Spirits Fall With the Water Level at Lake Morena

Frankie Read stood on the sandy bottom of Lake Morena last week and surveyed the view. All around her, where millions of gallons of water used to be, once-hidden rocks stood tall and dusty in the sun. On the far bank, the effect of recent draining was plain. About 30 feet below what was once the reservoir’s edge a new, muddy shoreline has emerged. Nearby, the village boat ramp no longer reaches the water.

“As you can see, we’re walking underwater,” Mrs. Read, an organic gardener and eight-year resident of Lake Morena Village, said as she kicked silt from her boots. Like many of her neighbors in the southeast San Diego County hamlet, she usually describes the lake in terms of what used to be.

Before the city of San Diego transferred nearly 2.8 billion gallons from Lake Morena into a neighboring reservoir, Barrett Lake, the water was blue. Now, it’s turquoise, so laden with algae in some areas that visitors smell the odor before they reach the shore. Before March, when the three months of draining began, parents didn’t worry about letting their children swim in the 1,100-acre, 144-foot lake. Now, parents caution their children not to get stuck in the mud.

Today, Lake Morena is 440 acres and 114 feet deep, and John Lyons-Lake Morena Regional Park, once a magnet for fishermen, campers and rare birds alike, is drawing fewer visitors. At the Express Quick Mart at the center of town, bait and tackle sales have slowed to a trickle. And it’s been months since anyone has seen the pair of endangered American bald eagles that used to nest on a granite bluff overlooking the lake.

“When (the city) took the lake, everyone just thought this area was deadville,” said Dorothy Tobin, who runs a horse farm near the park’s entrance, about 8 miles from the Mexican border. “The herons are gone, and most of the hawks. And the economy has dried up.”

Throughout the draining, which ended in June, San Diego officials said the transfer of water was necessary to reduce Lake Morena’s high evaporation rate. The lake, part of a three-reservoir system designed to serve San Diego in case of emergency, supplies water downstream to Lake Barrett and Otay Reservoir, where a filtration plant is situated. Draining the lake, officials said, was essential to the greater good.

Loss of Recreation for San Diegans

Townspeople point out, however, that the shrinking of Lake Morena is more than a small-town tragedy. According to county figures, of the 300,000 people who camped, boated and fished around the lake last year, 80% were from the city of San Diego.

“The city has really hurt San Diegans themselves, and the people don’t even know it,” said Richard Leach, the president of the Lake Morena-Campo Chamber of Commerce. “It’s not just our lake, it’s their lake, too.”

Environmental activists worry that the fate of Lake Morena, once one of the region’s principal stopovers for migratory birds, may establish a dangerous precedent.

“Reservoirs are one of the few things man constructs that have the capability to improve the environment,” said Bobbie Moran, the Sierra Club’s wildlife chairman. “The question is, if you create a habitat that attracts endangered species, do you have the right to destroy it? In the creation of environmental policy, the draining of reservoirs has fallen between the cracks.”

The Sierra Club maintains that, because reservoirs enhance the environment, their drainage should be regulated under the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires that state and local agencies complete environmental impact studies for projects that may alter the project area.

That view has been seconded by state attorneys who, at the request of Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Chula Vista), analyzed whether the environmental act pertains to city water management. Their 1988 finding: the state would have ample grounds to challenge San Diego’s disruption of Lake Morena. As yet, however, the state has not undertaken such a challenge.

County officials call the city’s drainage policy indefensible.

“The city has no water management plan,” said Dianne Jacob, chief of staff for county Supervisor George Bailey. “It has never made any sense to us why they’re draining Lake Morena.”

Under a 1970 agreement with the county, however, the city of San Diego owns the lake’s water rights and may drain it to 98.5 feet, about 15 feet lower than its current level. The city has maintained that, although an environmental impact study is required before filling a reservoir, no such study need be done to drain one. So far, that approach has been upheld in the courts.

In February, Superior Court Judge William C. Pate ruled that the lake is a city-operated reservoir and that draining it is an administrative function that does not require state reviews. In March, a lawyer representing the Lake Morena residents appealed that decision, but the appeal was rejected.

Protest Wanes

Another appeal is pending, but Lake Morena Village residents acknowledge that the heyday of protest, when local boat owners formed a floating barrier to deter city engineers, is probably over. Now that San Diego has taken what it came for, there are not many occasions to sing the “Lake Morena vs. S.D. City Ditty” that a local housewife wrote to the tune of “Summertime Blues.”

“Ya’ know the eagles are your symbol and we gotta protect them,” the song goes. “We can’t let them suffer or go to extinction. The mosquitoes and the mud will drown them at first. And what about the odor--our health will be the worst.”

Indeed, Mrs. Read said that, as the lake became shallower and its waters warmer, mosquitoes have flourished. As the water table has dropped, several local residents have had to redrill their wells, and the local water company has issued a moratorium on new water meters, which virtually stopped all new construction in the area.

Visitors to Lake Morena Village, which is part of Campo, are noticing the difference.

Last week, Mary and Walter Saunders, a computer operator and retired building contractor from La Mesa, returned to Lake Morena because they remembered their first trip, last year, so fondly. The Saunders’ van was well-equipped with fishing gear, but they said that, given the condition of the lake, they wouldn’t be trying to lure the lake’s famous bass, crappie, bluegill and catfish onto their lines this trip.

“You can’t get a boat on it, and, if you can’t bring your boat, it takes the joy out of fishing--you can’t get where you want to go,” Walter Saunders said.

Board Sailors Complain

Gary Elster, the president of the San Diego Boardsailing Assn., said the same was true for his sport. Before the draining, he said, Lake Morena’s constant winds made it the best board-sailing site in the county. But now, he said, the low water level has exposed new obstacles, making it treacherous to navigate. Because dozens of feet of sediment have settled on the lake bottom, he said, the lake is even shallower than the numbers indicate.

“I have not been able to get myself to go back,” he said. “It’s dangerous, and it’s ugly to look at.”

Leach, a local realtor, said he has lost business because clients are frightened to buy near the receding shoreline. His goal now, he said, is to keep the lake from disappearing entirely--for, while the draining flumes have been shut, about 300,000 gallons a day continue to seep out of the reservoir under the dam, county park officials say.

“It feels kind of funny when you’re selling lake-front property and, all of a sudden, it’s nowhere near the lake,” Leach said. “They’ve gotten the lake down to a point now that, unless we get a lot of rain, we’re going to lose it altogether.”

Many residents, determined to salvage what’s left of their main tourist attraction are hoping for heavy rains to replenish the reservoir. They are encouraged by memories of the late 1970s, when the lake was even lower than today--a “puddle.” After a few rainy years, it was full again. And local lore says that back in 1916, when the reservoir was 4 years old, the city hired a rainmaker who brought so much rain that rivers overran their banks, dams overflowed, cattle drowned and Lake Morena was filled to the brim.

But, even if history were to repeat itself, some village residents say, they would not be satisfied. They fear that, if the reservoir regains its magnificence, the city might come back for more.

All along, locals have exchanged theories about “hidden agendas” behind San Diego’s drainage policy--all of them denied by city officials. Some suspect a city-county feud sparked by the county’s failure to pay the city $300,000 for evaporation losses. Others say they believe the city is transferring water to fill Lower Otay Reservoir, where an Olympic training center is planned.

Veto a Setback

Last week, Lake Morena Village residents suffered a setback when Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed a bill that might have helped protect the lake from further draining. The bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), would have made water authorities consider the aesthetic and recreational value of a reservoir before disturbing it, except in emergencies.

Without new state legislation on their side, environmentalists continue to push for enforcement of old statutes, like California Environmental Quality Act, that they believe already apply.

“Is this the law? Is this what can happen anywhere? Until we know for sure, we’re going to be asking questions,” said the Sierra Club’s Moran.

People who live near Lake Morena, meanwhile, are still adjusting. The town of Campo has a new art gallery and its campgrounds, closed for the summer for repairs, have recently reopened. This year’s annual children’s fishing derby was held at a private pond--the regular site, Lake Morena’s jetty, is no longer near water. So far, however, no one has renamed the rounded hill at the northwest edge of the lake. Surrounded by dry land on all sides, it is still Goat Island.