STOP: CALIFORNIA AQUEDUCT
LISTEN/DOWNLOAD [MP3]

SB CUE When you see the Dos Amigos Pumping Station to the east of I-5
NB CUE Nees Ave. or the Dos Amigos Pumping Station Vista Point

SITE
California Aqueduct
View LANDSAT Map

LOCATION
Throughout the state

THREATS AND CONTAMINANTS
Water quality, water subsidies, inequity in infrastructure development and common-pool resource access

VOICE
John Gibler, writer, Edmund "Pat" Brown, Former California Governor


California's two monumental water projects, the State Water Project (SWP) and the federally funded Central Valley Project (CVP) are the largest of their kind in the world. Both convey water from the northern part of the state to the southern end with many disbursements in between. Twenty-nine water contractors including urban and agricultural water agencies, buy water from the SWP totaling over four million acre-feet a year with seventy percent going to urban users and thirty percent to agricultural users. The CVP on the other hand provides one-fifth of the state's domestic and irrigation water, approximately seven million acre-feet annually. Ninety percent of this amount goes to agricultural uses and about half of this amount is historically provided to farmers for free.

Considered its crown jewel, the SWP's Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct is the state's largest and longest water transport system, stretching 444 miles from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in the north to Lake Perris in Southern California. The aqueduct and associated channels supply water for about one million acres of farmland. Pitched during Brown's tenure as governor, the SWP was initially sold to the public in 1960 for an estimated total cost of $1.75 billion in state bonds-a misleading and low-balled figure. Construction began in 1961 and though still incomplete, the total cost for the project has grown over $4.3 billion for twenty-five dams and reservoirs, eighteen pumping plants, 683 miles of aqueducts, and eight hydro-electric power plants. In a 1979 interview with the University of California's Oral History Program Brown commented, "I was absolutely determined I was going to pass this California Water Project. I wanted this to be a monument to me."


LISTEN TO INVISIBLE-5
Stops: North >> South

Bayview Hunters Point / SF
West Oakland
Livermore
Westley
Crows Landing
Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge
Interstate 5
California Aqueduct
Tule Fog
Fresno-Coalinga Rd.
Tulare Dry Lake
Kettleman City
Alpaugh
Earlimart
Buttonwillow
Kern Water Bank
Mega-Dairies
Elk Hills
Frazier Park
Pacoima
Burbank
Los Angeles River
Boyle Heights - East LA
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DOWNLOAD INVISIBLE-5

>> SOUTHBOUND
CD1 Bayview Hunters Point-SF to Kettleman City [67.2MB ZIP/MP3]
CD2 Alpaugh to Boyle Heights-East LA [66.3MB ZIP/MP3]

>> NORTHBOUND
CD1 Boyle Heights-East LA to Alpaugh [66.3MB ZIP/MP3]
CD2 Kettleman City to Bayview Hunters Point - SF [67.2MB ZIP/MP3]

Download either SOUTHBOUND or NORTHBOUND to get all the audio files.

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