Owen's Dry Lake Photos(LA Times)

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rwedgee

Ice climber
canyon country,CA
Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 13, 2012 - 12:39pm PT
http://framework.latimes.com/2012/06/09/owens-valley-dust/#/0

Water war resurges
CALIFORNIA The L.A. DWP, which agreed to fight dust pollution from part of the Owens Lake bed, wants to rework the deal and is balking at taking on more territory
June 10, 2012|Louis Sahagun
LONE PINE, CALIF. — Los Angeles and the Owens Valley are at war over water again, with the city trying to rework a historic agreement aimed at stopping massive dust storms that have besieged the eastern Sierra Nevada since L.A. opened an aqueduct 99 years ago that drained Owens Lake.

The L.A. Department of Water and Power has spent $1.2 billion in accordance with a 1997 agreement to combat the powder-fine dust from a 40-square-mile area of the dry Owens Lake bed. By introducing vegetation, gravel and flooding, the DWP has reduced particle air pollution by 90%.

The efforts have brought a measure of peace in the rural valley where people have long had bitter feelings toward Los Angeles, although a noxious reminder of how much work remains to be done rolled over this tourist town on the afternoon of May 25. Fearsome gusts of desert wind kicked up swirling clouds thousands of feet high and so thick that drivers switched on their headlights and pedestrians scurried about with squinting eyes.

Despite the DWP's efforts, the air quality still doesn't meet federal pollution standards. So the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District has ordered the DWP to expand its reach to an additional 2.9 square miles of lake bed, including areas so remote and geologically challenging that it could cost the utility as much as $400 million to bring them into compliance with federal health standards.

The DWP says the demand is unreasonable. "Just as we're nearing completion of our settlement agreement goal, Great Basin has pushed the goal post further away," DWP General Manager Ron Nichols said.

Water wars have raged over Owens Valley since the early 1900s, when the city had agents pose as farmers and ranchers to buy land and water rights in the valley, then began building the aqueduct to slake the thirst of the growing metropolis more than 200 miles to the south. L.A. diverted so much water via the aqueduct system that it was nearly impossible for local farmers and ranchers to make a living -- a scandal dramatized in the classic 1974 film "Chinatown."

The current standoff is "a rekindling of 'Chinatown,' " said S. David Freeman, who was general manager of the DWP when it struck the deal in 1997 and believes it should remain intact.

"We are seeing a fundamental reversal of a decade of relative harmony," Freeman said. "If the mayor does not want to leave office labeled a polluter, he ought to think twice about that."

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who six years ago declared a new era of collaboration with the Owens Valley, declined to comment on the dispute.

The DWP claims that the 1997 agreement contains flaws that set the stage for unforeseen problems and sent costs soaring. For example, the DWP has had to spread more water than anticipated -- yearly costs have grown to about $45 million -- over portions of the lake bed where dust pollution exceeds federal standards.

The utility also argues that geological reports and newly discovered archaeological sites indicate that the lake was smaller in 1913 -- when the aqueduct began taking water south -- than outlined in the 1997 agreement. The DWP is responsible for dust arising only from the portions of the lake bed exposed since 1913. The utility says the State Lands Commission should be responsible for rest of the area, which amounts to about 10 square miles.

rottingjohnny

Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
Aug 13, 2012 - 01:38pm PT
DWP has enough money and lawyers to drag out every law suit thrown at them...Now DWP is going after the Town of Mammoth Lakes regarding water levels in Mammoth Creek...Just what Mammoth needs...More lawyer fees...Mammoth Lakes...Just for suits....
rincon

Trad climber
SoCal
Aug 13, 2012 - 02:04pm PT
Dust cams...
http://www.gbuapcd.org/dustcam.htm
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Aug 13, 2012 - 02:06pm PT
DWP - another sterling example of government working for the people.
HighTraverse

Trad climber
Bay Area
Aug 13, 2012 - 02:17pm PT
DWP - another sterling example of government working for the people.
Exactly.
Government doing the bidding of their constituents. The Water Lust of the LA citizenry trumps the environment every time.
And bitching about environmentalists every step of the way.
Loomis

climber
Peklo Vole!
Aug 13, 2012 - 04:57pm PT
Nice shots Jody! :)
Toker Villain

Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
Aug 13, 2012 - 06:59pm PT
Tyranny of the majority.


Everybody loses.
dee ee

Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
Aug 18, 2012 - 11:38am PT
Jody, what was/is that place? Everytime I drive by I wonder. It looks like someone is there. There is a newish suv parked outside most days.
Brandon-

climber
The Granite State.
Aug 18, 2012 - 01:40pm PT
Ron, are you calling Cadillac Desert 'info', as if to discount it?

Have you actually read 'it', or are you just bagging on what you've heard about it?

+1 for Cadillac Desert. It should be required reading for anyone living west of the Mississippi.
Vgavinator

Social climber
Ladera Ranch, CA
Aug 18, 2012 - 01:57pm PT
Correct me if I am wrong.
I think Jody's photo is of the old LP sawmill.
I never worked there but I had a buddy, Rob Remple, who did.
Brandon-

climber
The Granite State.
Aug 18, 2012 - 02:06pm PT
Ron, I'm not comparing anything to anything. Simply showing support for the thoughts expressed in Cadillac Desert.
otisdog

Big Wall climber
Sierra Madre & McGee Creek, Ca.
Aug 18, 2012 - 02:47pm PT
no, it's the old Pittsburg glass facility.
Vgavinator

Social climber
Ladera Ranch, CA
Aug 19, 2012 - 12:20pm PT
Thanks Otisdog:
I have told so many people that that was an old Louisiana Pacific Sawmill I am sure I have started another urban legend. Oh well, Just as in the airplane thread it is amazing what can be believed as truth when there is no credibility to a story whatsoever. (is it OK to say that that in a sentence?)

Does anyone know the history of LP on the east side? I am pretty sure Rob wrote one of the last Timber Harvest Plans in the area. I am not sure where the logs went.

Thanks,
Jeff
Spider Savage

Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
Aug 19, 2012 - 03:34pm PT
Send me some more water Chief. I have this big vegetable garden I need to water so I can be a part of the "local" farming community. I don't want to look like I'm out of touch by eating produce flown to LA from Chile, Argentina and New Zealand.

Also, need more for my swimming pool, nice green yard, coy pond, and this pretty fake waterfall. It's good fung shui you know.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Aug 19, 2012 - 05:54pm PT
It'a about 95, I think I'll go hose off my driveway.
can't say

Social climber
Pasadena CA
Aug 19, 2012 - 06:10pm PT
Let me just say if LA hadn't of taken the water from the Owens Valley, we wouldn't have the wide open spaces that we all enjoy today. Before LADWP stole, lied, finagled and bamboozled the water rights, the Federal Land Reclamation Service was planning on developing those same water resources.

If LA hadn't of done what it did you would have nothing but Reno writ large, or the way I think of it as Fresno east. It was either Mulholland or Fred Eaton who said by taking the water they were in reality creating a huge recreational area.

So what would you rather have, the big wide open and high and wild or Reno from the Sierra to the Whites?
Toker Villain

Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
Aug 19, 2012 - 07:21pm PT
Not a big fan of Cadillacs but I wouldn't say I feared or loathed them.


Yes I read the book (a few times) and spent a few years as a conservation student at CU before being seduced by the climbing bum lifestyle.



Look its done. It is well documented. We know what and why. The system is literally entrenched.

What will change things?


Pretty easy to say, it is just hard to say when.


COLLAPSE
Chaz

Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
Aug 19, 2012 - 07:34pm PT
L.A.'s going bankrupt next year. '014 at the latest.

The DWP has been LA's big Sugar Daddy for as long as anyone can remember.

Whether DWP goes down the toilet with LA - or clings to the rim - could determine the future for the East Side.

Change isn't always good, however. Change from what's not happening there now would be development. Is that what anybody here wants?

Can't Say is correct. The water situation is what's keeping the wide open spaces wide open. Maybe you'd like it better if the East Side looked like Victorville and Apple Valley. You'd get an Olive Garden and a Target in the deal.

krahmes

Social climber
Stumptown
Aug 19, 2012 - 10:12pm PT
Without LADWP the Owens Valley would probably look a lot Minden-Gardnerville corridor. I think that would be really f-ing sad. Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t mind living in Gardnerville; I’d just hate for the Owens Valley to look like that or worse yet look like my hometown which had a population of 6100 when I was born there; I think the sign said 97,000 plus the other day when I went to visit my mother on Main Street. That’s a lot people 50 years.

I read Cadillac Desert back in late 1980's and took the book as the narrative truth of the situation; and as such took a militant stance towards LADWP. Age and my narrative have made me reconsider much of what I thought I knew and I read non-fiction books with a skeptic eye nowadays.

Seven scattered years of living in southern Owens Valley set in 30 years roaming the trails of the west and seeing the incessant 1%-3%/year population growth a year, faster roads, better cars, and more people makes me grateful that LADWP takes a hard line to growth to Valley.

It has gotten better, when I showed up in Olancha in 1987 the dust from the lake was horrible. In the 2 year stint I did in LP in 2009/2010 I was continually amazed at how much better the air quality was than it the late 1980s/1990s. Though just like taking a narrative from a book, I'm wary of trusting my memory as an engraving of history. The GBUAPCD is to be applauded for the work they’ve forced to be done on the Lake.

The history of the last 30 years of Owens Valley has been one of lawsuits, arbitration and accommodation Mono Lake is in better shape, the water runs down Owens Gorge and the air is cleaner. What the future holds I don't know I guess my greater concerns are the 4 laning of 395 from Mono to Ridgecrest which essentially puts a fence between the Sierra Range front and the Owens River, and development towards the range front such as the housing development on Whitney Portal Road. I can’t imagine climate change is going to be good for the OV or the west.

My great concern is just how many new pilgrims of whatever skin tone the West can hold. I’d ask the new colonist’s, “What is your manifest destiny?” Mine at this stage of life is to save what can be saved of the land west of Rockies. A little more carrot and lot less stick might go a long way and I’m not sure what I consider worth saving, is the same as what others consider saving. With regards to this current lawsuit I don’t know. California’s broke, Los Angeles is broke, and I can’t believe the printing press of Feds is going to make things better at least not for me or the west; it will just end up in the same old dead end game of real estate and land speculation.

Finally when the viaduct ruptured coming off the Long Valley slope in 1991(?) and forced the diversion down the Owens River Gorge I always heard the story that a DWP employee was in a hurry to get home and instead of taking the prescribed half hour to close the upper gate to viaduct he slammed it shut allowing a vacuum to be created in the upper portion of the viaduct which took out the 1.6 mile (?) section of the viaduct and forced the diversion and the lawsuit. I’ve always wonder is that true?


rottingjohnny

Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
Aug 20, 2012 - 01:56am PT
Dingus Milktoast...Have you ever been from Tuscon to Tucamcarri or Tehachapi to Tonopah....? Eh ?
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