Roman Polanski’s classic 1974 film, “Chinatown,” which laid out a fictional account of California’s north-south water wars, turned out to be quite prescient. This week on Sea Change Radio, we welcome Katie Licari of Afro LA, who breaks down the ongoing tale of Los Angeles water and the impact this never-ending thirst has had on two very rural regions of California - Inyo and Mono Counties. We learn about the colonialist history of LA water rights and look at the monopolistic grip the LA Department of Water & Power holds over these counties.

Narrator | 00:02 - This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

Katie Licari (KL) | 00:20 - DWP has changed the rules where you can't transfer the leases more than once. If Mike Allen wanted to sell his business, the next person would have to walk away and bulldoze that business to the ground, without any chance of recouping their cost.

Narrator | 00:40 - Roman Polanski's classic 1974 film Chinatown, which laid out a fictional account of California's North South Water Wars, turned out to be quite prescient this week on Sea Change Radio. We welcome Katie Licari of Afro LA, who breaks down the ongoing tale of Los Angeles Water and the impact this never-ending thirst has had on two very rural regions of California Inyo and mono counties. We learn about the colonialist history of LA water rights and look at the monopolistic grip, the LA Department of Water and power holds over these counties. I am joined now on Sea Change Radio by Katie Licari. Katie is a reporter for Afro LA. Katie, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

Katie Licari (KL) | 01:47 - Hello. Happy to be here.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:49 - So you are in the midst of writing a multi-piece series for Afro LA, which is being syndicated on other platforms as well, like The Guardian about Los Angeles's "local" water politics, which are occurring around 300 miles away from Los Angeles. Why don't you explain the situation that exists in Inyo County and then what drew you to this project?

Katie Licari (KL) | 02:18 - I would love to. So essentially, Los Angeles gets its water from a handful of sources. They get their water from Metropolitan Water District,  which provides water from the Colorado River and the state water project up north. And then, uh, they all, and most of Southern California does get their water from metropolitan. That includes Orange County, Riverside County, San Diego County as well. But Los Angeles is very unique in that it also gets water from the Eastern Sierra, which is, up in Inyo and Mono County specifically. So water that falls to the west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, you know, kind of by like Sequoia National Park, Yosemite, that area goes into the state water project, and then all of Southern California gets use of that. But anything that falls to the east of the Sierras becomes the property of Los Angeles. And how Los Angeles secured those water rights was in the early 19 hundreds. They bought 90% of the privately available land in Inyo county, and 30% about 30% of the land in Mono County.

Alex Wise (AW) | 03:30 - It took a lot of foresight, if you think about it, this is over a century ago, and Los Angeles was not like some huge metropolis. But this was a brainchild of Mulholland, is that right?

KL | 03:41 - Yes. This was a brainchild of Mulholland. A lot of Los Angeles boosters, including the o or sorry, the Chandler family from the famously known as owning my previous employer, the Los Angeles Times, helped boost the need for this aqueduct to compete with San Francisco, which was also looking for its own water source. They ended up damning up part of Yosemite National Park, the Hetch-Hetchy Reservoir, in order to gain their water. But through these land deals, Los Angeles was able to beat San Francisco to the punch for water availability and was able to grow more rapidly as a result. 

AW | 04:22 - So I interrupted your chronology that you were laying out.