Update on Owens Lake
by Mike Prather, Eastern Sierra Audubon Society
Editor’s Note: We often get questions about Owens Lake dust pollution issues. The following article was written by Mike Prather representing the Eastern Sierra Audubon Society.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is obligated by an MOU agreement with the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District to work on the Owens Lake dust pollution problem.Ten square miles of the Owens lakebed will be treated for dust using shallow flooding or managed native salt grass vegetation by 2001 and 16.5 square miles by 2006.
In 1998 LADWP commenced a study of groundwater availability at Owens Lake for the purpose of dust abatement. They publicly committed themselves to pumping only if it could be accomplished in an “environmentally safe” manner. A 60-day pump test found that drawdowns in nearby wells and wetlands exceeded what was considered safe. As a result Los Angeles has dropped its initial shallow water flooding project using groundwater, a test that would have covered merely one square mile and used approximately 1600 acre-feet of water.
Initially there was a sigh of relief by defenders of shorebird habitat and wetlands at Owens Lake when the announcement to not go ahead with the pilot project was made. However, Los Angeles immediately stated that it had not given up on pumping from under Owens Lake and that there might have to be “some negative impacts” that would require mitigation when and if future pumping did occur.
The Eastern Sierra Audubon Society believes that shallow flooding for dust control at Owens Lake should use water from the aqueduct and not from groundwater. Water can be delivered to Owens Lake via the Lower Owens River Project. A proposed pumpback station that would return water to the aqueduct from the river will be capable of delivering water to the lakebed for dust control and its associated habitat creation. Shallow water flooding, which has more benefit for shorebirds than managed vegetation, should be used on as many square miles of the lake’s surface as possible.
Now is the time to urge the California State Lands Commission, which is charged with the responsibility of protecting public trust values at Owens Lake, to require that Los Angeles leave as many square miles as possible flooded every year for all time. As opposed to other dust treatments. Even ten square miles of shallow flooding habitat is only a fraction of what once occurred at the lake.
Only then will the numbers of birds approach those witnessed by George Bird Grinnell in 1917 when he said, “Great numbers of waterbirds are in sight along the lake shore ... large flocks of shorebirds in flight over the water in the distance, wheeling about show in mass, now silvery now dark against the gray-blue of the water. There must be literally thousands of birds within sight of this one spot.”
WRITE:
Executive Director
California State Lands Commission
100 Howe Ave.
Suite 100 South
Sacramento, CA 95825-8202
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