Los Angeles’ Biggest Water Threat is an Earthquake

Reported by ROSANNA XIA and RONG-GONG LIN II of the LA Times:

Los Angeles gets 88% of its water from three major aqueducts, flowing from the Colorado River, Owens Valley and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

But as they make their way into the region, the aqueducts cross the San Andreas fault a total of 32 times.

Officials have long warned that a massive temblor on the San Andreas could destroy key sections of the aqueducts, cutting off the water supply for more than 22 million people in Southern California.

If you want to know what life was like before the aqueduct, this story from Michael Holland from Off-Ramp(KPCC) sums it up:

Charter section 76 lays it out: “A day’s water shall be from sunrise to sunset and a half-day’s water shall be from sunrise to 12 [noon] and from 12 [noon] to sunset.” If you missed the days to pay for and pick up your permit, you were out of luck for that month.