L.A. Wins Round in Owens Valley Water Fight

Siding with Los Angeles in a bitter, decades-long water war, the Wilson administration’s air quality staff Tuesday recommended rescinding an order that would force the city to return large volumes of water to control gigantic dust storms at Owens Lake.

“Based on the uncertainties in the . . . plan,” the massive dust control project ordered by Owens Valley officials--which would cost Los Angeles millions of dollars a year--”cannot be found to be reasonable,” the staff of the California Air Resources Board concluded.

Michael Kenny, the air board’s executive officer, said the Owens Valley’s air pollution team is aiming to control too much dust and needs to recalculate how large a project is necessary to protect people from immense clouds of lung-damaging particles that blow off the lake.

Drained dry by Los Angeles for decades, Owens Lake is by far the largest single source of air pollution in the United States.

On windy days, as much as 11 tons of salty, white particles, tinged with arsenic and toxic metals, whirl off the lake bed in a day, and about 40,000 residents of Ridgecrest, Keeler and other towns inhale the worst particle pollution in the country.

If the California Air Resources Board accepts its staff’s advice at a meeting next month, the issue, which already has been studied for 18 years, will be sent back to the Owens Valley air pollution district and Los Angeles city officials for another attempt at finding a cure.

On controversial technical matters such as this one, the air board generally has followed the recommendations of its staff.

The state staff’s decision to come out against the plan favored by Owens Valley residents will probably significantly bolster the city’s position.

At stake is how much water Los Angeles will have to give up to end the particle storms and make amends for 85 years of water diversions that have turned Owens Lake into a giant dust bowl.

The state says it found technical flaws in the computer modeling of the dust storms used by the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District, the air agency that serves the Owens Valley. As a result, Kenny said, the local air district is ordering Los Angeles to spend more money and use more water to control the dust than necessary.

“There are fundamental flaws that have to be addressed,” Kenny said. “What we’re really looking for is the most cost-effective control strategy we can devise here.”

The prospect of the state’s rejection of the plan brought bitter words from Inyo County, where many civic leaders and residents are furious with the state air quality agency.

Perspective From Owens Valley

Owens Valley residents accuse the state of allowing the powerful city to again trample the rights of people living in the mostly poor, rural towns in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada. Members of the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Indian tribe have threatened to file a civil rights complaint, asserting that the state agency is guilty of environmental racism by letting such severe pollution continue near its reservation.

The state’s report “will be perceived as collusion and stalling,” said Inyo County Supervisor Michael Dorame. As a member of the Great Basin board, he represents the areas where people breathe the worst dust.

“These are the folks that have to live with this travesty,” he said. “It’s been this way for years, and we’re small in numbers, and I think that plays into the decision-making on the political level. We don’t have the political clout, and the city does.”

Los Angeles officials have long contended that the dust control plan has serious technical problems.

“I don’t want to characterize this [state report] as a victory, because we have a problem that needs to be solved, but it does vindicate our position,” said Gerald Gewe, director of water resources for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

“This doesn’t change the endpoint,” he said. “We still have to come up with a plan that works.”

Time is running out to find a solution at Owens Lake.

If California does not have a plan by August 1999, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has threatened to resolve the matter, removing all state and local control but forcing the state to pay for the project.

Compromise Rejected

Los Angeles, under state law, is responsible for “reasonable” measures to control the lake’s dust. But defining reasonable has led to a long, hostile debate.

The conflict came to a head in July when the Great Basin air board ordered Los Angeles to return large amounts of water to the lake. Under the order, about one-third of the lake bed--the dustiest 35 square miles--would be covered with a mix of water, vegetation and gravel.

Under that plan, Owens Lake would be permanently irrigated with 51,000 acre-feet each year--9% of Los Angeles’ total water supply, enough to serve more than 100,000 families annually.

Construction would cost Los Angeles between $100 million and $300 million, plus an annual cost of about $25 million to replace the lost water. The city’s DWP would probably have to import more water from Northern California’s Bay-Delta area; its residential customers would probably pay several more dollars per month.

The city, calling the plan exorbitant and unreasonable, offered a $60-million compromise in December that would control dust on nine square miles, using 20,000 acre-feet of water a year. After three years, according to its plan, the city would assess progress and make adjustments.

But the city’s offer was met with overwhelming disapproval from Owens Valley residents and civic leaders, who called it too little, too late. The local air district rejected the Los Angeles plan because its computer modeling showed that the proposal would fall far short of achieving national health standards for particle pollution, which is required by the Clean Air Act.

Its offer refused, the city appealed to the state Air Resources Board, which has veto power over local air pollution plans.

The staff Tuesday sided with the city but added that “it is critical that the [Owens Valley] district must revisit this issue and expeditiously adopt a control strategy.”

The state officials said the computer modeling used to predict how much work must be done to stop the dust is flawed because it averages emissions for the entire lake instead of focusing on the dustiest eastern portions.

As a result, the order for Los Angeles to treat 35 square miles of the lake seems to be more than what’s needed to meet health standards, the state report says.

The state staff, however, took no stand on the city’s compromise and did not detail how much of the lake should be covered with water, plants or gravel.

The solution, Kenny said, would probably still use “a substantial volume of water.”

“In the end, you’re still going to look at the same control strategies that involve water, gravel and vegetation. The difference is where [on the lake] you are going to do those things,” Kenny said.

He said the technical underpinning of the plan must hold up to intense scientific and legal scrutiny because the project is so massive and hotly contested.

Uncertainties exist, the state officials said, because the area has unusual weather and ground features that cause the lake’s salty crust to be lifted up and blown into tiny particles.

Ellen Hardebeck, air pollution control officer for the Great Basin district, responded that “there will always be uncertainties” in any air pollution plan, but that years of modeling and tests on the lake have shown that the local district’s solution is likely to work.

“Most of the [Air Resources Board] staff have never even seen Owens Lake, and on that basis, they have decided they can do a better job of designing a plan than the local district that has conducted studies for 18 years,” she said.

Hardebeck said the staff’s recommendation comes after “the state ignored or declined our repeated requests for help in developing the plan.” She criticized the Air Resources Board staff for making “no positive suggestions for revisions.”

“The question is,” she said, “who takes the risks associated with the uncertainties--the public exposed to the highest levels of [particle pollution] in the U.S., or the polluter--the city of Los Angeles?”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Legacy of Dust

* 1913--Los Angeles opens its aqueduct, diverting water from the Owens River, which drains the Eastern Sierra.

* 1983--New state law directs Los Angeles to take “reasonable” measures to cure dust storms. Study of issue begins.

* July 1997--Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District rejects a compromise negotiated by Los Angeles and Owens Valley officials for limited dust control, orders city to provide enough water to submerge roughly a third of the lake’s surface.

* Dec. 11, 1997--Los Angeles officials offer a $60-million dust control plan.

* Dec. 18, 1997--Great Basin air board rejects offer. City appeals to state air pollution control board.