Water qualities in the Los Angeles zanja system, 1781-1904

• In Event: Agencies of Water: Quality, Quantity, and Health

Abstract

Until the beginning of the 20th century, most of the water used in Los Angeles was distributed through channels called _zanjas_. From its colonial origins this was a multi-use system, watering crops and livestock, powering mills and providing water for domestic purposes. In the late 19th century, zanjas continued these functions while adding new urban ones, such as fire fighting and street sprinkling, even as the city built a piped water system.

The modern piped system has been understood as fundamental progress, replacing a distribution network that was primitive and polluted. But in fact, human relationships with zanja water were nuanced. Different water at various times and places could be suitable for different purposes. Water was not yet a standardized commodity. Its nuances can be understood by looking at what was, and what was not, considered pollution.

Some traditional uses, such as laundry and livestock watering, created familiar water-quality conflicts among users. A new conflict, noxious industrial waste, came from coal gasification. The Gas Works treated zanjas as an environmental sink, and City govenrnment responded assertively. Later, oil drilling produced leaks and spills, inadvertent but predictable pollution. The City regulated locations of oil wells, and constructed alternate paths for their drainage. Human waste produced the longest-running water quality discussion. As the early proto-sewer system grew, parts of some zanjas were temporarily used as connectors. Farmers used human and animal waste as fertilizer, so sewage in irrigation canals was a bug for some users while it was a feature for others.

William Mulholland in 1904 shut off the zanjas from raw river water, but sewer farming continued; the city contemplated a treatment regime we would call greywater irrigation. Water was never waste. Early Angelenos could manage waters for multiple uses, because zanja infrastructure made water legible.

Author

• Michael Holleran, University of Texas at Austin