Judge Halts L.A. Diversion of Water From Mono Basin

In a stunning defeat for Los Angeles, an El Dorado County judge ordered the city’s Department of Water and Power on Tuesday to halt all diversions from the environmentally sensitive Mono Lake Basin until March 30, 1990.

Dejected city officials said the ruling will cost the city about $15 million in replacement water and energy supplies. It will force the city to make additional water purchases from reserves held by the Metropolitan Water District, officials said, thereby cutting into next year’s water supply.

“We are extremely disappointed with this ruling because we feel there would be no significant impact to the lake’s ecosystem this year by continuing planned diversions from four Mono Basin streams,” said James F. Wickser, the DWP’s assistant chief engineer for water.

In his ruling, Superior Court Judge Terrence M. Finney held that the water level in the lake in the Eastern Sierra must be raised nearly two feet from a level of 6,375.6 to 6,377 feet.

The ruling came in an 11-year-old lawsuit filed by the Audubon Society over environmental damage it claims has been caused by the city’s diversion of water from four of the seven mountain streams that feed the lake. The Audubon Society and the 18,000-member Mono Lake Committee, an activist group that favors protecting the lake, had asked the court for a preliminary injunction to halt the diversions until a trial in the case could be held.

The environmentalists argued that continued diversions and lowering of lake levels would expose a land bridge to the lake’s Negit Island, enabling coyotes to reach a nesting area for gulls. There has also been concern that the lower lake level is raising the salinity of the water so high that it could become a dead lake.

The city, however, insisted that the diversions would do no “irreparable harm” to the lake’s ecosystem.

Betsy Reifsnider, associate director of the Mono Lake Committee, said the group is “very pleased and relieved by Judge Finney’s decision, because the preliminary injunction will halt Mono Lake’s decline at a very critical time.”

“I feel this is really a victory for the people of Los Angeles because over 60% of those who visit Mono Lake each year are from Southern California. It’s their lake too,” she said.

Mitch Kodama, southern district engineer for DWP and manager of Mono Basin issues for the department, said the decision also comes at a critical time for the city, which already faces shortages because of a drought affecting other water sources. The Mono Lake Basin provides about one-seventh of the city’s water supply and a small amount of hydroelectric power that is generated as the water moves through power plants along the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

Kodama said the city had expected its yearly purchase from the Metropolitan Water District to be about 250,000 acre-feet. But the new ruling caused officials to revise the estimate to 300,000 acre-feet. In normal years, the city purchases from 50,000 to 60,000 acre-feet from the district. An acre-foot is the amount needed to cover one acre with one foot of water.

“What we see here is a five-fold increase in the amount of water we have to purchase from MWD this year,” said Kodama. “Certainly, the ruling doesn’t help us during this drought year. In order to sell us the water, it means MWD will basically be dipping into next year’s storage.”

Finney had issued a temporary restraining order June 15 requiring the city to store all water diverted from the Mono Lake Basin until he ruled on the request for the injunction. That water, which has been stored in Grant Lake Reservoir, will now be released into the lake.

The court decision follows by nearly a week the Los Angeles City Council’s decision to endorse legislation which is expected to lead to a resolution of its long-running dispute with environmentalists over Mono Lake.

The legislation by Assemblyman Phil Isenberg (D-Sacramento) and William Baker (R-Danville) requires the city to reach an agreement with the Mono Lake Committee and the state Department of Water Resources on a plan for the preservation and protection of the lake. It creates a $75-million environmental water fund which can be used to help the city pay for alternative water and power sources once an agreement has been reached.