Questions bubble to surface over use of water at Owens Dry Lake
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 20, 2008 at 7:21 am
From the Inyo Register:
Is water being wasted out on the Owens Dry Lake? Or, at the very least, is there a more efficient way to suppress the toxic dust that whips off the notorious Southern Inyo playa during severe wind storms?
Those are but two of the questions ostensibly being asked today as Great Basin Air Pollution Control Officer Ted Schade makes a presentation to the Inyo County Board of Supervisors detailing the water amounts used on each of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s dust mitigation measures at the dry lake bed. The presentation is being made at the behest of the local Agriculture Resource Advisory Board, a citizens commission comprised of ranchers, LADWP lessees, business owners and representatives of local chambers of commerce.
The board had Inyo County Agriculture Commissioner George Milovich approach the supervisors on Nov. 4 with its request after coming to the conclusion that water – widely viewed as one of the most precious resources in the West – might be overused at the dry lake on shallow flooding and managed vegetation mitigation efforts.
The concern, Milovich explained Monday, is that with so much of LADWP’s Owens Valley water going to dry lake mitigation measures – approximately 19,200 acre-feet alone (or 6,256,339,200 gallons) for shallow flooding of 26 square miles (16,640 acres) – the utility will be forced to cut back on the amount of water it sets aside for in-valley uses.
(LADWP estimated upon the release of its 2007-08 Operations Plan that its water use on the lake, for both shallow flooding and the maintenance of managed vegetation, would increase to about 54,000 a.f. a year. In 2007-08, the amount of water used for in-valley uses – 103,650 a.f. – almost matched the total being sent down the aqueduct, without counting the large volumes targeted for Owens Lake dust control efforts – making it perhaps the first time in history that the Owens Valley used more of LADWP’s local water than the City of Los Angeles.)
Read more of this story from the Inyo Register by clicking here.
Inyo County Supes wade through Standing Committee agenda items in preparation for next meeting with DWP
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2008 at 5:41 amFrom the Inyo Register:
Despite scheduling conflicts with leaders in the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power that boiled the blood of at least one county supervisor, county staff will meet with LADWP officials in November to discuss some of the priority issues surrounding water in the Owens Valley.
The Inyo County Board of Supervisors last Tuesday reviewed and ultimately approved the Inyo County/Los Angeles Standing Committee agenda for 1 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 6 at the Bishop Elks Lodge.
Before the board could address the agenda, however, it had to discuss scheduling conflicts for the meeting.
….
With the time, date and location of the meeting set, the board went to work reviewing the agenda, which includes discussions and action pertaining to a Memorandum of Understanding between L.A. and Inyo County in regards to the Standing Committee’s duties, a discussion and progress report regarding Green Book revisions, a status report on the Lower Owens River Project and a discussion regarding the Owens Lake groundwater evaluation.
Read more from the Inyo Register by clicking here.
Inyo County Supervisors decide who to include in their Integrated Regional Watershed Management Plan
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 13, 2008 at 6:38 amFrom the Inyo Register:
Inyo County has a rough idea what the area of its Integrated Regional Water Management Plan will look like, and the next step in the development of the plan is to decide which member-agency will be acting as the plan’s regional fiscal sponsor.
The Inyo County Board of Supervisors decided by consensus on Tuesday to include Inyo County, Death Valley and Mono County in the water management plan, and exclude parts of Nevada and Kern and San Bernardino counties.
The supervisors didn’t come to that decision lightly, and spent more than two hours discussing the plan, with the board split on the idea of including Mono County.
By developing a regional water management plan that includes multiple stakeholders, such as water departments, government agencies or non-profits, the member-agencies will be eligible for a portion of the $1.5 billion in bond funding allocated for water-related projects dealing with water supply, water quality, habitat and environment.
Inyo County Water Director Dr. Bob Harrington said that some of the funds could be used to implement the Lower Owens River Recreation Plan. Read more from Bishop’s Inyo Register by clicking here.
Coso Geothermal Project close to ruling on groundwater pumping from southern Inyo county
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 4, 2008 at 7:37 amFrom Bishop’s Inyo Register:
Coso Geothermal Project is closer to a possible ruling on its controversial proposal to pump water near Little Lake in Southern Inyo, about 19 months after initially seeking approval from the county. Running out of the water it needs to operate, the electrical generating plant isn’t the only entity with a vested interest in the county’s decision.
Little Lake Ranch, LLC and others are worried the pumping project will have a “devastating impact” on the lake and surrounding riparian areas. A public comment period on the groundwater pumping proposal comes to an end Saturday, Sept. 6.
The Coso Operating Company, LLC, is seeking a 30-year conditional use permit from the Inyo County Planning Commission to extract groundwater from two existing wells on the Coso Hay Ranch property in Rose Valley at the southern end of Inyo County. The permit is asking to withdraw 3,000 gallons per minute or 4,800 acre-feet per year and construct a nine-mile long pipe from the wells to the plant to supplement a shrinking geothermal reservoir.
Coso argues the pumping plan is the only economically feasible way to keep the plant generating at capacity. The plan calls for mitigation guidelines and “trigger levels,” such as a decrease in the lake level of 10 percent, to prevent any permanent damage.
Opposing the project is Little Lake Ranch, and specifically Gary Arnold, the ranch’s legal counsel, representing Arnold, Bleuel, LaRochelle, Matthews and Zirbel. Arnold is also a member of the 1,200-acre ranch and private hunting club. The property includes Little Lake, a 1.6-mile riparian corridor and five ponds. Arnold and the ranch are arguing that the proposed pumping will suck Little Lake dry, leaving it to face a very long-term recovery. Arnold noted he is using statistics from the Hydrology Model included in the Draft Environmental Impact Report to argue his claim.
Read more from the Inyo Register by clicking here.
Water talks surface for Inyo County & L.A. DWP
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 12, 2008 at 6:24 amFrom Bishop’s Inyo Register, news that the Inyo County and Los Angeles DWP officials will be meeting to discuss DWP’s plans for groundwater pumping and hear updates on ongoing projects:
The Standing Committee will discuss the 2008-2009 Operations Plan for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in the Owens Valley.
The Inyo-L.A. Long Term Water Agreement provides that the LADWP prepare and present a draft Operations Plan to the county and allow staff to provide comments. From there the Operations Plan is turned over to the technical group, which will attempt to resolve any concerns on the part of the county and return the plan to the LADWP to make the appropriate revisions and implement the plan.
The Inyo County Water Department has already reviewed the draft plan and provided comments to the LADWP. “The department’s analysis found that both the draft and final Operations Plans are consistent with the interim management plan and water agreement,” Inyo County Administrative Officer Kevin Carunchio said in his department report.
This year’s LADWP Operations Plan forecasts that runoff will be 86 percent of normal for the Owens Valley from April 2008 through March 2008. The plan further forecasts that the LADWP will be pumping 66,800 square feet of water during the same time period.
This is the first time in several years that Inyo County has utilized the Drought Recovery Policy that provides for the Standing Committee to establish an annual operations plan. In the past Operations Plans have been approved as described in the Water Agreement,” Carunchio said.
The Standing Committee will also be discussing the possibility of pumping groundwater from beneath Owens Lake bed to mitigate the dust problem.
Read more from the Inyo Register by clicking here.
Water thieves at work in Las Vegas: shades of the Owens Valley versus City of Los Angeles
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 9, 2008 at 7:33 amFrom the Mammoth Lakes Daily News, an article/commentary that doesn’t mince any words about the comparison between Las Vegas’ plan to use rural Nevada groundwater to quench its thirst and Los Angeles’ diversion of Owens Valley water nearly 100 years ago:
It seems hard to comprehend that in this day and age of tons of history on the great water theft in the Owens Valley-accomplished over 100 years by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, that anyone would think twice about it happening again. However, history is replaying an ugly chapter on the Nevada/Utah border.
This week the Great Basin Water Network filed a legal petition in Ely, NV, along with other groups of conservationists, scientists, native American tribes, the state of Utah, and citizens of the Delamar, Dry Lake and Cave Valleys.
The legal action stems from the recent (July 9 ruling) by Nevada’s state Engineer Tracy Taylor, who gave the Southern Nevada Water Authority (the city of Las Vegas) the right to pump 6.1 billion gallons of water a year to Vegas. Taylor reduced the initial amount of more than 11 billion gallons of groundwater a year down to 6.1 billion gallons a year.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority says it is entitled to this water. Taylor has told the media the amounts of water he approved “will not unduly limit future growth and development” in these remote Nevada valleys. And, Taylor also wants more studies done on the hydrologic and biologic values in the region. If it was determined that the pumping was “detrimental to the public interest or is found to not be environmentally sound,” the pumping could be halted.
Yeah, and this line of BS sounds just like the lines of poo LADWP handed the citizens of Inyo and Mono Counties over the past 100 years. How do you know the water keepers of the bigger cities are lying? Their mouths are moving.
This is another historic fight in the making of the “Water Wars” of the West, and the poor farmers, ranchers and residents of Delamar, Cave and Dry Lake Valleys have been subjected to the same kinds of pressures from Las Vegas water miners as the Owens Valley has been–and continues to be.
At stake are groundwater pumping standards, and what type of scientific evidence the city of Las Vegas will put forward to convince the state’s Engineer, Mr. Taylor, that “nothing bad is going to happen if we pump the crap out of the area.”
Similar to the Owens Valley and its distance from the City of Los Angeles–these unique Nevada valleys are located 75 to 125 miles from Las Vegas. This out-of-sight/out-of-mind situation makes the water mining seem invisible to the Las Vegans, who, probably like their counterparts in Los Angeles won’t actually see the devastation unfolding in these Nevada/Utah bordering communities.
Read more from the Mammoth Lakes Daily News by clicking here.
A Mono Lake success story
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 24, 2008 at 6:22 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
There was a time when it was hard to find yellow warblers at Rush Creek. But on a recent bright and sunny morning, a yellow warbler plunged through a gap in a stream-side cottonwood forest, flying back to the nest where her chicks were hiding. Suddenly, she was stopped in midair, tangled in a mist net.
Field biologist Chris McCreedy found the bird in his snare a few minutes later. “Hi there, sweetie,” McCreedy said as he set to work. He untangled the bird, recorded its vitals — it was a 2-year-old female that weighed 10 grams, about as much as a ballpoint pen — and gently clamped an identification band to one of her legs. Then he opened his palm and released her back to Rush Creek, a major tributary to Mono Lake in the eastern Sierra and the focus of an agonizingly complex and decades-long effort to heal a vast wilderness devastated by Los Angeles’ insatiable thirst.
Now, 14 years after the city was ordered to reduce the quantity of tributary water it had been diverting into the Los Angeles aqueduct since 1941, Rush Creek has among the highest concentrations of yellow warblers in California — roughly three pairs per 2 1/2 acres. “Restrict grazing and bring back the water and things really start hopping,” McCreedy said.
That’s the good news. Orchestrating the restoration continues to be a challenging process for the Mono Lake Committee, a nonprofit group of environmentalists and concerned citizens organized in 1978 to save and protect a bowl-shaped ecosystem roughly half the size of Rhode Island.
Nonetheless, Geoffrey McQuilkin, executive director of the 16,000-member group, said he is often asked, “Why is the Mono Lake Committee still around? You got the water you needed years ago. Isn’t Mono Lake saved?” His stock response: “We still have a long way to go.”
Read more on this story from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery rehab to be costly and lengthy
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 24, 2008 at 6:03 amFrom the Inyo Register:
It will take some time – perhaps years – but the California Department of Fish and Game will be bringing the historic Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery back on line. That was the news this week as the DFG continues assessing the damage and initiating extensive clean-up efforts at the facility in the wake of last weekend’s flood and mudslide that destroyed much of the hatchery, killed its entire stock of fish and brought operations to a screeching halt.
As flood waters charged down Oak Creek last Saturday, the wall of mud, water and debris flooded out the hatchery’s three raceways and two spawning sheds used to separate fertile trout eggs.
“All of the water intake infrastructure (flowing from both forks of the creek) was completely destroyed,” said Bruce Ivey, vice president of Friends of the Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery. “It will be a long time before it is replaced or repaired so the hatchery can get back into service.”Though the display pond on the east side of the hatchery grounds was unaffected by the floodwaters, the damage to the water intake system at Mt. Whitney stopped the flow of fresh water into that pond. “As a result, all the fish there died,” said Ivey. It is estimated the flooding claimed as many as 2,800 trout at the Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery. Luckily the historic main building of the hatchery was unscathed by the mudslide.
The California Conservation Corps (CCC) has dedicated between 20 and 30 crew members to the clean-up effort at the hatchery, the California Department of Corrections has assigned inmate work crews to the task and a six-man crew from the DFG is also on hand helping to clean up and assess the damage.
Though community support has been great, and many residents have come forward to help with the clean-up work at the historic hatchery, “the magnitude of this job is far more than a volunteer effort can handle,” said Ivey, and the state is supplying the manpower to get things back in order at the hatchery.
More on this story from the Inyo Register by clicking here.
Mudslide in Inyo County spares aqueduct; Mount Whitney fish hatchery is not so lucky
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 13, 2008 at 9:52 pmFrom MyFoxLA:
Independence (myfoxla.com) — The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power says its crucial aqueduct in the Owens Valley was not harmed by severe debris flows that all-but-destroyed a historic fish hatchery and buried the highway linking Southern California with Eastern Sierra recreation areas.
Heavy thunderstorms Saturday and Sunday have caused fire-denuded hillsides to ooze down across U.S. 395, closing the road north of Independence for much of the day. In one section, more than a quarter-mile of road is buried in ash, mud and rocks several feet deep, witnesses said.
Summer homes owned mostly by Southern California residents in the Oak Canyon area were either wrenched apart or filled with mud, said reporter Benett Kessler of KSRW-TV in Bishop.
But DWP spokeswoman Gale Harris said the critical aqueduct was not harmed. “They had some flash flooding but no damage,” she said.
Unfortunately, the Mount Whitney Fish Hatchery wasn’t so lucky. For more on this story from MyFoxLA, click here.
Los Angeles DWP suit alleges Colorado firm overbilled for Owens Lake work
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 25, 2008 at 7:07 am
From the Los Angeles Times:
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against a Colorado-based construction and engineering firm, accusing it of overbilling the utility over a seven-year period.
The lawsuit alleged that the Englewood-based company conspired to defraud the DWP by preparing and approving numerous invoices that “artificially inflated the value of the work performed by CH2M Hill and its subcontractors.”
The lawsuit comes one year after an audit commissioned by the DWP concluded that CH2M Hill had overbilled the municipal utility by as much as $4.5 million.
Although the lawsuit does not say how much the city believes it is owed by CH2M Hill, DWP General Manager H. David Nahai said his agency would seek at least $13.5 million, plus punitive damages and $10,000 for each allegedly false claim submitted by the company. “This lawsuit doesn’t specify a number because it’s possible that by the time that other damages are added, the number could be much larger” than the original amount that was overcharged, Nahai said.
CH2M Hill received contracts worth $106 million since 1998 to control dust on the dry bed of Owens Lake, which is about 200 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
A spokesman for CH2M Hill said he had not seen the lawsuit, but denied the allegations of fraud. “We did what we believe, and what others believe, was good work for the city,” said Martin Nicholson, CH2M Hill’s regional manager for the Southwest region. “We stand behind that work.”
Read the rest of this story from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
The Mono Lake effect is wonderfully strange; now is a great time to check it out
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 24, 2008 at 8:59 am
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Down at lake level, paddling a kayak among Mono Lake’s otherworldly tufa towers, you realize that Mark Twain, for once, got it all wrong. Cradled in a “lifeless, treeless, hideous desert … this solemn, silent, sail-less sea - this lonely tenant of the loneliest spot on Earth - is little graced with the picturesque,” he wrote in “Roughing It.”
Lifeless? Try telling that to the 2 million birds that nest here - California gulls, eared grebes, American avocets, western and least sandpipers, snowy plovers and white-faced ibises, to name a few - or the 5 billion brine shrimp that form a milky cloud beneath our paddles. Little graced with the picturesque? Tell that to the professional photographers who line up, tripod to tripod, along the shore on any given day.
Granted, Mono Lake might look barren and lifeless from the window of your car as you zip by at 70 mph. But the view from the shoreline, or from the seat of a kayak or canoe, changes everything.
As Twain suggested, the water is so salty and alkaline you could probably wash your clothes by towing them behind your boat. But the dramatic setting - a brooding, volcanic, Tolkienesque landscape - is unlike anything else in California, and you quickly discover that Mono Lake is home to some of nature’s more wonderfully strange creatures, such as alkali flies that plunge into the lake to graze and lay eggs by encasing themselves in tiny bubbles.
Why not try visiting some place a little out of the ordinary, a little unusual? Find out more about why it is a great time to visit Mono Lake, and what you can do while you are there by reading the full text of this article from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here. Find out more about Mono Lake by visiting the Mono Lake Committee website: click here.
Inyo County and DWP run into murky language in the Long Term Water Agreement
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 24, 2008 at 7:31 amFrom the Inyo County Register:
A bit of disagreement has surfaced between Inyo County and the Los Angeles Department over the definition of different types of wells as they’re listed in the manual that governs the two entities’ Owens Valley groundwater management.
The county is concerned the disagreement, due to unclear language in the Inyo-L.A. Long-Term Water Agreement, could lead to wells being sunk and pumped and not scrutinized at the level they should be.
Essentially, Inyo County Acting Water Director Bob Harrington recently explained, the issue comes down to whether a well should be considered a “new” well or a “replacement” well.Harrington briefed the Inyo County Board of Supervisors on Section VI of the LTWA, which deals with “new” wells and their production capacity. “Within the language here, we’ve run into disagreements with L.A.,” Harrington said. “How this section applies to replacement wells is unclear,” and the Water Department hopes to work with both the LADWP and the Inyo County Board of Supervisors to clarify the language.
In addition to the discrepancies in the language of Section VI of the LTWA, Harrington said that the process of Inyo-L.A. Technical Group evaluations of newly constructed wells, either new wellfields or replacement wells, is also unclear.
As an example, Harrington explained that “LADWP replaced wells on the Bishop Cone and because they were replacements, not new wells, they didn’t go through as much evaluation as a new well would, and ended up with more pumping capacity.” He said the higher pumping capacity was, at least in part, a result of newer equipment being installed in the wells, which were built in the 1920s.
Read more on this story from the Inyo County Register by clicking here.
Tim Alpers’s latest project: creating a new trout hatchery at Conway Ranch
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 15, 2008 at 1:46 pmFrom the Los Angeles Times:
Beyond this tiniest of Eastern Sierra communities is a parcel of barren wilderness soon to be nourished by high-mountain snowmelt and teeming with colorful life. Conway Ranch used to raise cattle. Now it’s the domain of coyotes, watched over by eagles and completely ignored by motorists whizzing by on U.S. 395. But barring lengthy bureaucratic snags, it’ll soon house the region’s largest and most ambitious private trout hatchery.
The transformation has begun. Earthen raceways are dug. One is watered and brimming with fat rainbows, luring eagles to nearby power poles, perched like vultures. Brown and cutthroat trout also will be raised here and stocked in area waters.
Meantime, the Inland Aquaculture Group of investors irons out details with Mono County, which haggles with LADWP, DFG, USFWS, NRCS, SCE, BLM and other agencies with ties to the land, water and wildlife. The Inland Aquaculture Group is Tim Alpers, who sold his Owens River ranch and hatchery last December; John Frederickson, who owns concessions at June Lake and Crowley Lake; and Orange County businessman Steve Brown. They’ve leased 835 acres of property purchased recently by Mono County with $2 million in grant money.
Dan Lyster, director of economic development for Mono County, hopes the project will be a boon to the region. After all, visiting anglers — most of them from the Southern California — account for 60% of the Eastern Sierra economy, according to one study.
Read more form Pete Thomas’s “On the Outdoors” column in the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
DWP releases it’s groundwater pumping plan for Owens Valley; “just about what we expected” says official
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 10, 2008 at 6:10 amFrom the Inyo County Register:
Described as typical of recent annual activity, the coming year’s groundwater pumping in the Owens Valley is slated to remain aligned with prior levels. This latest plan from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power calls for pumping 66,800 acre-feet in the Owens Valley during the coming 12 months. This projected pumping output conforms to the approved levels established when the Interim Management Plan (IMP) was put into effect back in March, 2007.
The annual groundwater pumping plan for the Owens Valley was released in mid-April by the LADWP and was subsequently reviewed by the Inyo County Water Department. Under terms of the Water Agreement between the City of Los Angeles and Inyo County, the LADWP is directed to publish its groundwater pumping plan in April of each year. The “water year” upon which the pumping plans are based runs from April 1 to March 31.
To a significant degree, pumping levels correspond to the amount of precipitation during the winter season. The current Owens Valley Runoff Forecast is based upon the actual survey of snow gauging stations located along the Eastern Sierra Mountain front. The long-term average Owens Valley runoff is 415,725 acre-feet, based upon actual data from 1956-2005.
For the period of April 1, 2008 through March 31, 2009, according to the LADWP report, the forecasted Owens Valley runoff is 356,100 acre-feet, or 86-percent of the long-term average. This includes runoff from streams in Long Valley, Round Valley and the Owens Valley.
Read the rest of this story from the Inyo County Register by clicking here.
“Saving the Sierra” - a radio documentary, now available online
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 3, 2008 at 6:46 amThank you to Geoffrey of the Mono Lake Committee for sending me this link. The radio documentary, “Saving the Sierra”, is being aired in the Bay Area and Central California, and is now posted on the Internet. From the website:
Urban development threatens rural communities across America. People who live and work in these beautiful landscapes face some tough decisions about the future. We traveled California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range to explore communities in the midst of struggle against the development pressures closing in on them. In each place, we met unlikely allies who came together to find grassroots solutions for sustaining both the environment and their ways of life.
Most rural communities within driving distance of sprawling cities and suburbs face these issues. And most urban dwellers have been to a place just like the communities in these three stories:
In a remote mountain valley, both ranchers and environmentalists have begun to use conservation easements to save open space and preserve the largest wetlands in the mountain range.
In a small town north of Lake Tahoe, resort development will blanket the mountain with million-dollar luxury homes. But after a long legal battle, a deal was struck that will provide permanent, on-going funding for affordable housing, public transit, and habitat restoration.
The city of Los Angeles was forced to become a leader in water conservation because of a landmark legal ruling that kept them from draining an entire watershed in pursuit of drinking water.
Click here to visit the Saving the Sierra website and listen to the radio documentary. (The Mono Lake story is about 30 minutes in.)
Trout season opener at Crowley Lake full of tradition and festivity
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 1, 2008 at 5:32 amFrom the Inyo County Register:
As the Eastern Sierra greeted the avid anglers from near and far Saturday with clear skies and calm waters, the annual fishing Opener took on an appearance unique to fishing openers around the nation. Perhaps it’s the SoCal influence, maybe it’s the stocking program or the rich and fertile waters, but Saturday’s Opener was like a cross between a day at the beach and a tailgate party. Oh, and there were fish caught, too.
One of the first things a person who has never lived far from outdoor pursuits notices about the Eastern Sierra is the unique place this country holds in the family traditions of those who visit here.
Everyone has a story about their lifelong love affair with the valley and the mountains that make up Inyo and Mono county life. They talk about coming up with their grandfather, always stopping at Schat’s or Jack’s or some other habitual place.According to Paul Bedell of the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department, it’s those traditions that create the flurry of activity at Crowley Lake and all the rest of the fishing waters that dot the region. “You won’t find many first-timers,” Bedell said as he navigated the county’s water patrol boat through and around the hundreds of boats that flocked to the bay off McGee Creek Saturday morning. “People come back here, year after year. They learned to fish here, and they bring their kids back to learn too,” said Sgt. Keith Hardcastle from his perch in the back of the Inyo boat.
More on the trout season opener at Crowley Lake from the Inyo County Register by clicking here.
Lower Owens River: “Full-stream ahead” as high flows do their work on the river
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 11, 2008 at 6:20 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
As blizzards whipped across nearby High Sierra peaks, ecologist William Platts lifted off in a helicopter here and headed north, about 1,000 feet above a river that looked as if it were throwing a tantrum.
Beneath him, the squiggle of green was overflowing its banks, inundating a patchwork of oxbows, marshlands, forests and sagebrush. Culverts were nearly filled to capacity, and mats of dislodged tules and muck hurtled down the river. “I really like what I see down there,” the 80-year-old Platts told the chopper pilot through the headphone radio. “But we’ll need three or four more seasonal pulses to kick-start this ecosystem into gear.”
The Lower Owens River has flooded for millenniums, but this flood was man-made, part of the most ambitious river restoration project in the West. The river mostly disappeared when the Los Angeles Aqueduct opened in 1913, but 15 months ago engineers began redirecting some aqueduct water into the channel. The flood should flush the recently revived river of a century’s worth of cattle waste and debris, add topsoil to its flood plain and spur an awakening of riparian rhythms without harming fish populations. Eventually, a canopy forest will grow along the 62-mile river, and Inyo County officials hope the waterway will support a thriving recreation industry.
But whether the project achieves that potential will depend on three river bosses who rarely agree: the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Inyo County and environmentalists whose lawsuit led to a judicial order that launched the 77,657-acre project as mediation for environmental damage from DWP pumps sucking out groundwater.
Some suggest that the effort also might be affected by drought conditions, which could reduce interest in the project that runs on 55,000 cubic feet of Sierra snowmelt a year. “If there was not enough water to go around and people were suffering, this project would be the first thing to go,” said project consultant Mark Hill, who helped develop the plan along with Platts. “It’s sacrosanct now and under a court order. But no one should think it’s set in stone. It’s not.”
Read the rest of the story from the Los Angeles Times, which includes a video of the river, by clicking here. For more information on the Lower Owens River restoration project, click here.
Owens River picture (top) by flickr photographer djfrantic. Owens River (bottom) by Aquafornia. Check out the Aquafornia page at flickr by clicking here.
Looking back at the history of the Los Angeles Aqueduct
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on February 21, 2008 at 10:58 pmFrom Westside Today, a retrospective article about how Mulholland brought water to Los Angeles:
Prior to 1913, the Los Angeles River was the primary source of water for our City of the Angels. In 1867 the privately owned City Water Company was awarded a 30-year contract to distribute river water efficiently. In 1878, the company hired a 23-year-old man to work as a zanjero, keeping the main water course from the river clear of trash and plant growth. He was an Irishman who didn’t have a formal education, but did have a deep love of learning and an abiding thirst for knowledge. His name was William Mulholland.
Mulholland learned engineering by reading and experience. He worked tirelessly in the field, leaving the desk work to others. He built an impressive reputation for himself in Los Angeles. He was known for his integrity and honesty.
You can read the rest of this article from Westside Today by clicking here.
Mayor presides over water release ceremony for the Lower Owens River
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on February 19, 2008 at 7:49 amFrom the Inyo County Register:
His visit to the Owens Valley began on dry ground for City of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, standing alongside the Lower Owens River. Before long, though, the mayor had slipped on a personal-flotation-device and stepped into a canoe. Villaraigosa’s travels that day began by riding the rails in his hometown of Los Angeles. The mayor had boarded an L.A. subway beneath the streets of the city to bring attention to the viability of that form of mass transit. Next, the mayor boarded a helicopter for his trip to the Eastern Sierra to inaugurate higher flows being released into the Lower Owens River. Then, making his way by foot from the landing site, Villaraigosa crossed the L.A. Aqueduct Intake that had diverted waters from the lower stretches of the river for nearly a century.
Villaraigosa presided over a water release ceremony at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday that marked the initial increase of water from the Lower Owens River Projects’ mandated 40 cubic feet per second (cfs) to a peak flow of 200 cfs into the long-dry river channel. The additional water is designed to approximate a “seasonal high water flow” in order to recharge the southern 63 miles of the river’s path toward the Owens Lake.
The ceremony was attended by David Nahai of the DWP, Inyo County Supervisor Richard Cervantes, and representatives from the Owens Valley Committee & the Sierra Club. Said the Mayor at the ceremony:
“Today also marks our two communities (L.A. and the Owens Valley) coming together, as we haven’t always been friendly over the years,” said Villagraigosa. “L.A. was a desert and we took your water and made it into an oasis – but we also made this oasis into a desert. Today, as we work together, we (L.A.) will do what we must to continue this trend toward improvement. We want to work with you not because of lawsuits, but because we wish to do what is right to make environmental strides within the Owens Valley.”
Echoing Villaraigosa’s assessment of past problems between L.A. and the Owens Valley and his desire for better future relations, Inyo County Supervisor Richard Cervantes said, “We must build a closer partnership, a team, in order to work effectively together and bring nature back into a healthy state. I believe what we are doing here today makes a strong statement about increased cooperation.”
The Mayor then took a personal tour of the river by paddle boat to view the river and the restoration efforts. Get the rest of this story from the Inyo County Register by clicking here.
Mayor lets Owens River sweep him away for Valentines Day
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on February 16, 2008 at 8:16 amFrom the Owens Valley Committee:
OWENS RIVER INTAKE, INYO COUNTY, CA–Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa let the Lower Owens River sweep him off his feet Wednesday, February 13.
After presiding over a ceremony to celebrate the beginning of the first artificial seasonal habitat flow since the river’s official rewatering in December 2006, the mayor climbed into a yellow canoe and rowed gently downstream. Many others joined him in a small celebratory flotilla, including Mark Bagley, local Sierra Club representative, and David Nahai, new DWP general manager, who sat elbow-to-elbow at the bow of a drift boat.
The Lower Owens River Project partly mitigates environmental damage from groundwater pumping from 1970 to 1990. Yearly seasonal habitat flows–including this, the first for the newly rewatered river–are meant to imitate natural flooding by redistributing muck from the river bottom, helping to distribute and germinate seeds from riparian vegetation such as willows and cottonwood, and recharging groundwater tables in the flood plain, among other purposes.
Several speakers at the ceremony wryly acknowledged that mitigation projects for Los Angeles’ water exports from the Owens Valley have often been a labor of law more than a labor of love.
“We recognize that Los Angeles was a desert before we came to the Owens Valley and that the Owens Valley was an oasis,” the mayor said. “….Today we say we’re going to share the prosperity….We’re here to be the neighbors we should have been one hundred years ago.”
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