The battle of the press releases
Tuesday’s Inyo County Board of Supervisors meeting held a “Talking Water” Workshop followed by direction from the supervisors to the County’s representatives on the Long Term Water Agreement Standing Committee scheduled to meet Thursday afternoon (May 12).
There was an undercurrent of dissatisfaction amongst supervisors as the result of an LADWP press release the day before accused them of being “disingenuous” in their Board’s press release of May 3, 2016. What made the supervisors angry was that their press release was largely meant to encourage greater public participation at the May 10 workshop.
The LADWP press release “accused” the County Supervisors of attempting to mislead the public by stating “the department (LADWP) had not yet provided the County information on a program for reasonable reductions to irrigation and water supply on LA-owned lands and Enhancement and Mitigation projects in the Owens Valley.”
Although the statement itself was true, LADWP’s press release went on to say that the Supervisors knew full-well that the report was coming the next day and was to be discussed at the Tech Group meeting. Was that information deliberately left out by the County to make LADWP look bad?
Cut to last Friday’s Tech Group meeting in which the “reasonable reductions” report was presented to the County. Inyo County Water Department Director Dr. Bob Harrington did not agree with the reductions proposal presented by LADWP and said that the County was going to stand firm and demand the City of Los Angeles first meet its obligations on irrigation and mitigation in the Long Term Water Agreement and what is called the “Green Book,” which outlines the agreement in greater depth and detail.
