A Revolt That’s Not Needed : Owens Valley Partisans Pick a Fight Just as the Tide Is Turning

A nasty little rebellion is under way up in the Owens Valley that unhappily revives ugly memories of water wars of yore.

The vigilantes in Inyo county, who call themselves People Who Love the Valley, are out to recall three members of the Inyo County Board of Supervisors, dump the county’s talented water department director and--supposedly--attempt to seize the valley back from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. But those actions would not serve the valley well. This misguided venture actually threatens to do severe damage to long months of constructive cooperation between Los Angeles and Inyo County.

This disruptive movement comes just as the two sides finally are prepared to write an environmental impact report that will set realistic limits on ground-water pumping in order to protect the valley environment. To make sure that Inyo County’s interests are protected, the pact must be reviewed and approved by the state Court of appeal before the pumping plan can proceed. And to make the dissidents’ timing even worse, their uprising coincides with the appointment of two strong environmentalists--former Deputy Mayor Mike Gage and Dorothy Green--to the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners, which oversees the DWP operations, including the Owens Valley water-export program.

These helpful appointments already are having a major impact on the city’s old colonial attitude toward the Owens Valley. Because of this fourth year of drought, the city has agreed to suspend all ground-water pumping in Inyo County for export to Los Angeles. Any pumping will only be for in-valley use such as irrigation of local ranches. One Owens Valley old-timer said recently that he was astounded that the city would volunteer to give up its supply of Inyo County well water, which is of course pumped from land owned by the city of Los Angeles. He never thought this could happen without dragging Los Angeles through the courts.

Given all this progress, it’s too bad that some DWP employes have been less than forthcoming in sharing environmental information with Inyo County and are not working to implement the tentative water management agreement with appropriate alacrity. One would have thought that the heightened sensitivity to Owens Valley environmental concerns by the top water and power commissioners would have caused the agency’s rank-and-file bureaucrats to find some enthusiasm of their own. And people who really love the valley should ignore the mean-spirited attacks on water chief Greg James and Supervisors Keith Bright, Paul Payne and Robert Campbell.