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In the past few weeks, I have worked to centralize the central topic of my proposal. My original idea was to analyze the collapse of the St. Francis Dam in the Santa Clarita Valley in Southern California within the context of the California Water Wars of the early twentieth century. However, as my research advanced, I decided to focus my topic on the Water Wars themselves as a disaster, analyzing how urbanization and city politics affected the irrigation of water sources in the Los Angeles area. The Water Wars, which began over a hundred years ago, continue to influence water politics in Southern California, creating animosity between urban and rural interests. I hope to focus my proposal on how farmers and ranchers, who had been largely starved of water for their agriculture and animals, responded (both legally and illegally) to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s continued attempts to syphon water from the Owens Valley, particularly in the 1920s. I have found great secondary sources that researched how rural communities mobilized to combat the LADWP officials, both in the courts and in the countryside. I continue to look for primary sources that can both detail how the urbanization of Los Angeles affected the distribution of water to farms and ranches, as well as how LADWP officials justified their expanded allocation of resources. On the whole, I hope to use Los Angeles as a case study of how unsustainable urban development can lead to cities being drains on resources and malignant forces on the environment as well as surrounding communities.