred feet below the intertwining paths of the San Andreas and the aqueduct.

“It doesn’t bother me,” said Greg Royal, whose Palmdale house is at the end of a cul-de-sac directly below the aqueduct. “I bought the house because of the location. . . . Because the aqueduct’s right there we have more privacy. I figure whether you die in the bathtub, or under a torrent of water, when it’s your time to go, you’re going to go.”

Engineers from the state are trying to ensure that no more housing tracts are built on embankments below the aqueduct, Kuphaldt said. They recently began reviewing, well in advance of construction, the plans for all proposed developments.

The eastern branch of the aqueduct winds through the high desert, near Hesperia, where 26 cars were pulled from the canal after it was drained last summer. After the aqueduct cuts through northern San Bernardino County, the water ends up at Lake Perris, the final State Water Project reservoir.

“Lake Perris . . . end of the line,” Dan Mason called out, like a train conductor, as he drove up to the edge of the reservoir. Mason, a water resource technician for the state, explained that the aqueduct “is like a giant soaker hose and different water agencies get supplies from up north all the way down to Lake Perris.”

The Metropolitan Water District has intake pipes at Lake Perris, Castaic and several other spots. It then transports the water to its five filtration plants and sells it to water agencies throughout Southern California.

The MWD is the wholesaler and agencies such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power are the retailers who sell the water and pipe it to homes and businesses. This water, which originates high in the northern Sierra, is piped as far south as San Diego, where the local water district stores it, along with water from other sources, at the Lower Otay Reservoir.

After the water is treated again, it is transported underground through a huge pipe, then to a series of narrower distribution lines as it travels south, until it flows to its southernmost point--through a six-inch pipe and into the washroom taps of the U.S. Customs Service checkpoint in San Ysidro, on the Mexican border.

“At other border crossings, we bring in bottled water,” said Jerry Martin, the port director at San Ysidro. “But we don’t here. Considering how far this water’s traveled, it doesn’t taste too bad.”

700-Mile Journey

State Water Project: Key Points on the Way

* SOURCE: The water for the state’s largest system originates in the remote Indian Creek and dozens of other streams north of Reno.

* KEY STORAGE: Oroville Reservoir, the largest in the project, is a critical storage facility for the system, holding up to 270 billion gallons of water (because of the drought, it’s only about 40% full). Its dam--770 feet at its crest--is the highest earthen dam in the country.

* CONTROL SITE: In downtown Sacramento, on the 16th floor of the Department of Water Resources building, dispatchers work around the clock to transport water to 31 water agencies statewide.

* TRANSFER CENTER: The Sacramento Delta, a vast maze of waterways fed by several rivers, is the critical transfer point for the project. Massive quantities of water are sucked south onto the 440-mile California Aqueduct.

* HIGH POINT: The water confronts its greatest geographical challenge at the Tehachapis, where it must be pumped up 2,000 feet.

* THE SPLIT: To serve its vast area, the aqueduct splits into a large V after the Tehachapis; the west branch heads toward Castaic Lake and the east branch toward Lake Perris in Riverside County.

* THE DISTANCE: Water from the project ultimately may be transported to the U.S. Customs Service checkpoint at San Ysidro--a distance of more than 700 miles.