State Air Board Delays Vote on Restoring Owens Lake

The state Air Resources Board on Thursday postponed its vote on whether to force Los Angeles to return water to Owens Lake to give the two warring sides more time to strike a deal.

The state board is trying to decide whether to rescind or reaffirm an order from an Owens Valley air pollution agency that would force the city of Los Angeles to curb massive dust storms at Owens Lake.

Last month, the board was so divided that Chairman John Dunlap put off the vote for a month, with the hope that both sides would reach a compromise.

But both sides, saying that progress has been made but that no deal has been struck, asked the board Thursday to delay the vote to July 30.

The city and the Owens Valley pollution agency--the Great Basin Air Pollution Control District--have been studying and debating solutions to curb Owens Lake dust storms for 18 years.

Gigantic clouds of ultra-fine, lung-clogging particles blow off the lake, which has been dry since the 1920s because Los Angeles has diverted the river’s flow 200 miles south to quench the thirst of the growing city.

The solution prescribed by Owens Valley officials in July calls for treating 35 square miles of the 110-square-mile lake bed with enough water to serve more than 100,000 Los Angeles families yearly. The cost to Los Angeles has been estimated at $91 million to $300 million, plus $25 million a year to replace the lost water.

In December, the city proposed a $60-million deal that included saturating nine square miles of the lake with less than half the water called for in the Owens Valley agency’s order.