The Owens Valley Monitor 2002-2003

LORP EIR/EIS Comments Are In, Agencies Will Respond to Public Concerns-- Leah Kirk, LORP Coordinator

LADWP, Inyo County, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the draft Lower Owens River Project EIR/EIS on November 1, 2002, the date mandated by the Inyo County Superior Court. The Court ordered the release date in response to Sierra Club and Owens Valley Committee concerns that the draft EIR/EIS was more than two years late.
The three agencies accepted comments on the 550-page document until January 14, 2003. During this time, the public submitted 242 letters containing over 1,500 comments. Commentors included federal, state, and local agencies, local tribes, organizations, businesses, and individuals.

Some key issues raised in comments:

• LADWP and Inyo County should not place limits on LORP funding. Since LORP is compensatory mitigation for impacts of LADWP’s past groundwater pumping, LADWP and Inyo County should fully fund all monitoring, adaptive management, and mitigation measures.
• LORP’s monitoring and adaptive management programs are inadequate and too vague. LADWP and Inyo County should specify thresholds that trigger adaptive management measures, such as changing the timing of seasonal habitat flows or introducing native plants to augment natural revegetation.
• LORP impacts, including mosquitoes, noxious weeds, tule growth, and increased recreational use should be fully mitigated.
• The EIR/EIS project description does not conform to the goals and specifications in the Inyo/Los Angeles Water Agreement or Memorandum of Understanding.
• LADWP should build a 50 cubic foot per second (cfs) – not a 150 cfs – pump station at the southern end of the river. Increasing pump station capacity might lead to increased groundwater pumping in the Owens Valley. Moreover, the larger pump station is infeasible, since – compared to a 50 cfs facility – its yield would not greatly increase.

     LADWP says it intends to construct a 150 cfs facility, unless it reaches a compromise with all of the MOU parties. LADWP will use the pump station – regardless of its size – to recapture some of the LORP water and export it via the Los Angeles aqueduct or apply it to Owens Lake for dust abatement.
     Inyo County retained Dr. Rodney Smith of Stratecon Inc., for an independent analysis of the larger pump station’s economic potential. Dr. Smith concluded that increasing the pump station’s capacity is "not economically viable." According to Dr. Smith’s report, "The economic losses are on the order of at least 50% of initial investment and, under reasonable conditions, could exceed the initial capital investment." Dr. Smith’s analysis is available on the Inyo County Water Department web site at: www.inyowater.org.
     LADWP, Inyo County, and EPA must respond to all of the public’s comments and prepare a final LORP EIR/EIS. LADWP requested that its consultant, Montgomery Watson Harza, assume primary responsibility for completing this phase of the environmental review. MWH and LADWP will jointly develop draft responses to the comments. Inyo County and EPA, after reviewing these drafts, will work with LADWP and MWH to develop final responses. The agencies will follow a similar procedure in preparing the final EIR/EIS.
     MWH and LADWP have not released a detailed schedule for completing responses to comments and the final EIR/EIS.

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