More than 25 years have gone by since Inyo County and DWP started to work on scientific ways to keep the Owens Valley environment safe from groundwater pumps. They still have no solid method in place, but both sides remain at work on the details. This according to Inyo County Water Director, Tom Brooks.

Staff members of both Inyo and DWP continue to meet in private to revise the Long Term Water Agreement’s method of groundwater pump management. The agreement’s so-called Green Book methods have not protect the environment. Both sides do agree on that.

Director Books said that the group has met a number of times in the past two months. In two weeks, Brooks said, he and others plan a Technical Group meeting to update the public on what has been happening.

Brooks declined to give us specifics on the work toward management of pumps. He said he doesn’t want to be “premature” in his announcements. He did say that the purpose of the current process is “let science drive management.”

Meetings over this issue have continued over the past two-plus decades with no agreement on how to effectively protect the environment from pumps.

Some members of the public have grown skeptical about any eventual agreement on this topic. Others have simply lost interest, saying that officials seem to ignore public input.