Environmental Impact Reports for Reservoirs

I am accustomed to expecting reportage in The Times to be coherent, and whether or not I agree with it, generally accurate. I am sorry to have to tell you the (June 25) article on DWP’s water quality improvement program at 10 L.A. open reservoirs was neither.

The headline, “DWP will not have to provide environmental impact reports for its filtration or enclosure projects,” is dead wrong.

The article elaborates: “The council vote withdrew a requirement that all DWP plans to build filtration plants or cover the city’s 10 open-air reservoirs must include a formal systemwide environmental impact report, along with separate reports for each reservoir project.” This statement is confusing.

What the council did was to rescind only the Program Environmental Impact Report requirement because, as a result of the mediation with the Coalition to Preserve Open Reservoirs (made up of 15 resident groups located adjacent to eight reservoir sites), DWP no longer has a systemwide plan to cover and/or filter reservoirs.

Also, the council action further emphasized the requirement for adequate environmental review, following California Environmental Quality Act guidelines for any individual project because the former program EIR could have supplanted the requirement for separate reports at each reservoir. The latter point is crucial to each of the communities with reservoirs because it means that residents are ensured a voice in the project definition and a voice in the preparation of the environmental review.

It is also confusing (that) the “Silver Lake” story makes reference to “one of the city’s most influential homeowner groups” objecting to the council action. The group later identified as the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns. neither represents Silver Lake residents nor is it very influential in this community at the moment.

JAMES BONAR

President

Silver Lake Residents Assn.

Editor’s note: The headline stating that the DWP will no longer have to conduct environmental reports for water improvement projects at its open reservoirs was incorrect. Under state law, the agency could dispense with an environmental report for a project only if it is determined there would be no significant environmental effects. However, as stated in the article, the agency has pledged to conduct environmental reports for all projects. Also, due to an editing error, past lobbying on behalf of a program environmental report was incorrectly attributed to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. The lobbying was by the Coalition to Preserve Open Reservoirs.