This has been a continuous war with LA since the earliest years of the last century. Before LA stole the Owens Valley water, by stealth tactics, the population of the LA area was about 15,000. Without the water from the Eastern Sierra Nevada water shed, it would still be pretty much an arid desert, with a sparse population.
In spite of numerous court decisions to save our water, LA keeps trying to get more:
http://chanceofrain.com/2012/03/ladwp-cheaper-to-fight-than-fix/http://www.alternet.org/water/145761/l.a.'s_new_scheme_to_plunder_owens_valley_water,_this_time_with_solar_panels
Here is a part of that sordid story:
http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/ov_aqueduct1/page18.html
