Los Angeles’s mayor had no comment in an LA Times story Sunday that said the Department of Water and Power does not want to clean up the rest of the Owens Dry Lake dust and wants the State Lands Commission to do it.
LADWP and the Great Basin Air Pollution Control District signed an agreement which requires ongoing assessment and additional clean-up of dust to meet federal standards. APCD required DWP to clean up 2.9 square miles more. DWP has appealed that order to the State Air Resources Control Board.
Times reporter Louis Sahagun quotes former DWP General Manager David Freeman, who said, “We are seeing a fundamental reversal of a decade of relative harmony.” Freeman also said that “If the mayor does not want to leave office labeled as a polluter, he ought to think twice about that.” Reporter Sahagun wrote that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declined to comment.
The Times story says DWP claims they are not responsible for as much of the lake bed as APCD believes. LADWP Manager Ron Nichols said, “…the reality is that we don’t create all the dust out there, never did.” DWP now says that the State Lands Commission, which owns the lake bed, should be responsible for any additional clean-up. The story also quotes DWP officials as saying that if their appeal of the dust abatement wins, they will use about half the water on the lake, saving the average LA rate payer about $20 a year.
Air Pollution Director Ted Schade points out that the federal Clean Air Act does not say that close to completion of clean-up is good enough. Schade is quoted as saying that DWP is responsible for “controlling the lake bed that is exposed today because of their ongoing water diversions.”
Read the Times story at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-owens-dust-20120610,0,6961679.story
LADWP Manager Ron Nichols came from Washington state. He can’t in any way know how important water is to the desert. LA was a desert, Owens valley was not. LADWP made Owens valley a desert and LA look like Washington State. I would like to see Ron Nichols and Mayor… Read more »
Easy way to fix the problem, turn it into a giant parking lot. I mean, at this point, would it be worse?
Millions of the tiny quagga mussels can block water grates and nearly fill water pipes. “They grow so fast that the pipes start shrinking as they go and then they cut off our ability to deliver water,” If they aren’t removed, they can slow or block the water from flowing… Read more »
I like that Rob, but the only thing is … it would end up biting us in the xss in the long run some how .. always does.
Big Al, yes it’s not a good idea, but I hope in made you smile for a second.
LOL Rob it did.
A way to fix the problem is very elusive, in the long run, I think. my opinion would be to simply rehydrate the lake, they re hydrated the lower Owens river, only to pull it out and back into the aqueduct. Even that little bit of hydration is costing them… Read more »
Al,
The Lake is largely being rehydrated, take a trip out there. Also since the dust controls were put in before the LORP was implemented, infrastructure does not allow for the River to “just flow into the Lake”
JeanGenie .. I don’t have to take a trip down there to see what you claim .. I have seen it .. and DWP is bringing rock from a quarry adjacent to the lake, to the east. They are crushing (Processing the rock) and hauling it by truck, out to… Read more »
Make everybody that is pro LADWP, pitch in to the cost of eliminating the dust and invasisive species, and all the other problems that we face due to the city of LA diverting the water. To them DWP does no wrong. Their whole staff trying there best to vote in… Read more »
Edit what you write. Your responses would be more credible.