What happened to all OUR water?

Surely by now you’ve learned that we Californians are in the midst of an historic drought.  Well, “historic”, if you count only the period of time during which we’ve been noticing.  The truth is that, during the years we’ve actually recorded, California has experienced an unusual 100 or so years of wet weather, as compared to the hundreds of years prior. During these most recent 100 years, our state has experienced unprecedented population growth (from some 92,000 in 1850 to over 38 million in 2011, CA population records), making us the most populous state in the US. But even with the last century’s “wet” California weather, there’s no way that we could possibly have sustained this growth if not for the provision of water. Don’t kid yourself, California was never “wet” enough for all 38 million of us to live here. We’ve been living the dream here in So Cal, thanks to the engineering ingenuity and, some would say, the political corruption of a few men who were determined to establish Los Angeles and is environs (Pasadena, Altadena in specific) as a city with which to be contended.     

Suffice it to say that the Gold Rush of 1849 brought an enterprising man from Connecticut to California, and eventually south to a dusty ranch called Rancho San Pasqual in what was then known as the Indiana Colony.  That man, Benjamin Eaton, was hired by Don Benito Wilson (yes, the Don Benito for whom the school is named) to divert water from a nearby source for his citrus trees.  Hmmm, what would that nearby source be?