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Agency changes tactic in Owens Lake dust control dealings and elsewhere

In recent months, while the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power began litigation against the Mammoth Community Water District (“LADWP sues MCWD,” The Sheet, Jan. 28), it was also in the process of appealing what it claims are new requirements by the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District (GBUAPCD) for dust mitigation efforts on Owens Lake.

“There is no direct connection, but it is strange to me that they’re litigious with both agencies,” said GBUAPCD Air Pollution Control Officer Ted Schade. “In the past they have been reluctant to work with us but have realized they have an obligation and have been reasonable. In the past we wouldn’t hear from their attorneys; now everything is run by their attorneys, which is unfortunate.”

Schade said there is no doubt, at least in the case of LADWP’s current issues with Owens Lake, that the recent protests are related to the current economy.

“They [LADWP] have incurred a lot of expenses over the years [in the Owens Valley],” Schade said. “They have had no significant rate increases and can’t right now because of the economy. If you can’t increase revenue, then you are forced to cut costs.”

Since people in the Owens Valley don’t vote in Los Angeles, looking for cost savings here first would make sense, Schade said.

According to a press release issued by LADWP on Feb. 23, it is “concerned that we are being required to control dust on areas that are at higher lake elevations than pre-Los Angeles Aqueduct diversion levels and thus caused by nature or others. We are concerned that as we near the 96% control level and have done all that we have been asked, believing that we are near the end, suddenly there seems to be no end. Simply put, LADWP believes we are now being required to mitigate against the effects of nature or others for which we have no responsibility.”

The release also stated that LADWP is concerned that it is only allowed to use three methods of mitigation: water, gravel and vegetation. It calls upon GBUAPCD to develop new dust control methods and scolds it for not having done so already.

Schade, however, pointed out that LADWP has full control over what it uses to control the dust.

“Air quality regulators have no obligation to develop air pollution controls for air polluters,” Schade said in a recent newspaper column. “If the LADWP is unsatisfied with the current approved controls, they have a responsibility to their ratepayers to develop new, effective controls. It is Great Basin’s responsibility to review and approve successful controls.”

In 1997, LADWP had originally committed to mitigating 45 square miles of the Owens Lake with the knowledge that GBUAPCD would continue to monitor the amount of area that required dust control. At the time, GBUAPCD had estimated that controls would be required on about 46.5 square miles of the dried lakebed, according to Shade. The dust is an effect generated by the City of LA’s water gathering activities and is the largest single source of particulate matter (PM) air pollution in the country.

“Mitigation is done when dust levels have been reduced enough to meet federal standards,” Schade explained of the original agreement. Recently, the GBUAPCD reevaluated the square mileage needing mitigation and determined that in fact, 47.9 square miles needs mitigation in order to meet standards. The announcement of the new number is what triggered DWP’s appeal.

Currently, LADWP has mitigated 39.5 square miles and 90 percent of the dust has been controlled.

“We’re getting close,” Schade expressed, “so we’re scratching our head at why they are balking now.”

The cost to mitigate an additional 3 square miles (to attain the 47.9 square miles the GBUAPCD now requires) would cost anywhere between $50 million and $75 million, depending on what DWP chooses to use as mitigation, Schade said. Shallow flooding of the area is the cheapest method at approximately $15 million per square mile, Schade estimated, versus approximately $26 million per square mile for gravel. Vegetation mitigation is somewhere in between. The shallow flooding method is what DWP has used for the majority of the 39.5 square miles it has already mitigated.

The issue with shallow flooding is it requires continued maintenance.

“With wetting you have to continue because water evaporates,” Schade explained. Also, by using water to control the dust on much of the 39.5 square miles already mitigated, DWP has created wildlife habitats that according to Schade, it must now maintain.

“While gravel is the most expensive initially, it requires the least maintenance,” he said. “They could just walk away from it.”

This cost would be in addition to the $5.6 million fine that DWP paid to the Owens Valley because it missed a 2010 deadline. According to the agreement, DWP was expected to have approximately 43 square miles of mitigation completed by the end of 2010. It failed to reach that number for various reasons and had to pay the fine, which is being used for clean air projects in the Eastern Sierra.

Whatever the motive, monetary or otherwise, DWP filed an appeal to GBUAPCD’s new requirements in December 2011. Last week, it attempted to ram the process through more quickly by filing a motion to sue the California Air Resources Board for its required appeal process, claiming the amount of time the process would take would cause DWP irreparable harm in the form of attorney’s fees. This, following on the heels of DWP comments to GBUAPCD that the cost of attorney’s fees pale in comparison to what it costs to mitigate the lakebed.

The motion was denied in court and the appeal will go through the normal timeline and process, which Schade believes will last through mid-May.

MCWD and LADWP update

Since The Sheet’s last report on MCWD/LADWP dealings, LADWP has filed a second lawsuit against the Mammoth Water District. This one, said MCWD General Manager Greg Norby, seeks to invalidate the District’s 2010 Urban Water Management Plan, a standard planning document required by the state. Both lawsuits are based upon the underlying issue that LADWP does not believe MCWD has legal rights to surface water for Mammoth Creek.

Norby and other MCWD representatives will meet with LADWP again on March 28 to discuss broad, long-term goals. If they can agree on some bigger picture draft settlement principles, then Norby said, MCWD would look at entering into a tolling agreement, which would put the lawsuits on hold while the two agencies continue to talk.

“But there’s no point in a tolling agreement if our long-term vision isn’t somewhere in the same realm,” Norby said.

In regard to the bigger, Eastern Sierra picture, Norby said that the area needs unified representation up and down the valley. He referred to all of the different water agencies currently dealing with LADWP, including Inyo County’s groundwater pumping, the Lower Owens rewatering, and Mono Lake, as well as the aforementioned Owens Lake.

“We all go it alone even though we have a common set of overriding interests,” Norby observed. “The closest thing we’ve got to unified representation is the IRWMP (Integrated Regional Water Management Program).”

While Norby thinks this program, which does represent Inyo and Mono county water agencies, can grow into the representation needed, he pointed out that currently, LADWP sits at the IRWMP table but hasn’t actually joined the group by signing the MOU.

Clean Air Projects Program (CAPP) Administrator Lisa Isaacs officially secured a $5.5 million air pollution management mitigation contract from the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District (GBUAPCD) Governing Board on Monday. The contract will fund both direct projects, such as paved roads and diesel generators, and indirect projects, such as education, to help cut down on air pollution in Mono, Inyo and Alpine counties.

The money comes from the LADWP, explained Isaacs; “Essentially it’s a judgment on air emission issues that they agreed to pay to go toward something like this.”

One hundred and seventy five thousand dollars of the funds have already been approved by the District Board to pay for a stretch of paved road in Keeler, which will cut down on dust pollution. Another $500,000 was awarded to Bishop-based Inyo Mono Advocates for Community Action, and will be used for weatherizing and updating non-compliant and inefficient heating devices, some in low-income housing, such as wood stoves and fireplaces. “This project will get measurable results: we’ll know how many stoves are being replaced, and how much smoke they would be producing,” Isaacs said.

Dust and smoke are two of the primary pollutants in the District, particularly in the southern end of Inyo, which is home to Owens Dry Lake. The dust from that area is a problem because it is PM (particulate matter) 10, which means the fine particles of dust are small enough to get into the lungs. The District also has problems with smoke from frequent forest fires. One solution would be to “turn our local-standing dead trees into fuel and burn them as pellets,” which are less smoke-producing than wood, according to Isaacs.

In Mammoth, the biggest problem is road cinders swept into the air by traffic. “The Air Quality Management Plan for the Town of Mammoth Lakes is from ’91. Updating it would be a great project to fund.” Isaacs also envisioned setting aside funding for expanded street sweeper services to combat the cinder problem.

Isaacs will be releasing a call for projects before the end of the year. Projects need to be finalized by 2013, so she hopes to have proposals in by early 2012. “We’re trying to stretch the $5 million as far as possible with the help of matching funds and partnerships.”

The funding is open to everyone, from individuals to the federal government. For more information, contact Lisa Isaacs at capp@gbuapcd.org.

Was redistricting about fairness, or political expediency? 

As I pondered the absurdity of Mono County’s redistricting process, which resulted in having 700 Mammoth Knolls residents being lumped into District 4 to join their County brethren in Bridgeport, Walker and Coleville, I decided to call Knolls resident Dawn Vereuck for a reaction.

Vereuck, who’s been burning the midnight oil volunteering for Mammoth Rocks, hasn’t been keeping up with the news of late and was caught unawares. “How is that even possible?” she asked, a little stunned.

How did Nancy Walter, who’s been away most of the summer traveling in Russia, react? “I’m not overly happy,” she said. When asked if the Knolls residents had essentially been treated as sacrifical lambs in the process, Walter replied, “I wouldn’t call it sacrificial. But certainly, it was the most expedient [decision]. They felt we could learn to live with it.”

Tom Cage wasn’t so benign. “700 people in Mammoth Lakes will get no representation,” he said. “It stinks of unfair political practices.” Then he paused for a moment. “It feels unfair … I don’t know whether it is.”

In Kirkner’s story last week, Byng Hunt was quoted as saying, “Maybe it will open the door to more conversation between north and south counties.”

When asked about that comment this week, Hunt said candidly, “I was very honestly trying to assuage myself [with that comment].”

“The other options were equally absurd,” he added. “It [Option B] was the best of the lousy answers.”

The lousy answer achieved by the redistricting committee and approved by the Mono Supervisors on a least affected 3/most affected 2 vote, was arrived at much like the answer to a Sudoku puzzle. Through the power of elimination, you end up with the inevitable result.

In this case, District 3 Supervisor Vikki Bauer (by far the best politician in Mono County), convinced all that Lee Vining and June Lake needed to be reunited within one district.

Then it was determined that combining all the rural communities into one super rural district stretching north-south from Topaz to Chalfant [Option A] wasn’t workable because we couldn’t possibly expect a Supervisor to represent a district that unwieldy in terms of travel.

Then it was decided that the demographics of Hap Hazard’s District 2 are largely unchanged so why mess with it. Besides, as Bauer explained, “Hap begs off every issue involving Mammoth that comes before us. He views Mammoth as a cesspool.”

So obviously, tweaking Hazard’s district to include part of Mammoth would meet with stiff resistance.

One option which didn’t even make the final round voting was the one titled B2. This would have preserved Tim Hansen’s residence in District 4 and ability to run again for his seat.

But Mammoth Supervisor Byng Hunt didn’t like that option because it would’ve “decimated” his district and made it too “jagged.”

“At least he’s still got a district,” deadpanned Hansen.

When asked if he would run against Bauer for the District 3 seat, Hansen demurred. “I’m a lame duck. No offense, but I want nothing to do with June Lake and Mammoth Lakes.”

Hansen, however, thinks that the redistricting gives Mammoth more power, not less, with Mammoth having a vote in four of five districts.

Two Mammoth districts are 100% Mammoth. Bauer’s District 3 is comprised of 63% Mammoth voters. District 4 will have 23% Mammoth voters.

Mammoth Lakes Town Councilman Rick Wood said his initial thought was that even though Mammoth would have just a slice of District 4, he thought that slice  would be large enough to provide a certain degree of leverage.

When informed that the slice was 23%, Wood replied, “That’s not leverage.”

“All we’ll do with the demographics [over the next decade] is that Mammoth will continue to grow and continue to be underrepresented.”

Bauer countered, “They [the Town] are in such desperate straits [financially] that all they wanted was three seats so they could hijack the County budget.”

Bauer is currently the only supervisor who is essentially a swing vote, balancing the interests of incorporated Mammoth and unincorporated Mono County.

She said one thing that’s become evident during the redistricting process is that there remains a lot of friction between Mammoth and the outlying Mono communities.

But, she said, what Mammoth residents don’t often take into consideration is that they have the benefit of an extra layer of government. If the unincorporated areas aren’t properly served by the County, they have nowhere to turn.

I asked Bauer what would have happened if District 4 had been stretched southward and June Lake had been split. How many June Lake voters would have been lumped into a largely Mammoth district?

About 200 was the reply.

Is it fair then, I followed, to disenfranchise 700 Knolls voters as opposed to, say, 200 June Lake voters?

Because Mammoth has the extra layer of government, she said, the 200 June Lake voters deserve more consideration.

Sticker price

I talked to Mammoth Lakes Tourism’s John Urdi on Tuesday to ask him about the letter to the editor which appeared last week criticzing his sticker postcard.

Urdi said 5,200 postcards were sent out and that MLT spent about $3,000 on the effort.

The $36,000 number referenced in the letter concerns the entire budget for the rebranding effort in the short term , placing the logo on Town vehicles, business cards, website, et. al.

“I have heard only a few truly negative things about the branding [process],” said Urdi. But he thinks it’s critical. “Mammoth Lakes is a destination. It’s not Gardnerville.”

Criticism, he said, comes with change. Mammoth Mountain caught heat when it transitioned its logo, noted Urdi.

Cottonwood Plaza

Expect the chain link fence to come down in Bishop sometime soon now that investor Ray Eslamieh has bought the Cottonwood Plaza in Bishop.

Eslamieh owns a number of El Pollo Loco franchises down south.

The initial thought was that Eslamieh would put an El Pollo Loco into the old Burger King location as an anchor tenant, but it was determined that Bishop is not a large enough community for an El Pollo franchise.

Unfortunately, Eslamieh has been suffering from illness of late, so pending his recovery, the rental and renovation process has stalled.

Isaacs wins recommendation

Ted Schade of the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District (GBUAPCD) announced this week that he is recommending his Board award the management contract for the $6 million in mitigation money paid to the district by the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power to Lisa Isaacs.

Isaacs would oversee disbursement of the funds to organizations which would create local clean air projects.

Isaacs and Rick Phelps of the High Sierra Energy Foundation were the only two bidders. Isaacs bid was $86/hour or $172,000/year. Phelps bid was $125/hour or $254,000/year.

Both bids contemplated one total full-time employee.

The contract will last for two years, and likely three said Schade.

The Board will have the option of accepting Schade’s recommendation, choosing Phelps, or directing staff to run the program with existing personnel.

Town hiring!

That is not a misprint.

The Sheet learned this week that interviews were held this week to hire a “temporary maintenance worker” at the airport.

When asked why the hire is being made now, Airport Manager Bill Manning replied, “Brian Picken and I are the only remaining airport employees from last winter and as such there is a significant amount of firefighting, snow removal, and general airport training required for the new hires.”

Hmm. Doesn’t sound temporary.

When asked where the job was advertised, Sr. Personnel Analyst Noreen Wilbur said the job was posted in June in the Fifty Center, Inyo Register and Town website.

Interesting, since The Sheet has the Town’s legal classified contract and yet the legal classified was placed elsewhere.

Several Councilmembers were unaware of the planned hiring.

Finally, a late press release from the Sheriff’s Dept.

But pay me $6.5 million while you’re at it

When there’s a delay, one pays.

For the City of Los Angeles, a delay in the implementation of dust controls mandated by the Great Basin Air Pollution Control District has resulted in a $6.5 million settlement.

According to Great Basin Pollution Control Officer Ted Schade, who negotiated the settlement, the District ordered the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power to implement dust mitigation measures over 13 square miles of Owens Dry Lake in 2008.

LADWP had two years to comply.

However, by October 2010, only 10 square miles of mitigation had been completed.

The $6.5 million settlement gives the LADWP until December 2013 to complete the remaining 3 square miles.

The $6.5 million is intended to be used for  local clean air projects to offset potential excess dust emissions generated by the deadline extension.

Preference will be given to projects in the southern Inyo County areas most affected by the delay.

LADWP has spent almost $1 billion performing dust mitigation and rewatering on roughly 40 square miles of Owens Lake. Under the new deal, LADWP will be allowed to “transition” three square miles of existing shallow flooding to a mix of vegetation, some flooding and gravel cover. The water saved will be routed to the new 3.1 square miles that are to be controlled. Projected cost of the endeavor: $110 million.

Within the past year, LADWP, the subject of intense environmental scrutiny for its water diversion practices during the past several decades, joined with a consortium of 60 local, state and federal agencies, organizations and various advocacy groups to develop a master plan for Owens Lake’s future.

“The LADWP has worked diligently to implement dust control measures on Owens Lake since 2000,” commented Schade. “Dust storms blowing off the lakebed have been dramatically reduced.” New LADWP General Manager Ron Nichols, who recently took over for former GM David Nahai, echoed Schade’s sentiment, issuing a statement saying LADWP is “pleased that we have been able to work with Great Basin to come up with a solution that allows us to meet our dust mitigation commitments on Owens Lake.” He went on to praise dust reduction and improvements to wildlife habitats achieved during the last 10 years.

-Lunch/Press Release

By Geisel

Mono County’s Board of Supervisors scuttled a move to enact rent controls in the Crowley Lake Mobile Home Park during its adjourned meeting Tuesday night in the Crowley Community Center.
The agenda item was called by District 2 Supervisor Hap Hazard, who chaired the public discussion, a follow-up to a previous meeting in June at which frustrated tenants expressed concern that their rents were being raised not only too much but without any reasonable explanation as to why.
In June, the tenants dominated the discussion. On Tuesday night, it was the Park’s owner/manager’s turn. Bill Wisehart, who wasn’t notified about the June meeting and therefore was not present, took full advantage of his chance to respond to comments made two months earlier.
Wisehart, the park’s owner and manager since 1988, wasted no time getting to his points. Starting by countering a tenant who previously referred to his park as “low-income,” Wisehart said he considers the park “affordable housing,” contrasting his rates against rental properties listed in the various papers that go for much more and in some cases aren’t as nice as his properties.
Moving on to the rental rates themselves, Wisehart told the Board, “No tenants ever came to talk to me.” He went on to insist he does everything possible to keep rents low, and said his average rate is $513 a month, the lowest being $495 and the highest being $565.
“If the rents really are too high, people would leave anyway,” Wisehart opined. “Some tenants have been here for more than 20 years.”
He went on to say that the average rate of increase is plus or minus 5%, and that there have been one or two years where there was no increase. (These assertions were both disputed by one 22-year tenant, who argued her rates have gone up every year but the first one, and that her averages run in the 6-10% range.)
Citing his own expenses, Wisehart did acknowledge that some increases were the result of needed capital improvements, some of which involved big-ticket expenditures, such as a new well and street repairs. He also pointed out that the park has its own water system, for which he must maintain a current license and the requisite continuing education that comes with it, as well as pay for constant water quality testing.
He also said that the electric and propane usage within the park is all submetered, and that tenants also get an additional $100 a month in benefits from water and trash services that are included in the rental rates.
“In this economy, people are hurting, suffering,” he said. But, what Wisehart seemed most disheartened about is a lack of direct confrontation by the tenants. “Not one of you came to see me; instead you went right to the County. Lack of communication only makes things harder,” he told the room.
One telltale sign of how things were going revealed itself early on, as only a fraction of the number of tenants who swarmed the June meeting were in attendance for Tuesday night’s session. Some of their final comments talked about balancing out cost increases to run the park against some possible items that may be cheaper today than in years past, such as insurance and workmans compensation costs.
No significant follow-through on those points developed, however, and one tenant summed up the general sense among those present by saying, “We get that you have increased costs; just tell us what they are so we can see them and understand them.”
Legally speaking, County Counsel Marshall Rudolph briefed the Board and those present on some background and the pluses and minuses inherent in enacting rent control. “It’s very serious,” Rudolph told the Board. “You’re essentially replacing the free market with a government system, and in doing so, you have to show that this is being done to fix a real problem.
Rudolph said that while there is no state mandate for rent control, more than 90 cities and at least one county (Tuolomne) have some form of rent control in their code books.
Rudolph said that under certain conditions, rent controls can be used to correct a perceived imbalance in bargaining between landlords and tenants, or fix problems of supply versus demand, and promote a form of affordable housing. On the flipside, however, it can be viewed as an extreme form of government intervention, and a rent control ordinance in the City of Goleta is being challenged before an 11-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Wisehart took Rudolph’s report a step further. “[Under rent control] a property owner can sell at fair market value, but a park owner can’t rent at fair market value,” he assessed. He was also critical of the modest amount of increases allowed under such controls, indicating that may mean limits on capital and other improvements that would detract from the value of the property overall.
“Sometimes you end up hurting the people you think you’re helping,” he said. “These are tough times, but rent control won’t make them any better.”
Supervisors were in general agreement with Wisehart, though they did have some advice for both he and his tenants.
Supervisor Vikki Bauer told the tenants to remember that the issue is complicated because both rent and mortgage [on the underlying property involved] are in play here. There are, she said, homeowners that are upside down on their mortgages. (Ed. Note: 21.5% of homeowners nationally at last count.) She said the County shouldn’t be involved in solving these types of problems and suggested finding a spokesperson and forming a Home Owners Association.
Supervisor Tom Farnetti said he’s for rent control. “I’m not convinced this is a county-wide problem,” Farnetti said. Board Chair Byng Hunt recalled that Mammoth went through this same issue several years ago when he was on Town Council. “We didn’t want to get into anything that complex then, and I have to say I’m a free market advocate,” Hunt commented.
Supervisor Bob Peters said he also is a free market advocate, but did chastise Wisehart somewhat. Peters said he thought there was a “failure of management to deal with the tenants’ comments” and that there were “way too many [of those] not have a fire there somewhere.”
The Board said rent control remains an option to be considered in the future, but decidedly not at this point in time.