GETTING INTO THE WEEDS
Published in the Dec. 20, 2025 issue.
Local environmental groups have sued the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) alleging it has tried and failed for years to comply with legal agreements to revegetate hundreds of acres of land in the Laws area, north of Bishop.
The suite was filed by the Eastern Sierra Water Alliance, which is made up of the Friends of the Inyo, the Owens Valley Indian Water Commission, and the Sierra Club Range of Light group.
The group charged that by failing to successfully complete the mandated revegetation project, LADWP has violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The Laws Irrigation Project was approved in 2003 under the terms and conditions laid out in an Environmental Impact Report (EIR).
In simple terms, the project directs LADWP to revegetate about 253 acres of previously irrigated pastures which had been abandoned for years by the ranch leasing the property from LADWP. The land is east of Highway 6 and north of the McNally Canals. The revegetation work was supposed to be completed by 2013.
In return, LADWP was granted a number of changes to the Inyo Los Angeles Long Term Water Agreement, including the ability to create pastureland in other areas of the valley. The proposed Laws Irrigation project was properly added as a change to the Water Agreement, and approved by Inyo County, LADWP and the courts overseeing the agreement.
However, the lawsuit does not attempt to dive into the legal swamp created by the Water Agreement or its supporting documents. It only asks the courts to rule on whether LADWP has violated CEQA and the EIR. It then askes the court to compel LADWP to successfully complete the vegetation work.
For years, the old pastures in question have been mostly dry and sporting the usual array of weeds and non-native plants common in the area, the groups said. Instead of creating “a biodiverse upland desert scrub community,” as promised, LADWP “disregarded its plans in many ways. The result has been “near monocultures of common plants like rabbitbrush and saltbrush while missing deadlines,” the group said in a press release.
“We know there is adequate water and expertise for LADWP to satisfy its obligations, it is high time they treated compliance with obligations to the Owens Valley as a higher priority,” said Wendy Schneider, executive director of Friends of the Inyo.
Negotiations with LADWP about the project started two years ago with the Sierra Club and others pointing out the “Laws revegetation projects were not properly implemented and have not been successfully completed, said Mark Bagley, Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter member who also represented the Sierra Club during the adoption of the Water Agreement. “LADWP has disregarded our concerns, so we have been forced to ask the Court to order LADWP to live up to their obligations” under CEQA.
