Let the Water Wars Begin

May 15, 2002

Once a rich farming area, the Owens Valley now offers limited opportunities for agriculture and regular dust storms blown up from the dry Owens Lake bed.

Dust storms constant reminder of California water transfers

Editor's note: The Arkansas River in Southern Colorado is under attack from Aurora and possibly other Denver-area communities. They want to buy part of the river's water and transfer it out of the Arkansas River Basin. If that occurs, farmlands will dry up and the effects on the communities along the river will be devastating. A similar attack took place years ago in California as Los Angeles staged water raids. This is a look at what happened there years ago, and the aftermath today.

Cindy Kitts was driving home to Benton, Calif., from the nearby town of Bishop last week through a raging dust storm. "The wind was blowing at 40 to 50 mph," she recalled. "You couldn't see the road - it was all dirt."

Dust storms are not uncommon in the Owens Valley, but they serve as a constant reminder to valley residents such as Kitts, manager of the Inyo-Mono Counties Farm Bureau, of the damage done by a century of water transfers to the ever-growing thirst of Los Angeles.

Now, decades after Owens Lake was sucked into a dry, salty flat, environmental laws have helped the valley's residents block some new transfers of water and even forced Los Angeles to give some water back to keep down the dust.

When rural Californians worry about losing their water to urban growth, the Owens Valley is nearly always mentioned as an example of where to see the outcome. Located on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains and opening onto what's called the High Desert, the Owens Valley climbs thousands of feet and the river of the same name is fed by numerous mountain streams.

The Owens River watershed was considered a rich source of life-giving water by the pioneer farmers who settled in the area around the turn of the last century and hoped to use that water to build an agricultural industry.

A hundred years ago, "this was considered the prime agricultural zone in California," said George Milovich, agricultural commissioner for Inyo and Mono Counties.

The valley grew a host of crops, including wheat and potatoes.

But others had their eye on the water, too.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Los Angeles, 230 miles to the southwest, was the home to only 100,000 people. It had excellent weather with a coastal Mediterranean climate and plenty of open land for crops and people.

What it lacked was water.

About the same time, farmers in the Owens Valley were working with the federal reclamation service to develop an irrigation network that would develop the valley's agriculture.

But in Los Angeles, a move already was afoot, spearheaded by Los Angeles Water Co. employees Fred Eaton and William Mulholland, to buy up land and water rights in the Owens Valley and build a gravity-fed aqueduct system to Los Angeles.

The Jack Nicholson film "Chinatown" used the scenario for its plot, the villain's name closely resembling Mulholland's.

Mulholland and Eaton were joined in the effort by a number of wealthy Los Angeles businessmen who knew that without additional water the community would never be able to grow.

To counter any competition for the water, the Los Angeles power structure also prevailed upon President Theodore Roosevelt to terminate the Owens Valley reclamation project.

Milovich said there was some "shady dealing," farmers being squeezed when their neighbors sold out first, but most of the landowners were happy to sell.

"For the most part, (Los Angeles) paid a good price for the land," he said "A lot of these people were just doing subsistence agriculture and DWP (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) bailed them out."

Still, there was no doubt that the Owens Valley would have had a different future if the water had stayed, he said. "If we'd had more water, this whole valley would have been nothing but agriculture."

But by 1924, Owens Lake at the base of the valley was dry and much of the lower portion of the valley was no longer suitable for anything but some hay farming and grazing.

Angry farmers turned violent at times over the years, blowing up portions of the aqueduct and even staging an armed takeover of the intake gates.

Many of the descendants of those original farmers who sold out still operate limited cow and calf operations and alfalfa ranches on the land they lease back from the L.A. Department of Water and Power.

By 1928, the LADWP had acquired 90 percent of the water-bearing lands in the valley. That caused the disappearance of many of its farms. Eventually, 75 percent of the water supply for the city of Los Angeles came from the Owens Valley.

Battles flared again in the 1970s when the LADWP wanted to pump more ground water out of the valley. Local citizens organized to fight the move.

After two decades of court battles, the citizens managed to win some control over pumping and a pledge from Los Angeles to return some water to mitigate the dust storms, drastically cutting back on the amount of water L.A. now gets from the Owens River.

Kitts, who also is a member of the Tri Valley Groundwater Management District in the upper reaches of the valley, said that the area recently resisted another attempt to drain the aquifer.

U.S. Filter, a water services company owned by the multi-national firm Vivendi, wanted to pump "excess" ground water from the valley and provide it to the LADWP system. Acknowledging that it would mean less water for farmers, the company suggested they grow less water-intensive crops.

Marion Dunn, another member of the Tri Valley district board, credits the California Environmental Quality Act with giving the residents the power they needed to stop U.S. Filter.

That law, passed in 1970, requires environmental studies before any water, mineral or other resource can be removed from any part of the state.

The Tri Valley agency is responsible for ground water in three small valleys at the head of the Owens Valley, where many farmers rely on ground water for irrigation.

U.S. Filter bought a ranch to give it access to the ground water and then applied for a permit to pump what it said was the excess.

At U.S. Filter's expense, an environmental study was done that found that there was no "excess" ground water and in fact the resource was diminishing in two of the three valleys studied, Dunn said.

At elevations of 4,000-5,400 feet, she said, the primary crops are water-intensive alfalfa and carrots. U.S. Filter tried to play the economics card, figuring the farmers would be better off switching to dryland crops and selling their water. The suggestion was based on the company's mistaken belief that the farmers leased their equipment. They don't, and had no intention of walking away from their capital investment, Dunn said.

"What really saves a lot of areas from these companies coming in is they have to do an environmental study," Dunn said. "It's going to run them $2 million and that's a big investment to make and then be denied a permit. (U.S. Filter) was wise enough to leave before they spent any more."

Down the valley, the Air Quality Management District has forced the LADWP to return water to the Owens Lake and plant grass to hold down dust. And besides the annoyance of dust, there's also a high level of arsenic, Dunn said. "People have been dying," she added.

And if the grass, designed for the salty lake bed, doesn't do the job, Los Angeles may have to give up even more water.

But one thing's for sure: A once-thriving agricultural center vanished because a large city took away its water.

By JOHN NORTON, The Pueblo Chieftain
http://www.chieftain.com/wednesday/news/index/article/1