where does the water in whitewater ca come from
Whitewater River (California) The Whitewater River is a small permanent stream in western Riverside County, California, with a small upstream section in southwestern San Bernardino County. Its headwaters are in the San Bernardino Mountains and mouthâ€”terminus in the Colorado Desert. The Whitewater River is in the endorheic Salton Sea drainage basin.
California State Water Project The original purpose of the project was to provide water for arid Southern California, whose local water resources and share of the Colorado River were insufficient to sustain the region's growth. The SWP was rooted in two proposals. The United Western Investigation of 1951, a study by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, assessed the feasibility of interbasin water transfers in the Western United States. In California, this plan contemplated the construction of dams on rivers draining to California's North Coast – the wild and undammed Klamath, Eel, Mad and Smith River systems – and tunnels to carry the impounded water to the Sacramento River system, where it could be diverted southwards.[7] In the same year, State Engineer A.D. Edmonston proposed the Feather River Project, which proposed the damming of the Feather River, a tributary of the Sacramento River, for the same purpose.[8] The Feather River was much more accessible than the North Coast rivers, but did not have nearly as much water. Under both of the plans, a series of canals and pumps would carry the water south through the Central Valley to the foot of the Tehachapi Mountains, where it would pass through the Tehachapi Tunnel to reach Southern California.[9]