Bright green fields stretch into lighter hilly mountains. A winding river runs through the valley.

DWP takes unilateral land management action, causing litigation: Is dewatering of Long Valley meadows the first step in a new phase of water extraction?

The Mono Lake Committee celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. That means the Committee has been advocating for Mono Lake and its tributary streams for more than half the years that the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) has been in the business of exporting water from the Mono Basin.

DWP has changed in many ways over those 40 years, some internally generated and many, like the protection of Mono Lake, resulting from intense advocacy efforts and new rules imposed by outside authorities. Institutional change has often been due to the citizens of Los Angeles requiring greater environmental responsibility from DWP, both directly and through elected city council members and mayors who have worked together with groups like the Committee to reach that goal. As a result Los Angeles is a leader in building a more sustainable and reliable water supply through conservation, reclamation, groundwater cleanup, and local supply.

The Mono Lake Committee and our expert consultants, network of partners, and 16,000 members are always alert to threats to Mono Lake, its tributary streams, and surrounding lands. Photo by Bartshe Miller.

The famously contentious relationship between DWP and the Eastern Sierra has changed as well. While far from over, fights over water in the Eastern Sierra have been settled through hard work and legal and state regulatory requirements at Mono Lake and the Owens Gorge, and through mandates such as the Owens Valley Long Term Water Agreement, the Lower Owens River Project, and the dust control measures implemented at Owens Lake.

This isn’t to say all the terms have been well liked—for example, groundwater pumping in Inyo County continues to be contentious. Nor has DWP actually met all its obligations—plenty remains to be done at Mono Lake, the Owens Gorge, and the Owens Valley.

But in recent years there has been a broad sense that the areas of dispute have been identified and the overarching environmental rules have been established, allowing for the relationship between DWP and the extended Eastern Sierra watershed it taps to enter a mature phase in which specific interests may differ but all sides know where the areas of contention are, what the interests are, and what rules guide discussions and debates about them.

Unfortunately, this year DWP has initiated new actions that suggest it is not interested in maintaining this balance, giving the Committee reason to worry that DWP’s aggressive water gathering history is resurfacing as modern strategy in the Eastern Sierra.

Dewatering Long Valley

DWP initiated conflict anew this past spring 30 miles south of Mono Lake in Long Valley, next to Crowley Lake Reservoir. DWP abruptly decided to reverse its own established land management practice of 70+ years and cease irrigation of over 6,000 acres of land adjacent to the lake, highway, and local homes.

These lands provide wildlife habitat, notably for Greater Sage-Grouse, create fire breaks for the local community, support local agricultural activity that diversifies the economy, and enhance scenic views and recreation along Highway 395. They also create wetlands that, unofficially, mitigate for the many acres lost when DWP constructed Crowley Lake Reservoir in 1941. DWP ceasing irrigation of these lands has sparked substantial concerns among state agencies, federal regulators, and county leaders as well as local organizations and residents, including an overflowing meeting in August when the Mono County Board of Supervisors reviewed the matter.

According to the Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, John Laird, DWP’s actions in southern Mono County “have significant consequences to wildlife by destroying wetlands and riparian areas and eliminating habitat for sensitive species such as the Bi-State Sage-Grouse,” and “also significantly increase the risk of wildfires, which would threaten nearby communities.”

As one longtime Committee member wrote to the Mono County Board of Supervisors, “As a member of a family who was displaced under very similar circumstances at Inyo County during the 1920s, I am too familiar with tragic hardships that can be carelessly inflicted by preventable bad decisions and mismanagement of resources.” The meeting, documents, and issue details are online here.

Why?

Members have asked us—why is DWP doing this? This is exactly the right question. DWP has said it wants more low-cost water to flow in the aqueduct and it has cited a litany of justifications ranging from ratepayers to climate change, none of which really hold up. Climate change, in particular, is a strange justification given that models predict that future average precipitation in the Sierra will be similar to the present day.

DWP’s real goals are unclear, which raises concern that this is step one of a larger as-yet-unknown plan for DWP to reevaluate the entire Eastern Sierra for new water extraction possibilities. That wouldn’t be consistent with Los Angeles’ great progress on sustainable water use, nor would it support Mayor Eric Garcetti’s goal of producing 50 percent of LA’s water supply locally by 2035. But DWP is well known for departing from City leadership and going its own way.

Hidden process

The glaring concern that overarches the Long Valley issue is that there was no public process behind the change. DWP simply made a unilateral decision to dewater ten square miles of Mono County and walk away from long-established operations.

A good public lands agency—which DWP sees itself as being—would conduct a substantial public process to present a management goal, propose multiple concepts for achieving it, solicit and incorporate public comment, collaborate with relevant agencies and authorities, revise in light of stakeholder interests, craft a set of well-defined specific action options, and then perform an environmental analysis.

In the Committee’s experience, DWP’s recent behavior has strong echoes of how it acted in the 1970s, back when its Mono Lake position was: sue us if you don’t like what we are doing.

If DWP is willing to unilaterally upend established land management practices in Long Valley, you have to wonder what’s next on the list. DWP has never pumped groundwater in the Mono Basin for export—but it could try. DWP hasn’t sold off chunks of Eastern Sierra land for development—but it could try. And what might it try with all the seemingly established environmental protections throughout the Eastern Sierra?

Mono County sues

Mono County has been alarmed about the effects of DWP’s abrupt action and concerned that DWP began degrading conditions on the ground before a real study and analysis could be conducted.

The County took the matter to Mayor Garcetti, who quickly saw that DWP was getting itself into trouble. He promised that DWP would study the environmental impacts of ceasing irrigation, consistent with the California Environmental Quality Act, and “will discuss the findings with [Mono County] and the ranchers before any new lease language is proposed.”

There is just one problem: DWP continued to implement the no-water policy all summer (except for some small releases intended for Greater Sage-Grouse). Just like you study the effects of building a bridge before you start your excavation work, concern quickly mounted that DWP was implementing its policy—and causing all the undesired effects—before studying the soundness of the idea.

After additional attempts to work with DWP, Mono County filed a lawsuit in August seeking a halt to the dewatering until a regular planning process is followed. Arguments are slated for the end of the year.

Now playing catch-up, DWP announced it will prepare an environmental impact report studying the dewatering plan over the coming winter. The Committee will be engaged in the process, which is potentially illuminating but is likely to leave the issue in limbo for months or—if it is anything like the environmental study still underway to implement the collaborative 2013 Mono Basin Stream Restoration Agreement—years. Mono County’s legal point—that DWP cannot implement the dewatering action prior to conducting environmental analysis—continues to stand strong and will proceed in court. The results will affect what actually happens on the land next spring.

Reason to worry

Environmental studies, if done right, will disclose the impacts of the dewatering project, which is important. However, the question of DWP policy and strategy remains: What is the goal of this action in the first place, and is it good public policy? Even as DWP has hired consultants and started gathering data, it has not engaged in substantial public discussion of this overarching question.

There is a need for balance, and the Eastern Sierra can afford to share—not all of its water, but some. The problem as we see it is that DWP appears to be comfortable making unilateral moves that shift that water accounting in its own favor.

Which leaves us wondering: Is DWP strategically launching new initiatives that disrupt its Eastern Sierra relationships and backslide toward the more aggressive conflicts of forty years ago? Or is it unintentionally stumbling into new conflicts in the region? Time will tell, but either way the Committee, public agencies, and advocates up and down Eastern Sierra are seeing a new need to push back.

This post was also published as an article in the Fall 2018 Mono Lake Newsletter (pages 3, 24). Top photo courtesy of Hyla / Keep Long Valley Green.