Transmission towers line an access road east of the Lower Owens River in a view west toward the Sierra Nevada and the Owens Valley town of Lone Pine, an area where the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is considering placement of solar panels. The department wants to place the photovoltaic cells on land it already owns and near transmission lines already in place. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Steve McLaughlin, president of the Bristlecone Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, walks along a berm at Owens Lake. He says that DWP land north of the lake, up to the town of Independence, should be left undisturbed since the DWP can generate all the solar power it needs from panels on the dry lake. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Shorebirds take flight at Owens Lake. When Los Angeles diverted the water feeding the lake and sent it rushing into the L.A. Aqueduct in the early 1900s, the 100-square-mile lake bed became one of the largest sources of hazardous dust in the nation. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Owens Valley cattle rancher Scott Kemp looks over grazing land. "I think it's a tremendous idea," he said of the DWP plan. "Alternative energy has got to happen." (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
A view toward the Sierra Nevada and the Owens Valley town of Lone Pine. In Inyo County, 98.3% of the land is owned either by the federal and state governments or the L.A. Department of Water and Power. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Owens Valley resident Mike Prather, a past president of the Eastern Sierra Audubon and a leader in the conservation of birds and habitat in the valley, walks in a field north of Lone Pine and east of the Lower Owens River. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
L.A. for less than the price of sunblock. 
