Outdoor Notes / Rich Roberts : Agreement Reached to Restore Wildlife Habitat in Lower Owens Valley

Environmentalists and sportsmen are hailing a tentative agreement between the Los Angeles City Department of Water and Power and the Inyo County Water Dept. to implement the Lower Owens Valley Project.

More than 1,000 arid acres stretching about 50 miles from Independence south to Lone Pine will be restored as a warm-water fishery for bass and a wetlands habitat for wildlife, including tule elk, waterfowl and other birds.

And Los Angeles, supporters say, won’t miss a drop.

The water will be removed from the L.A. aqueduct through the existing Blackrock spill gates north of Independence, increasing the flow into the Lower Owens River from a maximum of 25 cubic feet per second to as much as 50 c.f.s.

Thaddeus Taylor, an Inyo County water commissioner and county manager for CalTrout, said the current flow is often nearer 5 to 10 c.f.s. but probably will stabilize at about 35 once the project is in place. Before it reaches dry Owens Lake, the water will be recovered through a pump-back station at Keeler Bridge on California 136 southeast of Lone Pine and returned to the aqueduct.

The hang-up was the pump-back station. Estimates a year ago were that it would cost $4- to $6-million to build and $100,000 to $200,000 a year to operate. Inyo County, which says it has no money, wanted L.A. to build it.

Although the project is now budgeted at $7.5 million for construction and $900,000 a year to run, the city has agreed to split the building cost and finance Inyo County’s half at $300,000 a year, interest free.

The agreement announced last Friday at Bishop beat by one day a court-imposed deadline of April 1 to reach a preliminary agreement on a long-term management plan for ground water.

Taylor said that the agreement was significant because, since 1905 when Owens River water started flowing to Los Angeles, “It’s the first time they have entertained the notion of co-management of water resources in the Owens Valley.”

The State Department of Fish and Game will be the lead agency in developing the plan. Overseers based in Bishop are Curtis Milliron, a fisheries biologist, and Denyse Racine, a wildlife biologist.

Brian Tillemans of the DWP office in Bishop drew the original draft plan, and Taylor and David Groeneveld, a plant ecologist for the Inyo County Water Dept., also played leading roles.

Taylor said that construction of the pump-back station is scheduled to start in July of 1990, after completion of an environmental impact report, and construction will take three years.

Taylor said fishing and waterfowl interests are being solicited for input.

The country’s largest gathering of fly fishermen and stars of the sport is scheduled Saturday and Sunday at the Amfac Hotel in Westchester.

Up to 3,000 are expected to attend “Flyfishing World,” the annual production of the Southwest Council Federation of Fly Fishers, which represents 25 clubs in Southern California, southern Arizona and southern Nevada.

The show, which started in 1973 at Wilderness Park in Downey with about 300 people, will feature exhibitors from Alaska, Canada and the East Coast, and there will be continuous demonstrations and presentations by widely known personalities, including fly tiers Polly Rosborough and Poul Jorgensen and anglers Dave and Joan Whitlock, Mike Lawson, Dick Talleur and Rick Pasquale.

Registration opens at 7:30 a.m. Presentations are scheduled from 9:30 to 3:30 each day. A banquet is scheduled at 7:30 Saturday night.

Admission is $12 for adults, $15 for families. Proceeds will go to local conservation projects. Parking is free.

Briefly

The Department of Fish and Game reports that there were 23 hunting casualties in the state in 1988, including one fatality. Shotguns accounted for 13 of the accidents, archery two. Sixteen occurred during the pursuit of waterfowl and upland game. The fatality was one of seven shootings of deer hunters. The trigger of the hunter’s own rifle snagged as he was climbing through a fence. . . . State fishery biologists are cautiously confident that they have developed a larger hybrid strain of bass in Shasta Lake since introducing Florida largemouths into the northern largemouth habitat in 1980. Old-timers at the lake marveled at the size of the bass--up to 8 1/2 pounds, several over 7 1/2--taken recently.

About 1,000 openings remain for reservations to climb the Mt. Whitney Trail to the highest peak--14,495 feet--in the 48 contiguous states this year. The Whitney Ranger District in Lone Pine limits traffic to 50 hikers a day, by reservation only. There were 7,350 last year. This year, July, August and weekends in June and September are filled. Those applying now are advised to ask for mid-week dates in September and October. Write: Whitney Ranger District, P.O. Box 8, Lone Pine, Calif., 93545. A response takes four to six weeks.

Mike Rosala of Buena Park won last weekend’s Santa Monica Bay Halibut Derby with a tournament-record 47-pound 1-ounce fish. Jim Goodwin, West Los Angeles, was second with a fish at 29-8, and Michael Resideskg, Costa Mesa, third, 20-5. There were 1,800 participants, who weighed-in 415 legal catches of 22 inches or longer. . . . Marriott’s Fly Fishing Center in Fullerton is offering classes in nine facets of the sport this month. For details, call 1 (800) 367-2299. . . . The Santa Monica Bay chapter of Ducks Unlimited will have its 10th annual banquet Wednesday, April 19, at 7:15 p.m., at the Bel Air Club, 16801 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades. For details: (213) 829-4336.