Geologists track the Earth’s age to this time, based on the oldest rocks found on the planet.

CGS

The oldest rocks in Southern California date to this period. Southern California’s oldest rocks were formed and are presently located in the eastern deserts and in the eastern Transverse Ranges known as the San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountains.

CGS

Southern California was under the ocean. Geologists estimate the coastline was at contemporary Utah and Idaho. Marine sedimentary rocks from this period were exposed in the mountains east of the Sierra Nevada.

CGS

The Sierra Nevada mountain ranges are formed. Through the process of plate tectonics, geologists estimate the Pacific Plate collided with the North American Plate, forcing the Pacific Plate to submerge under the North American Plate. The sediments from the Pacific Plate subducted deeper and eventually melted into magma. This building magma created the granitic skeleton to the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges.

CGS

Los Angeles’ basin rose from the ocean, 350 miles south from its present location and moved northward slowly over time. The Santa Monica slates, metamorphic rocks, were formed from deep-sea mud.

CGS

Intrusions of molten material that baked the sea floor shales into slates became the Hollywood granites.

CGS

The east Pacific rise intersected with the continental rise, creating the San Andreas Fault line.

CGS

The "Topanga Formation," a rock formation of light-color sandstones and shales, was deposited in its current location.

CGS

Most of Southern California’s mountain ranges uplifted at an accelerated pace, including the Coast, the Peninsular, the Sierra Nevada, and the Transverse Ranges.

CGS

This timeline follows the contemporary calendar model, also known as the Gregorian calendar, which was developed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and uses the Earth’s rotation and axis in relationship to the sun as the measurement of time. This section provides a more specific history of the interaction of humans and uses first hand accounts whenever possible to describe phenomena occurring in nature.

The daily lives of people in California were immersed in the natural world throughout the region’s past. Differing concepts of land and time are at the center of how Southern California was construed by the indigenous people who lived here at the time of the first interactions with Europeans. Although the creation myths of California’s indigenous people are difficult to determine due to the oral traditions of native cultures and the biases involved in the writing of history, anthropologist A.L. Kroeber attempted to track information on all aspects of these cultures in the early 20th century. Kroeber’s tome Handbook of the Indians of California, published in 1925, described animals as central to the cosmology of the Indians in the Los Angeles region.

Porpoises were believed to watch the world, circling around it to see that it was safe and in good order. The crow was thought to advise on the approach of strangers….Still more significant in this direction is the report that a surpassingly wise “chief,” before dying, told the people that he would become an eagle so that they might have his feathers for dances; and that consequently ceremonies were made to the eagle.

Anthropologists have charted how tribes in California followed a subsistence economy---only killing enough animals and gathering enough food for survival and nothing more. Further, the taking of life for food often held spiritual significance and was acknowledged. Early native people in Southern California did not have a concept of ownership to the land as we do today; rather, early Chumash and Tongva tribes traveled across the land and sea, following the source of food. Spanish colonists who came to Southern California considered the people already living here as uncivilized, requiring conversion to Christianity, and the land too as uncivilized, empty and requiring cultivation. The Western concept of seeing land as a commodity, something to be owned, strikes at the heart of the difference between the people that already lived here and European newcomers arriving in the 18th century. Though Spain established the first colonies in Southern California through the 1769 Sacred Expedition (through a plan of missions, presidios or forts, and pueblos or towns), the English and Russian Empires had interests in California. Each saw California’s bounty in different ways—the Spanish saw a colonial model tied to its military and religious mission; the English investigated San Francisco’s bay for strategic naval and military sites; and the Russian presence in California consisted of fur trappers and traders.

Spanish concepts of the New World and its inhabitants were presented in a 1542 romance series by Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo. The fifth volume of the series dealt with the protagonist’s adventures on an island rich in gold but run by man-eating Amazonian black women, whose leader’s name was Calafia. It is after this character that the Spanish states of Alta and Baja California were named. Under Spanish colonial rule, Southern California was part of the state known as Alta California. Governor Felipe de Neve investigated sites to build new Spanish pueblos and learned of the area near the Los Angeles river from Juan Crespi’s writing. Governor Felipe de Neve’s 1777 “Fundamental Laws of California” laid out the laws of the new town and provided the incentive of free land to Spanish soldiers who would abide by the laws. Increasingly, Spain granted large parcels of Alta California land to Spanish soldiers, in part to pay for their service to the Spanish crown.

Estimates of California’s pre-Columbian indigenous population range from 300,000 – 1,000,000 people living in small groups. Historian Carey McWilliams noted that the missions’ population of 130,000 in 1769 dwindled to 83,000 by 1832 due to exposure to disease and maltreatment.

Geologists estimate the ancestors of Native Americans migrated eastward across ice and land bridges that spanned the Bering Strait between Asia and North America. Others contend that people moved northward from the continent of South America to what is now present-day California.

Rawls

In pursuit of animals such as bison and the giant sloth, migrations of people penetrated most of North and South America. Southern California, according to archaelogists, would be a broad desert playa with a lake made up of shallow, brackish waters, emblematic of the late Pleistocene.

Chartkoff

The La Brea Woman was estimated to have lived now. The “La Brea Woman’s” skeleton was found in 1914 in what is now the La Brea Tar Pits, along with a broken grinding stone and the remains of a domesticated dog--both typical burial objects of the Tongva tribe. According to historian Rosanne Welch, this woman is thought to be part of the Tongva tribe whose creation myth centered on one god, Qua-o-ar or Chingichngish, whose name translated to “Giver of Life.”

Welch

Complex, specialized cultures, similar to those that European explorers encountered after 1542, were firmly established in California as evidenced by tools discovered in archaeological digs.

Rawls (A)

Fray Juan Crespi recorded the Sacred Expedition and observations on the area now known as Los Angeles.

“August 2, Porciuncula Day. We set out from here in the valley, following the same level on a due westward course. On going about a league an a half, we came to a little low range that we had had in view in this direction, and through a hollow with level soil, with a few ups and downs over very low rolling knolls, on going about three hours we came to the watering place the Captain and his soldiers found yesterday, another good-sized, full-flowing river with very good water, pure and fresh, flowing through another very pleasant green valley lying westward. Where we saw it, this river bed is about seven yards wide. It flows from north-northwest, from the mountains; while there is a large dry creek to the north-northeast, with a very large bed showing plainly what gig torrents it must carry, with dead trees visible in its bed that it must carry down from the mountains, and in its bed large pine-nut cones have been found; a great many nut shells have also been seen. A great deal of trees are visible upon the beds of both, large sycamores, willows, a great many cottonwoods, very large live oaks, and they saw gueribo trees farther down. Finally, a large flat also runs from north to southward, one much more inviting than those behind us; through its midst runs the full flowing river here. On either side of the river there are very large, very green bottomlands, seeming from afar to be cornfields because of their greenness.”

 

Crespi

Mission San Gabriel Arcangel was founded on September 8.

Pitt & Pitt

Writing on Mission San Diego in 1774 Fray Francisco Palou noted the settlement’s struggles with the environment. “As this mission lacks water to irrigate the plentiful good land that it has, they must suffer want unless they succeed in raising seasonal crops. They have had experience of this in the first two years. The first year the river, which flows only in the rainy season near the hill on which the mission is situated, rose so high that it carried away all the seed. The second year they planted farther away from the river, and the rains failed at the best time and the seed was lost, excepting only five bushels of wheat, which they sowed about two leagues from the mission, having found by experience that rain fell more frequently at that place. Exploration has been made in the district around the mission for a radius of ten leagues, but no running water has been found for irrigating. But for the cattle there is sufficient water in several places, with a great abundance of pasture…The heathen live on grass seeds which they harvest in their season, and which they make into sheaves as is usually done with the wheat, adding to it fish and game, hares and rabbits, of which there is an abundance.”

Palou

The pueblo of Los Angeles was founded. Six months prior to the establishment of the Los Angeles pueblo in 1781, Alta California Governor de Neve undertook preliminary diplomacy with the Tongva Indians at the Yaanga settlement (located on what is now the Los Angeles Civic Center) to develop friendly relations with the local people before Spanish settlers began moving into the area. Yaanga was a favorite native trading center. Governor de Neve arranged for the baptisms of dozens of Yaanga residents and even assumed the role of padrino (godparent) for 12 persons. El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de Los Angeles was named after the Virgin Mary, Queen of the Angels. The Zanja Madre (mother ditch) was dug, connecting the pueblo to the Los Angeles River and creating a water source for the settlement.

Estrada

The first of Southern California’s vast land grants was issued by the Spanish government in payment to Juan José Dominguez and was composed of 48,000 acres including the cities now known as Carson, Compton, Gardena, Hermosa Beach, Harbor City, Lomita, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, San Pedro, Torrance and Wilmington.

Pitt & Pitt

The Los Angeles pueblo population totaled 139.

Pitt & Pitt

Pitt & Pitt

The Los Angeles pueblo population totaled 315.

Pitt & Pitt

Alta and Baja California are separated into two different states.

Pitt & Pitt

Mission San Gabriel planted its first orange grove, composed of 6 acres and 400 trees.

Monroy

The population of Los Angeles totaled 354.

Pitt & Pitt

The Mexican War for Independence from Spain began, initiating a decade of war.

Rawls (B)

The Los Angeles River flooded the young pueblo of Los Angeles.

Pitt & Pitt

The Los Angeles River again flooded the pueblo and destroyed the Plaza. The Yaanga settlement survived the flood.

Deverell & Hise

Due to a flood, the Los Angeles River changed course to empty into San Pedro Bay.

Pitt & Pitt

San Pedro was designated as a port.

Pitt & Pitt

The Los Angeles River again flooded the pueblo.

Pitt & Pitt

California’s mission lands were secularized, their land broken up and the mission system ended. Following Mexican independence, new leaders called for the ending of the missions and the break up of mission lands. Lands were divided into vast ranchos, often granted to former soldiers in return for their allegiance during the War for Independence. This period was called the ‘Californio’ or Mexican period of California history. In Southern California, large tracts of land were devoted to cattle ranches, whose primary export was tallow and hide. Southern California was marked by its dust and desert-like qualities, with chaparral as a major source of vegetation. Of the missions’ eight million acres originally designated to converted Native Americans, 500 land grants were created for influential families.

Monroy

The population of the pueblo of Los Angeles totaled 1,250.

Pitt & Pitt

Tallow trader and future Californian, Faxon Dean Atherton noted a visit to Los Angeles in his diary:

“The pueblo is situated…on a dry sandy soil which, not withstanding, is said to be pretty productive, especially for the grape; it is said to be superior. There is, however, but one vineyard of consequence, although there are a number that are now being planted. It possesses one great advantage over any other place southward of Monterrey in having a considerable stream of water that is never dry and which can be led over a large extent of ground in any direction, the bed of the river back of the town being higher than the plain on which it is situated….The place is said to contain about 1,500 inhabitants among which are 40 or 50 foreigners. The native inhabitants are a rascally set of vicious cut throat villains among whom, however, are some very good men though of small abilities.”

Atherton

William Wolfskill from Kentucky married into the Lugo family and planted a two-acre orange orchard on Fifth Street and Alameda Street. His work to introduce oranges into Southern California brought him the title "the father of the California citrus industry." A grapefruit tree from his ranch still lives in Little Tokyo as a memorial to his ranch and this time period.

Pitt & Pitt

Gold was discovered in Placerita Canyon by Francisco López. This discovery was dwarfed by the 1848 discovery at Sutter’s Mill, which also played a role in newly acquired California being ushered into the Union as a state following the Mexican American War.

Rasmussen

The population for the pueblo of Los Angeles was estimated at 5,000.

Pitt & Pitt

The Treaty of Cahuenga ended the fighting of the Mexican-American War in California. The treaty was signed by Lieutenant-Colonel John C. Fremont and General Andrés Pico on January 13, 1847 on the kitchen table of Tomás Feliz's six-room adobe house at Campo de Cahuenga in what is now North Hollywood. The treaty allowed the Californios who fought under the Mexican Flag to return home after giving up their artillery, and provided that all prisoners from both sides be immediately freed.

Pitt & Pitt

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, ending the Mexican and American War. Mexico ceded the state of Alta California to the United States, along with much of the current Southwest of the United States

Pitt & Pitt

United States Army Lieutenant Edward O. C. Ord conducted the first official Los Angeles city survey and discovered the town’s total area to be 28 square miles.

Pitt & Pitt

The United States Census included a count of 1,610 inhabitants in the town of Los Angeles. Los Angeles County was incorporated. Los Angeles County population was estimated at 3,530.

Pitt & Pitt

Los Angeles was incorporated in 1850 and Dr. Alpheus P. Hodges took office as the first mayor of Los Angeles after its incorporation. Dr. Hodges was also appointed county coroner at the same occasion.

Rudd

The United States Senate passed Gwinn’s Act to Ascertain the Land Claims in California. The Act mandated that three members appointed by the President rule on land claims in the new state. The proceedings are formal, and either side can appeal to the United States District Court and to the United States Supreme Court. While it intended to secure fair treatment of Mexicans’ land claims, the bill actually worked in the reverse and many landowners lost their holdings due to court costs; proceedings were in English and only the wealthy ranchers could afford the lengthy legal process.

Monroy

Los Angeles residents reported experiencing an earthquake.

Pitt & Pitt

Takaki

Intense rainfall led to the flooding of the San Fernando Valley. In January, Southern California received rain for 28 days straight, causing intense damage and the merging of the Los Angeles, San Gabriel, and Santa Ana Rivers. Much of the San Fernando Valley was underwater due to flooding.

Monroy

A drought gravely affected the cattle industry, headed mainly by Californio families. The drought, in addition to the implementation of the 1851 Gwinn Act, served to devastate the ranchos and led to the break-up of these vast land holdings, largely for purchase by newcomers to Southern California.

Monroy

Cristobal Aguilar, Los Angeles Mayor from 1866 to 1868, vetoed a city council proposal to sell the city's water rights to a private company in order to generate more revenue for the city.

Pitt & Pitt

Wheat replaced cattle in the San Fernando Valley. In 1869 Isaac Lankershim purchased land part of Andrés and Pío Pico’s land holdings in the San Fernando Valley for less than $2 an acre (just south of contemporary Roscoe). Lankershim devoted most of the property to growing wheat and was one of the country’s largest wheat producers.

Pitt & Pitt

San Pedro was established as the harbor for Los Angeles. When the port cities banded together to join Los Angeles in 1909, the harbor was officially named Los Angeles Harbor. It is currently a huge complex occupying 7,500 acres (30 km2) of land and water along 43 miles (69 km) of waterfront. The Port of Los Angeles employed 16,000 people in 2010 and was ranked the busiest container port in the nation.

Pitt & Pitt

Charles Nordhoff wrote California for Health, Pleasure and Residence. This pamphlet extolled the benefits of living in Southern California in order to be healed of many diseases, including consumption. Unknown to his readers, Nordhoff was paid by the Southern Pacific Railroad to praise the curative nature of the region’s climate. His pamphlet was cited by many as reason for their move to Southern California.

Nordhoff

The Citrus industry found a productive fruit in the Washington navel. The Washington navel orange was brought to California by Eliza Tibbets, of Riverside. From Washington D.C. originally, the Tibbets family had lived next door to William Saunders, superintendent of gardens and grounds for the Department of Agriculture. When they moved to Riverside in the 1870s, Eliza Tibbets asked Saunders to send her some orange trees. He mailed her two small original trees, which he had received from Brazil. The trees began producing fruit in 1875.

Dumke

The Southern Pacific Railroad connected Los Angeles to San Francisco, in so doing connecting the West to the rest of the nation through the Transcontinental Railroad.

Pitt & Pitt

The United States Census counted 11,183 inhabitants in the town of Los Angeles. There were 33,381 in the County.

Pitt & Pitt

Colonel J.J. Warner provides four articles to the Los Angeles Times on the Los Angeles River. Warner has lived in Los Angeles for fifty years and as a result has witnessed the River flood and destroy property many times. According to Warner: "It should not be overlooked that the City Survey has already laid before the Council, in an official communication, the very startling fact that Alameda street (the old depot) is actually lower than the bed of the river, and that a flood which would put four fete depth of water into the stream would submerge that low part of the city to a depth of eight feet!"

ICWD

Los Angeles Water Commission approves plan for an aqueduct from the Owens Valley to the City of Los Angeles. City of Los Angeles begins acquisition of land and water rights in Southern Owens Valley downstream of the proposed aqueduct intake dam. Plans for a U.S. reclamation project in the Owens Valley are abandoned.

ICWD

Construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct is commenced.

ICWD

LADWP completes aqueduct and begins the export of water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles by diverting the water from 62 miles of the Owens River. The capacity of the aqueduct is approximately 480 cfs (300,000 acre feet per year).

ICWD

ICWD

The voters of Los Angeles agreed to formally annex 168 square miles of farm land, known as the San Fernando Valley, making it part of the city. The San Fernando Valley annexation boosted Los Angeles' total area to 280 square miles, roughly ten times the size of the pueblo's land grant from the King of Spain.

Pitt & Pitt

San Diegans ran out rainmaker. Charles Hatfield, a renowned rainmaker, offered to fill the San Diego reservoirs within a year for $10,000 (no payment due if he failed). Between January 15 and 30, 1916 more than seven inches of rain fell in San Diego. The Sweetwater and Lower Otay dams broke and 50 people drowned. The city decided to pay Hartfield only if he agreed to pay for all rain damages; he declined and the residents ran him out of town.

LAT

Owens Lake becomes a dry lakebed as a result of Los Angeles’s diversion of the Owens River. Los Angeles announces program to purchase farm land and water rights in the valley that it had not already purchased. (Prior to the commencement of these purchases, Los Angeles has assured the residents of the valley that it would only purchase land and water rights ownstream of the aqueduct intake dam.)

ICWD

Residents of the Owens Valley oppose Los Angeles’s land and water rights purchases and water exports. Violence sporadically occurs.

ICWD

Merchants demand reparations for loss of business due to Los Angeles’ purchase of the valley’s farmlands; in response, a state law is passed that allows Los Angeles to purchase properties in towns. Los Angeles announces that it would purchase any commercial, residential or agricultural property offered for sale. (By 1933, Los Angeles has purchased 85 percent of the valley’s residential and commercial property and 95 percent of the valley’s farm and ranch land.)

ICWD

At 11:57 p.m. the St. Francis Dam, just completed in 1926, collapsed and spewed 12 billion gallons of water into the San Francisquito Canyon, killing over 450 individuals. For sixty-five miles the water engulfed everything in its path and the towns of Piru, Fillmore, and Barsdale were gravely affected; within three hours Santa Paula was flooded. The dam's architect, William Mulholland, was informed and left for the disaster zone at around 2:30 a.m. Dressed in formal funeral clothes and devastated by the occurrence, Mulholland sent out mail pilots to search the area from the Santa Clara Valley to the Pacific Ocean. A trial was scheduled to determine the party responsible for the collapse and during the proceeding, Mulholland muttered “On an occasion like this, I envy the dead.”

Reisner

2 inches of snow covered Los Angeles.

Pitt & Pitt

A 6.3 magnitude earthquake shook Long Beach. The Newport-Inglewood fault caused a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Long Beach. Its extensive damage caused building codes to require that new structures be built to resist earthquakes of a certain magnitude. The earthquake killed 100 individuals and caused $60 million in damages.

Pitt & Pitt

Los Angeles files water rights application for 200 cfs of water from the Mono Basin and commences construction of an 11-mile underground water tunnel to hydraulically connect the Mono Basin with the Owens River.

ICWD

A 50 Year Storm Ravaged Los Angeles. A flood after torrential rainfall inundated 300,000 acres in Los Angeles, killing 87 people and causing $78 million in property damage. The Army Corps of Engineers channelized the River in 3,000,000 barrels of concrete. The project of channelizing the river spanned over twenty years.

LAT

Los Angeles begins selling properties in valley towns directly back into private ownership (not at auction)--but without the associated water rights. (By 1944, approximately 60 percent of the town properties--1,240 parcels--have been sold.) Los Angeles and the U.S. Government complete negotiations of an Indian Exchange Agreement in which lands occupied by Native Americans were exchanged for Los Angeles-owned lands near Bishop, Big Pine and Lone Pine. The exchanges did not include water rights, but Los Angeles agreed to supply 5,556 acre-feet of water to the exchanged lands.

ICWD

The Mono Basin extension to the Los Angeles Aqueduct was completed, making the man-made waterway over 100 miles longer and bringing it to its current length of 340 miles. Los Angelenos received water and hydroelectric power from the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

Reisner

Litigation brought by landowners over the effects of Los Angeles’ groundwater pumping in the Bishop area is ended by the entry of a court order commonly called the “Hillside Decree” which prohibits Los Angeles from pumping and exporting groundwater from an area around Bishop labeled as the “Bishop Cone.”

ICWD

The Colorado River Aqueduct began bringing water to Los Angeles County after a bond issue of $220 million. The water was routed through the Metropolitan Water District, which served several Los Angeles and Orange County cities. In 1964 Los Angeles’ claim on the water rights was amended so that the water was shared with Arizona.

Pitt & Pitt

Los Angeles completes construction of Mono Craters Tunnel and begins water diversions from Mono Basin. Construction of Long Valley Dam is completed and the reservoir (now known as Crowley Lake) begins to fill.

ICWD

Over 318,000 acres were farmed in Los Angeles county; by 1987, only about 32,000 acres were cultivated. Los Angeles County raised chickens and horses and produced eggs, onions, sprouts, strawberries, alfalfa, and milk.

Pitt & Pitt

Los Angeles ceases direct sales of town lands in the valley on the advice of the City Attorney that direct sales are illegal.

ICWD

Charles Brown Act is enacted which requires Los Angeles to grant existing tenants of its land in Inyo County the first right of refusal on lease renewals and land sales.

ICWD

Los Angeles resumes sales of its Owens Valley town properties at public auction (without water rights).

ICWD

43,000 acres of orchards were razed to build suburban housing.

Pitt & Pitt

Franklin Thomas, chairman of the Colorado River Board, declared that this "is the first time in the 180 years of California rainfall statistics that drought conditions have extended over a five-year period;" the drought was compared to the city's drought from 1928-31.

LAT

Los Angeles repeatedly challenges Inyo County’s tax assessments of its properties in Owens Valley.

ICWD

ICWD

With only 4.08 inches of rainfall over twelve months, 1953 was labeled as the driest year on record.

Pitt & Pitt

5.7” of rain fell in downtown Los Angeles on one day.

Pitt & Pitt

Before drought, pest problems, and rising water prices, Antelope Valley growers yielded 77,000 acres of barley. By 1990, the cultivated land in the high desert dropped to 10,600 acres.

Pitt & Pitt

A leak in the Baldwin Hills Dam resulted in a 50 foot wall of water hitting Cloverdale Avenue, causing the deaths of 3 people.

LAT

LADWP announces its plan to construct a second aqueduct from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles.

ICWD

LADWP reduces amount of irrigated lands in the Owens Valley in order to make additional water available for export through the second aqueduct.

ICWD

The California Constitution is amended to change the manner of assessment of Los Angeles-owned property in Owens Valley and to prohibit Inyo County from taxing water exported from Owens Valley. Under the new assessment procedure called the “Phillips formula,” the assessment of Los Angeles-owned lands in the valley is annually adjusted based on changes in the per capita assessed valuation of all properties in the state.

ICWD

Los Angeles City originally encompassed 28.01 square miles; by 1910 it tripled to 89.61 square miles; by 1920 the city covered 363.92 square miles; by 1970 it reached 465 square miles.

Pitt & Pitt

The Second Los Angeles Aqueduct is completed. The capacity of the Second Aqueduct is approximately 300 cfs (200,000 acre-feet per year). The combined capacity of the first and second aqueducts is approximately 780 cfs (570,000 acre-feet per year).

ICWD

Proposition 20 was approved by California voters and the California Coastal Commission was consequently established with a mission to “protect, conserve, restore, and enhance environmental and human-based resources of the California coast and ocean for environmentally sustainable and prudent use by current and future generations.”

LAT

ICWD

California passed the California Environmental Quality Act. The Environmental Bill of Rights, issued by the legislative committee, called for a counterpart to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), or the first federal environmental protection statue in 1969 by possibly supplementing NEPA through state law. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was thus created and signed by Governor Reagan, and required that “state and local agencies identify the significant environmental impacts of their actions and to avoid or mitigate those impacts, if feasible.” In 1975 the APCD merged with similar organizations in Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties and became the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), which enforces federal, state, and regional laws and regulates all stationary and commercial industries. In 1989 AQMD adopted tougher regulations for big businesses that use aerosols, lawn mowers, and paint; or engaged in baking, brewing, charcoal broiling, dry cleaning or tire making. AQMD hoped to bring the region's air quality into compliance with federal standards by 2010.

LAT

Third District Appellate Court (located in Sacramento) issues a writ commanding Los Angeles to prepare an EIR on the water supply for the Second Aqueduct. (Although the Court acknowledged that construction of the Second Aqueduct had been completed by the effective date of CEQA, it found that the water supply to the Second Aqueduct was a project subject to CEQA.)

ICWD

The Appellate Court restricts groundwater pumping by Los Angeles to 149 cfs (108,000 AF/Y) pending Court approval of an LADWP EIR on the water supply for the Second Aqueduct.

ICWD

Based on a challenge by Inyo County, LADWP’s EIR on the water supply for the Second Aqueduct is found inadequate by the Appellate Court. LADWP cuts water supplies to Owens Valley ranchers. Inyo County obtains order from Appellate Court requiring water supply to be restored. Due to severe drought, upon application by LADWP, Appellate Court allows LADWP to pump up to 315 cfs after LADWP. At the urging of the Inyo County, the Court makes the increased pumping contingent upon Los Angeles adopting the first water conservation plan for the city.

ICWD

The Charles Brown Act is amended to permit the sale of leased Los Angeles-owned property at public auction if the lessee has requested such a sale 30 days in advance. The California Supreme Court rules that the public trust doctrine applies to Los Angeles’ diversions from the streams tributary to Mono Lake and orders that Los Angeles water rights in the Mono Basin be reconsidered in light of the public trust doctrine.

ICWD

Friends of the Los Angeles River, a nonprofit dedicated to recognizing the River, was formed.

FOLAR

Pitt & Pitt

Mayor Tom Bradley created the Los Angeles River Task Force.

LAT

Venice residents filed a $10 million lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles to stop water rationing. Residents called the cutbacks “unconstitutional” because no one was advised on how much water to use.

LAT

The population of the City of Los Angeles was 3,694,820. Los Angeles County population was 33,871,648.

Pitt & Pitt