It’s Time to Stop This War

Six years ago, the city of Los Angeles and Inyo County thought they had, at last, settled the decades-long Owens Valley water war. Specifically, the 1991 agreement contained a plan under which Los Angeles would reduce its ground-water pumping in the valley to about half the historical level.

The idea was to reverse damage done to valley vegetation since 1970 when the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began pumping water from valley wells and sending it more than 200 miles south through the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Inyo County had challenged the pumping in court.

The 1991 agreement, along with an environmental impact report (EIR) conducted by the city, recognized Los Angeles’ right to the water but limited pumping levels and proposed a number of projects to restore the environment along the lower Owens River on the east side of the Sierra Nevada.

This was the third EIR the city had done. The previous two, in 1976 and 1979, were rejected as inadequate by the state’s 3rd District Court of Appeal. But rather than approve the third EIR, the court in 1993 invited other interested parties to join the suit to make sure the total public interest was being protected. They were the state Department of Fish and Game, the State Lands Commission, the Sierra Club and the Owens Valley Committee, an amalgam of local environmental organizations. The six parties have negotiated since then the means of protecting and restoring the riverside environment.

The groups now have an agreement that provides for returning water to a 60-mile stretch of the lower Owens River. That portion of the river has been mostly dry since it was diverted into the city’s aqueduct beginning in 1913.

At the south end of the river, which used to run into Owens Lake, some of the water will be pumped back into the aqueduct and sent south to Los Angeles. In all, the mitigation measures could cost the city more than 10% of its eastern Sierra water supply--a deficit that it will have to make up by buying from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

The proposal, including the restoration of some wildlife and waterfowl habitat, now is before the various agencies for expected approval. The city Water and Power Commission will take up the plan next week, then pass it on to the City Council for approval.

The last stop is the Court of Appeal in Sacramento, which must give final sanction to the EIR and the memorandum. This could happen within the next 90 days. But there are some fears the court might decide to order a new environmental impact report, thus causing a delay of another several years in implementing the mitigation projects.

This would seem unnecessary given all the intense environmental study of the Owens Valley and the river in the years since the last report was completed. If the six involved parties are satisfied, the court should be satisfied.

After a quarter-century, it’s time to settle this case, time to stop the torrent of legal words and documents, time to let the water flow.