Another Whack at Owens Valley

In the latest, sorry chapter in California’s water wars, the bare facts are these: The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began diverting water from Owens Lake 84 years ago. The 110 square miles of lake bed is now bone-dry; almost every stiff wind kicks up large amounts of salty dust that causes severe problems for some area residents with asthma or other respiratory ailments. Folks in nearby towns like Keeler and Ridgecrest often just stay indoors when it’s windy.

The federal Clean Air Act requires local officials to reduce the dust levels by 2001. They, along with DWP staff members, studied and debated dust control options for 14 years before the local air pollution control district adopted a plan. That plan does not contemplate refilling the lake; dust abatement would be attempted by trickling water through grasses and gravel on about one-third of the lake bed.

State law requires that the DWP fund much of that work--estimated at between $91 million and $300 million, plus annual costs of $25 million to replace the lost water.

Now, with the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District poised to implement the plan, the DWP has cried foul. The plan is too expensive, the solution unproven, it said in appealing to the state Air Resources Board to intervene and threatening to sue the Great Basin officials if they insist on moving forward. The DWP has endorsed no alternative, and it questions whether there is an adequate and cost-effective solution for the lake bed dust.

Following seven hours of negotiations among officials from the Air Resources Board, the water agency and the Owens Valley, a compromise of sorts was fashioned. The Great Basin board votes today on this proposal, to postpone implementation and study the problem some more.

The board probably has little choice but to approve the deal; litigation would be very costly and result in yet more delay. But the DWP did have a choice of doing the right thing, and flubbed it.