The salt storm that had arisen from the lakebed was fed by salts that had been accumulating since the end of the Ice Age. Those salts had been liberated by the dehydration of Owens Valley by the City of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles was, in her defense, sorely tempted by geography. Owens Valley is a natural water source for the Los Angeles Basin. Admittedly, Los Angeles was characteristically immoderate in tapping this natural resource, but it is clear that Owens Valley and the Los Angeles Basin are linked by geography.
Not long ago, water flowed naturally from the eastern slopes of the Range in sufficient quantities to flow over the natural spillway of Owens Lake, keeping the lake free of salt. The waters would flow south to China Lake and turn east, sometimes flowing as far as Death Valley, which was a lake at the time.
There’s not much between China Lake and Los Angeles to stand in the way of an aqueduct. Most of the route is flat, perhaps because seismic troughs tend to line the eastern edge of the Range. The San Gabriel Mountains are no small obstacle, it is true, but water flowing downhill from Owens Valley has ample gravitational potential to push itself over such a modest mountain chain. The water only need be contained in a pipeline to retain the requisite pressure.
Water is king in the West, being so rare, so the effective city limits of Los Angeles quite naturally reach as far north as Mono Lake. This embattled inland lake lies farther north than San Francisco, so it happens that southern California reaches farther north than the chief city of Northern California, hence we see southern California to the east of northern California. It is a strange geography, and we have the Range to thank for it. From Tioga Pass to the Grapevine, the Range forms the boundary between these two Californias.
As much as Los Angeles thieves water from Owens Valley, the Range is a greater thief. The Range has thieved water from the Great Basin for millions of years by squeezing the water out of all the air crossing her path. Taking the waters that would otherwise feed the Great Basin, the Range has created around itself a Garden of Eden that we call California.
Though California would surely exist without the Range, it would not be the same, and this is clearly no mere matter of gold. About three quarters of the state’s readily available surface water flows off the Range. Though sunshine is what has drawn the millions to California, it is water that has allowed them to remain. It is water that has made California’s trove of sun-loving crops possible.
The fact that the Range provides so much water to California is not merely due to the fact that it’s the biggest mountain chain around. The Range looks as though it were designed to be a great dam, to capture the moisture of the westerly airstream pouring off the Pacific Ocean. The dam extends four hundred miles from north to south, capturing over twenty million acre-feet a year. As with any other dam, the effectiveness of the Range is a direct product of its location, its shape, its orientation, and its height. Like the reservoirs and diversions of southern California, the Range greedily and efficiently hoards the waters of life for California, leaving the lands downstream barren and uninhabited.