L.A., Owens Valley Get Extra Month to Resolve Dust Feud

Although leaning toward siding with Los Angeles in a decades-old water war, the California Air Resources Board on Friday gave the city and Owens Valley one month to strike a compromise on how to stop immense dust storms at Owens Lake.

More divided than it has been in years, the board was clearly split over whether to uphold a massive, multimillion-dollar dust control project that was ordered by Owens Valley air quality officials last summer. As a result, the board voted to let the two sides keep negotiating until June 25.

The board’s indecision followed a tense seven-hour hearing in which its staff recommended granting an appeal sought by Los Angeles and rescinding an order that would force the city to return large volumes of water to Owens Lake.

“Both sides are living on borrowed time,” said board Chairman John Dunlap. “The next 30 days will determine a lot as to how the board turns out on this. I would have liked a decision today, but it’s taken 80 years to get here, so another 30 days is in order.”

Owens Lake, drained for 85 years by Los Angeles’ massive water consumption, is the largest single source of lung-damaging particle pollution in the United States.

Angry residents of the Eastern Sierra, including Native American tribes, urged the air board not to sacrifice their health to protect the powerful city’s water supply.

“For the last 30 years, Los Angeles has conducted itself as a serial killer of the environment in Inyo County,” said LaJoie “Buck” Gibbons Jr., a longtime resident of the Owens Valley. “The city eliminated the lake for its own selfish purposes.”

The air board’s vote came down to a cliffhanger when member Lynne Edgerton, visibly upset by the pressure to rapidly make such a critical decision, first abstained and then voted in favor of the city. A motion to deny the city’s appeal failed 5 to 4.

In an unexpected move, Dunlap, who is Gov. Pete Wilson’s air quality chief, rejected his staff’s advice and made the motion to support the Owens Valley plan. He said he was “moved by the testimony today” and “struck by the magnitude of the [pollution] problem.”

Another board member, Joseph Calhoun, said he would like to “lock [both sides] in a room and not let them come out until there’s a solution.”

Now, the air agency for the Owens Valley--the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District--and Los Angeles will continue talks over how large a dust control project is necessary to protect public health.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has threatened to intervene if the impasse is not resolved by August 1999.

The conflict focuses on how much water Los Angeles must return to the Owens Valley to curb the massive particle storms that have plagued the area since 1913, when the city built its aqueduct.

Every year, winds whip up more than 300,000 tons of tiny white particles, laced with arsenic and other toxic substances, that are inhaled by about 40,000 residents throughout the valley. In the small town of Keeler, the particles are declared hazardous an average of 19 days a year.

In July, the Great Basin air agency ordered Los Angeles to treat about one-third of the lake bed--the dustiest 35 square miles--with a mix of water, salt grass and gravel.

Under that project, Los Angeles would permanently give up 51,000 acre-feet of water every year--9% of the city’s water--to irrigate the lake bed. Construction would cost up to $300 million, plus about $40 million annually to replace the lost water.

Los Angeles officials say the magnitude of the project is unreasonable, given technical uncertainties about whether it would work. Under state law, Los Angeles is responsible for “reasonable” measures to control Owens Lake’s dust.

Gerald Gewe, director of water resources for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said the city prefers to start work gradually on a small portion of the lake.

“We are not asking you to give us a blank check . . . and sit on this forever,” he told the state board. “We’re committed to solving the problem, but it is going to take going in with a phased approach.”

Gewe expressed hope, but some skepticism, about whether the issues could be resolved by next month.

“We’re really close on many of the issues, but we’re far apart on the end game, which is how you determine when we’ve done enough,” he said.

In December, the city offered a $60-million compromise that would use less than half as much water as the Great Basin district’s plan and control dust on only nine square miles. Then the city would evaluate the need for more action. But Owens Valley officials rejected the offer because they said it would fall far short of maintaining health standards.

Ellen Hardebeck, the Great Basin district’s air pollution officer, said the state board’s close vote Friday “puts significant new pressure on both sides.” But she said her agency will not approve a compromise that does not curb enough dust to meet federal health standards.

“Is the small chance that the district is requiring too much of the city worth years more of exposing people to [particle] levels 25 times the health standard?” she asked.

The board’s staff recommended rejecting the plan, concluding that it is based on flawed computer modeling for estimating the size of dust storms.

No similar project has ever been mounted, and Owens Lake is considered one of the nation’s most complex pollution problems. Modeling of the dust storms is highly uncertain because of strong, erratic winds from the Sierra Nevada and the unusual topography of the lake area.