From the California Policy Center –In May 1957, Harvey Banks, then director of the California Department of Water Resources, submitted “The California Water Plan” to the governor and state legislature. On page 14 of part one of this comprehensive document, Table 3 depicts what Banks and his team determined to be the “Estimated Present and Probable Ultimate Mean Seasonal Water Requirements.” The scale of their ultimate expectations reveals the magnitude of the challenge they had accepted. The 1957 Water Plan called for construction of 376 new reservoirs to be in addition to those already built. These new reservoirs were planned to add 76.9 million acre feet of new storage capacity with an average annual yield of 24.0 million acre feet. The other primary element of the 1957 Water Plan was to rely on inter-basin transfers via an astonishing array of new conduits. These included 4,987 miles of canals, 680 miles of pipe, and 598 miles of tunnels. (more)