A Chance for Peace at Crowley Lake

A decade and a half ago the engineers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power decided to pump the Owens Valley’s groundwater without preparing an environmental assessment of their actions.

After 12 years of litigation the DWP was ordered three times by a Sacramento appeals court to prepare an environmental-impact report and follow its conclusions. Along the way the court rewrote California water law, subordinating DWP’s proprietary interest in its Owens Valley water to the greater public interest in the valley’s environment and forcing Los Angeles into the first water rationing in its history. Just last year a peace treaty was finally concluded, which made Inyo County an equal partner in the management of DWP’s Owens Valley groundwater.

Having experienced such a costly lesson, the DWP would not be expected to repeat its mistakes right away. But the engineers are at it again. This time they propose a major enlargement of the DWP’s Crowley Lake Reservoir in Mono County--without preparing an environmental-impact report. The DWP contends that such a report is unnecessary because the project would do no environmental harm, and the department will present this suggestion at a public hearing at Crowley Lake tonight. But the defenders of Mono Lake assert that the expansion would be harmful and thus requires a formal environmental assessment. The tragedy of the DWP’s proposal lies in the missed opportunity--not just to comply with the law but also, more important, to secure peace with the defenders of Mono Lake to the north.

The proposed expansion of Crowley Lake, flooding 1,000 more acres of Eastern Sierra rangeland to increase the reservoir’s capacity by 70%, presents a two-edged sword. DWP contends that the expansion would provide storage of excess water in wet years and reduce the need to take upstream Mono Basin water in times of drought. But environmentalists respond that a larger reservoir would increase DWP’s ability and appetite to take more Mono water at any time, thus placing the lake at even greater risk than at present.

Both sides are right. And that is precisely why an environmental-impact report is needed: so that both decision-makers and the public will become aware of the project’s risks and benefits and learn if an operating program can be adopted to avoid the former and secure the latter. In the case of Crowley Reservoir I firmly believe that the project can be justified as benefiting both Mono Lake and Los Angeles. It’s time for DWP, as the project proponent, to prove its case in an environmental-impact report.

But the DWP balks for two understandable if misguided reasons. First, the engineers rightly fear that if they start an impact report on Crowley Lake they will soon be forced to assess and expose their entire Mono Basin operations. But that larger duty will be enforced whether or not Crowley expands. Three years ago the California Supreme Court ordered precisely that reassessment of all of DWP’s Mono Lake impacts.

This fact leads to DWP’s second reason: Why should it do something that it is not forced to do? An engineer’s life, after all, is easier answering only to other engineers or the occasional glances of the city’s politicians and not the public or the Eastern Sierra’s defenders. In the meantime, DWP can take the water at will.

But DWP and Los Angeles’ elected officials should not forget so easily their recent Owens Valley groundwater experience. Do they want additional legal precedent cutting into their water rights? Do they want to become again the outcasts of the state’s water establishment? Do they want again to have their water-extraction programs--and rationing at home--ordered by an appellate court up north? Does Mayor Tom Bradley, who aspires to prove himself worthy of governing the entire state, need the criticism again that he has failed to lead DWP on a course that simultaneously benefits his own metropolis and the remote environment of the Eastern Sierra?

The single response to these questions has to be “no.” The path to follow is simple: DWP should get on with an environmental assessment of all its Mono County operations, including an expanded Crowley Reservoir. Ultimately this will lead DWP into another peace and partnership with its high-country neighbors.