Green Book

The Greenbook is the technical appendix to the Inyo/LA Long-term Water Agreement

• Green Book (PDF)
• Green Book (Word)

Background

The Agreement between the County of Inyo and the City of Los Angeles and its Department of Water and Power on a Long-term Groundwater Management Plan for the Owens Valley and Inyo County (Agreement) in Section I.E provides:

"The location of each management area, vegetation monitoring site, and each monitoring well; the wells linked to each vegetation monitoring site; the method for locating additional monitoring sites and monitoring wells; the type of monitoring to be conducted at each site; and the standardized procedures for analysis and interpretation of monitoring results, including the determination of available soil water and the amount of soil water required by vegetation, are set forth in a technical document called a 'Green Book.' This 'Green Book' will be attached as a technical appendix to the final long-term Agreement and its accompanying environmental impact report (EIR)."

This document is the "Green Book."

The Green Book consists of five primary sections. The sections are:

I. Vegetation Management

II. Vegetation Inventory and Development of Vegetation Management Maps

III. Vegetation Monitoring

IV. Hydrologic Management

V. Further Studies

Section I on Vegetation Management describes the goals and principles of the Agreement that pertain to management of the vegetation types. This section sets forth the procedures and methods for achieving these goals and principles.

Section II describes the process of compiling the vegetation inventories and the development of the management maps that are to be used in achieving the goals of the Agreement.

Section III describes the techniques and methods to monitor the vegetation and calculate soil-plant water requirements.

Section IV outlines the criteria and procedures to be used in monitoring and evaluating hydrologic data. Also, the section sets forth the procedures for locating and operating the new wells, and the methods of avoiding groundwater mining.

Section V of the Green Book outlines further studies that are being considered to more effectively achieve the goals and principles of the Agreement over the long term or needed to refine monitoring procedures based on new technology.

Section VI, the Appendix, contains various supporting technical vegetation information.

Provisions for revising and updating the Green Book are specified in Section III.E of the Agreement, which states:

"...modifying the provisions of the 'Green Book' as a result of information gained from ongoing research and cooperative studies or for other reasons, as may be necessary to improve the effectiveness of the monitoring and the evaluation activities."