Plan to Cut Use of Mono Water OKd

Hoping for some peace in one of the state’s longest-running environmental wars, Gov. George Deukmejian announced Saturday that he has signed two bills setting up economic incentives to entice the city of Los Angeles to draw less water out of Mono Lake.

The bills do not guarantee that Los Angeles will reduce its flow from Mono Lake, which now provides about 15% of the city’s water supply. But they set up a $65-million Environmental Water Fund that will be available to help the city develop alternative water supplies that could ease the pressure on the lake.

Before Los Angeles can tap into the fund, the legislation requires the city to agree on a water plan with the Save Mono Lake Committee. The committee, an 18,000-member environmental organization, has been engaged for years in a legal battle with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power over water rights to the lake and its tributary streams, which are located on the eastern slopes of the Sierra. Both sides have already begun talking.

Finding Other Water Sources

Earlier, DWP officials said they were enthusiastic about the legislation. They have been expressing confidence that they can work out an agreement with the Mono Lake Committee, but have said they are concerned about finding alternative sources of water.

Deukmejian, in his weekly radio address Saturday, said the bills constitute a “landmark agreement.”

The key is the $65-million water fund, Deukmejian said.

“A significant portion of this money will be available to help the city of Los Angeles develop alternative water supplies to replace water that it has traditionally diverted from the Mono Lake Basin,” Deukmejian said. “These new water supplies can come from conservation, reclamation, or the construction of additional storage facilities, thus minimizing theimpact of these changes on other water users in other parts of the state.”

Since 1941, when the city began drawing heavily from Mono Lake to supplement other water it was taking from the Owens Valley, about 100 miles to the south, the surface of the lake has dropped 45 feet, the water volume has decreased by half and its salinity has doubled.

Always saline, the lake provides an important habitat to the California gull and various migratory birds, which feed on the lake’s brine shrimp. Alarmed environmentalists, fearing destruction of Mono Lake’s fragile ecosystem, have been fighting the city in the courts for more than 10 years.

City officials have said they are not sure where to find alternative water sources. Deukmejian in his radio speech said that in addition to buying new water, the city could use conservation, reclamation and enlarging reservoirs so more water can be stored in rainy years. Reclamation would enable the city to purify and recycle water supplies.

The hoped-for solution to the problem is contained in bills by Assemblymen Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento) and William P. Baker (R-Danville).

In addition to the Mono Lake provisions, the legislation also authorizes $114 million to be spent to rehabilitate levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The money will come from repayment of $390 million owed to the state by State Water Project contractors, meaning the ultimate source of the money will be ratepayers of the agencies that draw water from the north-south aqueduct. Because payments will be spread out over 10 years, sponsors of the legislation say they do not expect it to result in rate increases.

Isenberg said that although the legislation has been signed into law it does not mean an end to the Mono Lake battle. “We have a lot of work to do from here. The city of Los Angeles and the Mono Lake Committee have to sit down and reach an agreement, then jointly apply for the funds in the new financial pot,” the lawmaker said.

“This is a big step in the water history of California,” Isenberg said. The legislators said resolution of the Mono Lake problem would “show it is possible to simultaneously protect the interests of growing California and not destroy the environment.”

In other action, Deukmejian announced that he has signed legislation to require state agencies to answer incoming telephone calls within 10 rings during regular hours under normal working conditions.

Deukmejian also said he has vetoed a Coastal Commission bill that would have provided the commission an additional 180 days to review and act on land-use plans. Deukmejian, a longtime critic of the commission who has repeatedly reduced the agency’s budget and staffing, complained that the commission has “historically violated existing time limits” and said there are no guarantees that the extra 180 days would help.