L.A. Backs Legislative Plan to Cut Use of Mono Water

After behind-the-scenes negotiations with environmentalists, the city of Los Angeles has agreed to support legislation that would eventually require it to curtail water diversions from the eastern Sierra streams that feed picturesque Mono Lake.

The city’s decision removes a major obstacle to the passage of bills designed to restore and protect the desert lake 300 miles north of Los Angeles.

The legislation is expected to provide the impetus for a resolution of a decades-long battle between the city and environmentalists over the diversion of water from four of the seven streams that naturally flow into the lake.

Environmentalists, led by the 15,000-member Mono Lake Committee, have argued for years that the city’s water diversions lowered the lake level so much that the survival of nesting and migratory birds and other wildlife is now threatened. The city--which depends on the Mono Lake Basin to produce one-seventh of its water and 300 million kilowatt hours of hydroelectric energy as the water flows through power plants along the aqueduct system--has insisted that its diversions have not damaged the lake’s ecosystem.

The legislation, by Assemblymen Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento) and William P. Baker (R-Danville), requires the city to reach agreements with the Department of Water Resources and the Mono Lake Committee on a plan to preserve and protect the Mono Lake Basin. Both sides acknowledged that any plan would have to include requirements that the city reduce its diversions from the streams feeding the lake.

As a financial incentive for the city, the bills would create a $100-million Environmental Water Fund for a variety of projects, including those to help Los Angeles replace the water and power supplies it would have to give up to preserve the lake.

“I think we all view this now as a building block, as a foundation upon which a permanent solution to the Mono Lake problem might be erected,” said Ron Cagle, a lobbyist for the city.

Although the bills set no deadline for the city to reach an agreement on a plan for the preservation of Mono Lake, both sides are expected to move quickly if the measures become law to ensure that the environmental funds will not be used for other projects. The city is also under pressure from the courts, which have ruled in favor of environmentalists in recent decisions regarding Mono Lake.

While the city continues to divert water from the lake, it is being required by an El Dorado County Superior Court to store the water in a reservoir until a ruling is made in a lawsuit filed by environmentalists. If the environmentalists win, the water will have to be returned to the lake. If the city wins, it can flow down the aqueduct.

In the latest legislative negotiations with the Mono Lake Committee and Isenberg, the city won agreement that certain phrases would be removed from one of the bills which city officials felt implied that Mono Lake had been permanently damaged by the city’s diversions.

“We all agree that we want to protect the lake but the disagreement was over whether it has been damaged,” Cagle said. “The city’s position is that the lake hasn’t been irreparably damaged. It certainly isn’t as large as it has historically been but it’s a very viable ecosystem.”

Martha Davis, executive director of the Mono Lake Committee, said the wording change does not alter the overall goal of the bills.

“This (legislation) will not save Mono Lake but what it will do is provide a framework and a financial incentive for working out a real solution,” she said. “Mono Lake’s in trouble and the clear goal is to save Mono Lake.”

Isenberg said the bills still need to win support from other interests, particularly agricultural water users, that are affected by other provisions in the legislation. They also face opposition from the state Department of Finance, he said, which objects to having funds tied up in special accounts and would prefer to have them available for balancing the budget.

“But if we can continue to put together a coalition, I think I can make a strong case to the governor (for signing the bill),” he said.