Owens Valley Rejects L.A.’s Anti-Dust Plan

Air quality officials in the Owens Valley on Wednesday rejected as inadequate the city of Los Angeles’ plan to control dust pollution from Owens Lake.

The 6-0 vote of the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District, with one abstention, virtually ensures that the dispute over the nation’s worst dust storms will end up in court, said Chris O’Donnell, a consultant representing Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan in the Owens Lake negotiations.

“We’re very disappointed that they not only disapproved of the plan but did not extend the time to engage in further negotiations,” O’Donnell said. “Unfortunately, the city will now most likely be compelled to protect its legal rights.”

The city had proposed a $60-million strategy for stabilizing the source of the pollution, the 110-square-mile Owens Lake, which has been dry and subject to fierce dust storms since the 1920s after its water was diverted 200 miles south to supply the needs of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles accepted responsibility for the pollution, but its dust-control plan fell far short of the effort Owens Valley officials said would be necessary to meet federal clean air standards.

The city had proposed treating about nine square miles of the lake by pumping 20,000 acre-feet of water onto it every year, by planting salt grass and applying a layer of gravel to hold down the dust.

After three years, according to its plan, the city would assess the progress and make necessary adjustments in order to comply with federal clean air rules by 2006.

The remedy prescribed by Owens Valley officials, in contrast, called for treating 35 square miles of the lake bed with over 50,000 acre-feet of water a year, enough to support the annual needs of 250,000 people.

“The city’s plan was too little and too full of holes,” said Ted Schade, public affairs officer for the Great Basin Air District.

“We wanted a fixed guarantee that the clean air standards would be met, but the city wrote too many escape clauses into its plan.”

Owens Valley officials complained that the Los Angeles plan sought to blame some of the pollution on “natural events” that could not be controlled, that it would reduce the worst dust storms by only 50%--when a 90% reduction is necessary to meet clean air standards--and that it would abate dust only in those communities closest to the lake, and not the entire region affected by the pollution.

Officials from the Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake also expressed dissatisfaction with the city’s plan, as did representatives of local Indian tribes and officials of the State Lands Commission, which owns the lake.

O’Donnell said the city probably will appeal the Great Basin decision to the California Air Resources Board by Jan. 2, as well as challenge the basin’s plan in court.

Of the parties in the dispute, Los Angeles would be the one forced to go to court because the local board has jurisdiction over air-quality matters in the area--and could eventually impose its own remedy.

O’Donnell said some aspects of that plan are environmentally unsound. “The amount of gravel they want to use on the lake would require the strip-mining of Owens Valley,” he said.

But the Los Angeles consultant said he will also recommend to the mayor that the city go ahead with the implementation of its plan, even without the consent of Owens Valley officials.

“My advice to the mayor,” O’Donnell said, “is that the city proceed with large-scale demonstration projects at the lake along with accelerated research to show that we meant what we said when we took responsibility for the problem.”