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Owens Valley was a prosperous farming community before LA diverted all the water and dried up the lake. Now Owens Valley has been abandoned for about a century.

pstuart 11y ago
Somebody should make a movie about that /s
mc32 11y ago
The farmers were compensated, as I understand it. The Aral sea area was very productive and supported tens of thousands of fishers and nearly a million people lived within the general catchment area, Inyo county has, what, twenty thousand people. The Aral sea is an area of near total devastation today and the people who remain suffer quite a lot economically and health-wise as a consequence. Let's put this in perspective, the Aral sea was larger than lake Michigan, now it's one tenth its original size and three times as salty as seawater.
- dalke 11y ago
  "The farmers were compensated, as I understand it." Here's a relevant line from the Jethro Tull song, "Farm On The Freeway" They forgot they told us what this old land was for. Grow two tons the acre, boy, between the stones. This was no Southfork, it was no Ponderosa. But it was the place that I called home. They say they gave me compensation... That's not what I'm chasing. I was a rich man before yesterday. And what do I want with a million dollars and a pickup truck? Remember too that was we pay compensation for the lives we kill in the Middle East. Eg, http://www.thenation.com/article/blood-money-afghanistans-reparations-files/ http://www.thenation.com/article/blood-money-afghanistans-re... . So "compensation" isn't really that humane of a word.
  - mc32 11y ago
    Well, compare it to the not compensation people living in the Aral sea got,and I think we can decide what might be the alternative we choose. With growing human populations we know we have to relocate resources, but we must make them as responsibly as we can, with as limited negative impact as we can afford. Owens was begun in the '20s? Aral sea engineering in the 60s? That's 40 years of better understanding of the repercussions of badly planned engineering projects, yet it was pushed thru regardless.
    - dalke 11y ago
      I do not mean to diminish what has happened around the Aral Sea. What I mean by that is, don't diminish or dismiss what happened in Owens by saying that the people involved "were compensated". FWIW, I would have preferred the phrase "The farmers received some compensation, as I understand it."

pstuart 11y ago

Somebody should make a movie about that /s

mc32 11y ago

The farmers were compensated, as I understand it. The Aral sea area was very productive and supported tens of thousands of fishers and nearly a million people lived within the general catchment area, Inyo county has, what, twenty thousand people. The Aral sea is an area of near total devastation today and the people who remain suffer quite a lot economically and health-wise as a consequence. Let's put this in perspective, the Aral sea was larger than lake Michigan, now it's one tenth its original size and three times as salty as seawater.

dalke 11y ago
"The farmers were compensated, as I understand it." Here's a relevant line from the Jethro Tull song, "Farm On The Freeway" They forgot they told us what this old land was for. Grow two tons the acre, boy, between the stones. This was no Southfork, it was no Ponderosa. But it was the place that I called home. They say they gave me compensation... That's not what I'm chasing. I was a rich man before yesterday. And what do I want with a million dollars and a pickup truck? Remember too that was we pay compensation for the lives we kill in the Middle East. Eg, http://www.thenation.com/article/blood-money-afghanistans-reparations-files/ http://www.thenation.com/article/blood-money-afghanistans-re... . So "compensation" isn't really that humane of a word.
- mc32 11y ago
  Well, compare it to the not compensation people living in the Aral sea got,and I think we can decide what might be the alternative we choose. With growing human populations we know we have to relocate resources, but we must make them as responsibly as we can, with as limited negative impact as we can afford. Owens was begun in the '20s? Aral sea engineering in the 60s? That's 40 years of better understanding of the repercussions of badly planned engineering projects, yet it was pushed thru regardless.
  - dalke 11y ago
    I do not mean to diminish what has happened around the Aral Sea. What I mean by that is, don't diminish or dismiss what happened in Owens by saying that the people involved "were compensated". FWIW, I would have preferred the phrase "The farmers received some compensation, as I understand it."