Bill to Halt L.A.’s Use of Mono-Area Water Shelved

A Senate Committee temporarily shelved legislation Tuesday designed to stop Los Angeles from taking water from the streams that naturally flow into the environmentally sensitive Mono Lake.

Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento), author of the bill, said that with the Legislature nearing the conclusion of the first half of its two-year session, the measure may be doomed unless he soon reaches a compromise with the city.

“Los Angeles has got to get off the dime and get something done, and it’s going to require some fast action,” he said. “As one writer said, ‘We’re approaching the deep edge of yonder.’ ”

Sen. Ruben S. Ayala (D-Chino), chairman of the Senate Agriculture and Water Resources Committee, said the panel will not consider the legislation again until lawmakers return in late August from a monthlong recess.

The bill, designed to end years of legal wrangling between the city and environmentalists, requires Los Angeles, the state Department of Water Resources and the Mono Lake Committee, an activist group that promotes preservation of the basin, to reach an agreement on the protection of the lake. Because any agreement would require a curtailment of the city’s pumping in the area, it provides a $100-million fund that can be used to help the city in its search for other water sources.

The Mono Lake Basin, 300 miles north of Los Angeles in the eastern Sierra, has been a source of water for the city since 1941, when it began pumping from streams that feed the lake. The city now gets about one-seventh of its water supply from the streams feeding into Mono Lake.

Since it began pumping, the lake level has dropped 40 feet, prompting charges by the Mono Lake Committee and other environmental groups that the city has endangered the basin’s unique ecosystem. A lawsuit filed by the committee to stop the city’s diversion of water is pending in the courts.

Ron Cagle, a lobbyist for the city, said it objects to provisions in Isenberg’s bill that refer to “long-term damage” done to the lake by the city’s pumping.

“The lake is a very viable ecosystem right now,” he said. “There is no long-term damage that can be demonstrated.”

He said the city would be willing to support Isenberg’s legislation if that statement is removed and provisions are made for a permanent source of funding for the water the city will have to obtain elsewhere.

Permanent Protections

“There is not enough money for permanent protections for the lake,” Cagle said. “The money is for a period of nine years. How can you permanently protect a lake when money is only available for a nine-year period?”

Isenberg said the city should not expect to recover “every dime of what it thinks it’s going to lose.”

If his legislation does not pass, he predicted that the city will eventually lose in the courts and be forced to curtail its pumping anyway.

“So by then, the worst of all circumstances will occur,” he said. “Los Angeles ratepayers and taxpayers will pay through the nose to try to restore a lake that cannot be saved.”