L.A. Says Cut in Its Share of Mono Water Would Affect Entire State

SACRAMENTO —  California’s water supplies are so intertwined that any forced reduction in Los Angeles’ diversions from the Mono Lake Basin will have “social, economic and environmental” impacts on the entire state, an attorney for the city warned Monday.

Testifying at a state Water Resources Control Board hearing, Janet Goldsmith urged the panel as it begins an exhaustive examination of water rights in the eastern Sierra Basin to give the same consideration to the needs of people in Southern California as it does to the environmental requirements of the Mono ecosystem.

If the board ultimately determines that the city must reduce the amount of water it diverts from streams that naturally flow into the lake, she said the only “available source of replacement water” would be the Metropolitan Water District, an important supplier to numerous other agencies in Southern California.

Additional demands from the city, she said, could then affect the amount of water available from the district to others in its service area. In most years, the Mono Lake Basin provides about one-seventh of the city’s water.

At the same time, Goldsmith said Los Angeles would be faced with “millions of dollars a year” in extra costs associated with purchasing replacement water if it has to curtail its Mono Basin diversions.

“Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that this review scrutinize with equal thoroughness the effects of various levels of city diversions on both the Mono Basin environmental values and the economic, social and environmental values elsewhere in the state,” she said.

Goldsmith was one of several interested parties invited to comment on the board’s plan for a 3 1/2-year review of the city’s water rights in the Mono Basin. The board is under court order to revise the licenses issued to the city in 1974 that permit the water diversions.

Brian Wilson, an attorney for two environmental groups--the National Audubon Society and the Mono Lake Committee--argued that state laws protecting fish virtually dictate that the board force the city to reduce its diversions substantially.

The laws require the operator of any dam to allow enough water to flow past it to maintain “in good condition fish that exist or may be planted below the dam.” Acknowledging that the board will have to determine how much water will be required for the fish in the Mono Basin streams, he estimated that possibly as much as 60% to 80% of the water now taken by the city may be needed.

“These (requirements) are not something that can be balanced away by the board,” he said.

Mono Lake, just east of Yosemite National Park in the Eastern Sierra, has been the center of controversy for decades. Environmentalists claim that nesting and migratory birds and brine shrimp that thrive in its alkaline waters have been endangered by the city’s diversions.

Since 1941, when the diversions began, the surface of the lake has fallen 45 feet, its volume has been decreased by half and its salinity has been doubled.

The city, claiming that the high-quality water is needed to serve an exploding urban population, insisted that there had been no permanent damage to the ecosystems from the diversions.

Over the years, numerous lawsuits have been filed by environmental groups, most of which were recently coordinated before the El Dorado County Superior Court as the Mono Lake Water Rights Cases. The court has delayed further judicial proceedings until 1993 to allow the state water board to complete its review.