For those who wonder why the people near and around the Owens River Valley would hate and dispise Los Angeles, this is probably the reason. In the 1900s William Mulholland began construction on the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Dispite vast opposition in the area, the source of the aqueduct came from yes, the Owens River, near the mouth of the Owens Lake. Now, some 100 years later, the lake is nothing more than small parts of stagnant water, and dust storms that kick up poisonous gas. Yet another result of progress.