WATER WOW: LADWP, INYO AGREE

Graham Meese said the quiet part out loud: When it comes to water conflicts and issues in Inyo County, most of the options and plans and ideas have been around for years, but nothing ever happens to implement changes.

His observation arrived with quite a thud during the May 27 Inyo-Los Angeles Standing Committee meeting in Independence.

Then it bounced back up and led to rare agreement between representatives from Inyo County and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). Both sides agreed to make a “firm commitment” to undertake long-term studies that could lead to substantial changes to the management of the Lower Owens River Project (LORP).

A “firm commitment” might sound a little vague, but in the Owens Valley water world, those words are rarely uttered.

“This is a big deal,” said Nurit Katz, vice president of the LADWP board. She added that LADWP need to “engage fully” in the collaborative work to improve the LORP. The department would also explore grant funding to hire consultants and working with California universities to take on the complex task of reviewing and possibly amending the current LORP management plans and goals, she added.

A complete review and possible revamp of the LORP was not on the committee’s agenda. It was tasked with only approving the 2026 “seasonal habitat flows,” also called “pulse flows” in the river restoration project.

Those springtime flows are intended to mimic to some degree the natural burst of springtime runoff in the river.

Meese, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW) lead on the LORP, said the department didn’t agree with the proposed flows of 133 cubic feet per second for 12 days. That “minimal” flow will not improve conditions on the river. Meese said the flows should be at least 200 cfs for a full 14 days, which has been typical in past years.

But even that amount of water would not help meet the goals of the original 1997 Memorandum of Understanding, he said. In fact, two decades of restored flows in the 52 river miles of the Lower Owens, “have not produced the outcomes” in the 1997 Environmental Impact Report and MOU, Meese said.

“It’s time to implement adaptive management,” he said.

That option is in the MOU and EIR and states when restoration goals are not met, the original management plan, operations and strategies need to be altered, changed or otherwise “adapted” to the conditions on the LORP. For example, Meese said there has not been cottonwood tree and willow “recruitment” along the riverbanks and large sections of the stream channel remain clogged with tules.

In the 2023 record runoff year, the LOPR saw flows as high as 600 cfs, Meese said. That did “knock back” the tules, pushed water and sediment on the floodplain which created beneficial “disturbances,” and resulted in some “recruitment” of trees and willows. “That is like a test year,” he said.

Nancy Masters, representing the Owens Valley Committee, a party to the MOU, suggested that all the MOU parties meet three times a year to engage in some “creative thinking” on how to improve the LORP.

Inyo County Supervisor Jeff Griffiths said the county agreed the LORP, a mitigation project, was not functioning as intended when water was returned into the dry river channel in 2006. The re-watered Owens River winds for 52 “river miles” from Aberdeen to just north of the Owens Lake. It was dried up when the river was diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913.

The county agreed with the proposal to increase the pulse flows this year, Griffiths said. Plus, it was time to move to “adaptive management” or look at different goals and guidelines for the 52-mile stretch of new waterway.

That statement created some quick looks from the LADWP staff and concerns that changing the flows would cause some “operational” issues. That led to a 10-minute recess for each side to hash out their position. After the recess, Griffiths announced the county would agree to the lower habitat flows this year and request “a firm commitment” from all MOU parties to discuss changes to the LORP management plan over the next 12 months. Allan Marks, president of the LADWP board, said the department agreed to that study plan.

The MOU parties are Inyo County, LADWP, the Owens Valley Committee, the Sierra Club, and the CDFW.

Meese said while the long-term work was welcome, “I’m disappointed” that this year’s flows could not be changed. “I gave you the opportunity to act, and you chose not to.” He pointed out increasing flows by 67 cfs this year is a “relatively simple” move and wasn’t “a big math problem.”

As for a year of in-depth discussions, Meese noted various studies and reports have explored many potential options to improve river flows over the years, but they have not been implemented. “Plan B, C and D are on the shelf.”

He also pointed out the LORP was the largest river restoration project in the nation.” The size and scope of revising the LORP management plan could not be accomplished by the staff at DFG, Inyo County and LADWP. Expert consultants in river restoration should be hired to manage that task, he noted.

That’s when Katz noted the “firm commitment” to undertake that task was “a big deal.”