Finding Open Water : Well-Stocked Haiwee Reservoir Still Controlled by the DWP, but Fishermen Can Use It for First Time in More Than 40 Years

Francis Pedneau, a Lone Pine contractor, went fishing at Haiwee Reservoir in the lower Owens Valley one day last June, using himself as bait.

A caretaker employee of the Los Angeles City Department of Water and Power bit.

“They tried to run me out,” Pedneau said. “I said no. That had never happened to them before. They’d tell people they were trespassing, and nobody ever refused to go.”

When the DWP man said he would call the Inyo County Sheriff’s Dept., Pedneau said: “Fine. I’ll be right here . . . although I may move down a little because the fishing’s not too good here.”

A sheriff’s deputy arrived but declined to press the matter, on advice of Inyo County counsel.

Pedneau had made his point. From that day on, anglers have walked into Haiwee--right past the DWP’s yellow no-trespassing, no-loitering, no-fishing, no-anything signs--to fish with impunity.

The DWP owns about 70% of the land around Haiwee Reservoir, the Bureau of Land Management the rest. Nobody disputes that. What Pedneau and Bob Hayner, co-founders of the Owens Valley Warm Water Fishing Assn., disputed was that the DWP had the right to keep fishermen out. It was right there in the State Constitution, which is noted in legal documents transferring ownership from the state to the city on Feb. 27, 1950.

Article 1, Section 25: The people shall have the right to fish upon and from the public lands of the State and in the waters thereof . . . and no land owned by the State shall ever be sold or transferred without reserving in the people the absolute right to fish thereupon . . . .

“Haiwee has been open to the public for fishing since 1950,” Pedneau said. “DWP and some other people who have been aware of these documents have seen fit not to make that public. In the 1950s, they carried guns--DWP employees--and they’d show them to you.”

In June, a couple of weeks after Pedneau’s confrontation, Hayner and Pedneau discovered dead fish on the bank. DFG Warden Pat McLernon collected 104 carp and 14 trout and sent water and fish samples to the department’s laboratory in Rancho Cordova for tests. He received the results last Friday.

“The gills were coated with copper, (and the water had) a high concentration of copper,” McLernon said.

The DWP uses copper sulfate, or bluestone, to kill algae that restricts the flow in the aqueduct. Although the fish near shore and in the coves seem to be less affected, DFG associate fisheries biologist Curtis Milliron said: “When you (use bluestone to kill algae) you’re taking the bottom out of the food chain that goes all the way up to the fish and the birds. Copper sulfate also is toxic to fish at certain levels.”

Even before that recent event, Hayner and Pedneau had decided to take matters into their own hands. They formed their association, which now has more than 100 members, and as they delved into research-- bingo!-- someone told Hayner about the item in the State Constitution that would unlock Haiwee.

“I won’t tell you who my source was,” Hayner said. “He’d lose his job.”

But that’s when, Pedneau said, “We decided to challenge (the DWP).”

Haiwee Reservoir, about eight miles long, lies in a shallow gorge of the Owens River east of U.S. 395, south of long-dry Owens Lake. The upper and lower sections are separated by a diversion dam, which can move water into the aqueduct or the lower reservoir, where a power station is located at the end.

Unlike it has at Crowley Lake, which it also owns, the DWP never has managed Haiwee for fishing. There are no public facilities. Here and there, motorists catch glimpses from the highway, but there are no signs indicating recreational opportunities, so nearly everyone continues on to the more familiar Eastern Sierra destinations, such as Crowley Lake. Haiwee’s fine fishing has been mostly a local--and DWP--secret.

Hayner has logged his recent fishing trips to Haiwee. In three hours on Sept. 19, for example, he and two friends caught 136 largemouth bass and five smallmouth bass--or one fish about every 2 1/2 minutes, as fast as they could land and release.

“A fish on every cast,” Hayner said.

The worst day he logged was one catch every 45 minutes. Other species taken have included rainbow trout, German browns, Sacramento perch and bluegills. From Aug. 29 to Sept. 26, 35 anglers fishing a total of 148 hours caught 671 largemouths, 44 smallmouths, four rainbows and a bluegill. That’s an average of one catch every 13.2 minutes.

In one day, Francis Pedneau’s brother Ed, of Simi Valley, took a 5-pound 12-ounce largemouth, a 3-8 smallmouth and a 4-8 rainbow--something better than pan-size fish.

While driving around the lake on a graded DWP service road last weekend, Hayner pointed out some of his favorite spots. Fishing is generally better in the lower reservoir, but in the upper reservoir, the coves are shaded by cottonwoods, which beavers have converted into underwater structures--ideal habitat for bass.

“At this one, one beaver was gnawing on a tree, another was swimming around my legs and I was catching bass left and right,” Hayner said.

He would like to see improvements, such as restrooms and a launching ramp for small boats, and says state grants are available to minimize the DWP’s costs.

Thaddeus Taylor of Bishop, a Cal Trout member, said: “This has the potential to be as big for Inyo County as Crowley is for Mono County--and much closer to a major population center.”

The DFG also is involved. Word is getting around that the DWP is no longer evicting anglers, so more are coming to Haiwee.

Hayner mingles with the anglers to enlist support for his organization.

“Is the rumor true?” Craig Doxtator of Ridgecrest asked. “That it’s open to fishing now?”

Actually, Hayner said, it has never been closed. The DWP just wanted people to think it was.

Hayner, collecting cans and trash as he goes, advises everyone he meets not to litter, to respect DWP property and to practice catch-and-release fishing. He also has proposed emergency regulations to the Fish and Game Commission to protect the bass resource with a zero limit before the increasing fishing pressure wipes it out.

Depleting the resource wasn’t a problem when only DWP employees and a few intruders were fishing Haiwee.

“They’ve been letting their own people fish down there,” Hayner said. “They’ll deny that, but I worked for the department for 15 years, and after a few months I was told I could fish but I couldn’t bring any friends.”

Hayner left the DWP in 1979 in an unrelated dispute. In Lone Pine (Pop. 2,000), where he lives 25 miles to the north, some of his old acquaintances in the department regard him less than kindly.

“This one guy in particular flips me the bird every time he sees me,” Hayner said. “It kind of makes me feel good, because it shows me they know they’re going to get beat.”

Hayner has written and phoned the DWP asking for a meeting. Bob Wilson, the Northern District Engineer who is the DWP’s top executive in the Eastern Sierra, phoned him Aug. 28 to state, Hayner said, that “department attorneys had reached a decision on our right to access and fish, and they were just working out some minor points like boats, trash pickup and restroom facilities. But since Aug. 28, we have not heard anything.”

The fishing association has retained Pat Marley, a Los Angeles lawyer who has been successful on several issues related to fishing.

“Two of our points are not negotiable,” Hayner said. “We want them to cease and desist in their bluestoning. We want them to give us the rights we have had all these years, and to acknowledge that we’ve had that right since 1950.”

Wilson could not be reached for comment, but DWP spokesman Chris Plakos in Bishop said: “The department has made application to the State Department of Health Services to allow fishing (at Haiwee). Unless Health Services says differently, we’re not going to allow boating or swimming, because it’s so close to the city.”

Plakos indicated that DWP leaders would meet with the fishing interests when other, more pressing projects ease up.

Hayner said: “We would just as soon sit down with DWP and their attorneys and work this thing out so it’s reasonable and fair to both sides. But if push comes to shove, we’ll take them to court.”