thumb|right|Map of the Colorado River Aqueduct

thumb|Whitsett Pumping Plant, located on Lake Havasu reservoir, lifts water 291 feet (89 m) for the Colorado River Aqueduct, on the California side.

thumb|Colorado River Aqueduct near Joshua Tree National Park, including Pinto Wash Syphon, north of Desert Center

The Colorado River Aqueduct, or CRA, is a water conveyance in Southern California in the United States, operated by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The aqueduct impounds water from the Colorado River at Lake Havasu on the California–Arizona border, west across the Mojave and Colorado deserts to the east side of the Santa Ana Mountains. It is one of the primary sources of drinking water for Southern California.

Originally conceived by William Mulholland and designed by Chief Engineer Frank E. Weymouth of the MWD, it was the largest public works project in southern California during the Great Depression. The project employed 30,000 people over an eight-year period and as many as 10,000 at one time.

The system is composed of two reservoirs, five pumping stations, of canals, of tunnels, and of buried conduit and siphons. Average annual throughput is .

Background and construction

As the Los Angeles metropolitan area grew in the early 1900s, Mulholland and others began looking for new sources of water. Eventually, Los Angeles laid claim to the waters of the Owens Valley, east of the Sierra Nevada, and in 1913 completed the Los Angeles Aqueduct to deliver its waters to the burgeoning city. By the early 1920s, Los Angeles had grown so rapidly that the Owens River watershed could no longer supply the city's needs for domestic and agricultural water. By 1923, Mulholland and his engineers were looking east to an even larger water supply, the Colorado River. The plan was to dam the Colorado River and carry its waters across hundreds of miles of mountains and deserts. In 1924, the first steps were taken to create a metropolitan water district, made up of various cities throughout southern California. The Metropolitan Water District ("Met") was incorporated on December 6, 1928, and in 1929 took over where Los Angeles had left off, planning for a Colorado River aqueduct. (During the same period, as a hedge against the possible abandonment of the planned Colorado River aqueduct, Los Angeles also undertook an extension of the Los Angeles Aqueduct to the Mono Lake Basin.)

The MWD considered eight routes for the aqueduct. In 1931, the MWD board of directors chose the Parker route which would require the building of the Parker Dam. The Parker route was chosen because it was seen as the safest and most economical.

In 1955, the aqueduct was recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) as one of their "Seven Modern Civil Engineering Wonders".

The Colorado River Aqueduct was featured by Huell Howser in California's Gold.

See also

  • San Jacinto Tunnel
  • Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project
  • Ganga Water Lift Project

References

  • Metropolitan Water District of Southern California official website
  • Colorado River Aqueduct Page at Maven's Notebook
  • The Colorado River Aqueduct at The Center for Land Use Interpretation
  • The Los Angeles Aqueduct at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power