Guns, Cars, Bodies--All Go With Aqueduct Flow

Think California Aqueduct and images come to mind of pristine mountain water rushing through the desert to thirsty Southern Californians. Well, think again.

As one water department spokesman put it, “There is no such thing as pristine water in its natural form.” Not to mention that as the aqueduct runs its 440-mile course from the Sacramento delta through farmland, under freeways and past creeping desert sprawl, it picks up a lot more than water.

Stolen cars, guns, dead animals and--as this week’s discovery of a partially decomposed body reminded the public--periodically even accident and homicide victims turn up in the aqueduct, a major source of Southern California’s drinking water.

For the most part an open concrete channel that is about 60 feet wide and 15 feet deep, the aqueduct has been a dumping ground for anything from computers to dismembered bodies and farm equipment. “Sometimes we scratch our heads and wonder how they got in there,” said Bob Gomperz, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Water District, which buys about a quarter of the aqueduct’s water for Southern California homes and businesses.

Exotic additions notwithstanding, Gomperz described the quality of the untreated aqueduct water as “fairly good.” Before it hits municipal taps, it of course also goes through a multi-step filtration and disinfection process.

“It’s really a relatively small drop in the proverbial bucket and it’s not anything we would not be able to handle,” Gomperz said of the body found Wednesday in a submerged Ford Explorer at a spot where the Antelope Valley Freeway crosses the aqueduct. “We really scrub our municipal water supplies clean.”

The body is believed to be that of screenwriter Gary Devore, who had been missing for more than a year. He apparently died when his vehicle plunged into the aqueduct channel on a long night drive. Over the years, a number of bodies have been found in this monument to engineering and Southern California’s desire for someone else’s water.

The armchair detective who led authorities to the site of Devore’s crash was inspired by a similar accident years before. Lonnie Long, chief of the southern field division of the state Department of Water Resources, said one or two bodies a year are found in just the Southern California stretch of the aqueduct.

They are drowning victims--the water is swift and cold, the channel sides slimy--or car accident or occasionally homicide victims. Earlier this year, the body of a days-old infant was discovered in the aqueduct near Palmdale.

Swimming is prohibited and much of the channel is fenced. But that doesn’t stop the young, the criminal and the foolish. People cut open the fence. They rip out the gates with truck chains.

Near Hesperia the aqueduct is especially popular with thieves who strip what they want from stolen cars and dump the remains in the channel. When the state drained a 50-mile stretch of the canal for maintenance about seven years ago, Long said, workers found 42 cars and 17 dump truck loads of junk, including bicycles, motorcycles and news racks.

State patrols check the aqueduct by air and on the ground and the water department contracts with private security to drive along the channel at night. The patrols are primarily concerned with leaks, but also are looking for mischief makers and trespassers.

In the past, the channel cops have come across a water skier skimming the canal, towed by a car driving along the maintenance road. Among other unusual discoveries have been a phone booth, a stolen sheriff’s car, a machine gun and a dismembered body.

One year, emergency crews were called out when a man was seen dumping a crystalline substance into the water. The aqueduct was shut down, water samples analyzed for poison. It turned out the man was a fisherman dumping his ice chest into the canal.

Completed in 1972, the state-owned aqueduct collects its water in the Sierra-fed Sacramento River Delta, filling irrigation systems that green the baking farm fields of the San Joaquin Valley as it flows south. Up to 8 million acre-feet of water a year--enough to cover 8 million football fields with a foot of water--are carried along the aqueduct, pushed along by 18 pumping plants.

So vivid is the canal as it snakes along Interstate 5 that it can be seen from outer space.

In southern Kern County, the aqueduct splits in two. One branch flows to the reservoir of Castaic Lake, the other cuts through the Antelope Valley and the San Bernardino Mountains and empties into Lake Perris in Riverside County.

Finally the water is treated. The MWD, which also gets water from the Colorado River, starts with a flocculation process. Coagulating agents are added to the water to bond together sediments, which settle out in basins. The water is passed through filtration beds that can consist of anthracite coal--the sharp edges pick up material--and sand. Lastly it is disinfected with chloramines, a mixture of chlorine and ammonia.

After years of watching the aqueduct, Long says he tries not to dwell on what he’s seen in the water before it reaches the treatment plant.

“I just don’t think about it,” he admitted. “It looks clear to me and it tastes good.”