Friends of the Inyo’s June 2022 Funding Appeal to our donors and supporters is all about water – each drop of it as precious as a diamond in these times of drought. Please read a heartfelt plea for support from Executive Director Wendy Schneider and follow the instructions to donate to help our water justice work so we can continue the fight to keep our water in the Eastern Sierra. Thank you!
Water Policy
Please attend the Inyo/LA Standing Committee meeting this Thursday, May 12, at 10 a.m., and provide support for Inyo County’s request that LADWP reduce its water extraction from the Owens Valley. Get more details and access the meeting agenda, link and instructions by reading this blogpost.
For the Comprehensive River Management Plan (CRMP) to fulfill its protective purpose, it is essential that the plan go beyond a simple recitation of resources and issues and focus on current and future actions that could harm the free-flowing condition, outstandingly remarkable (OR) values, segment classification, and water quality of the protected river. Unfortunately, the draft CRMP for the Owens River Headwaters Wild and Scenic River (WSR) fails this test. In particular, the CRMP and accompanying Resource Assessment fail to provide crucial information about groundwater extraction from aquifers that contribute to the flow of the Owens River Headwaters WSR.
Robbing Groundwater From a Dry Lake Back in March Friends of the Inyo submitted comments on the misguided Owens Lake Test Well East project. The test was a masked attempt to increase groundwater pumping underneath the dusty Owens Lake bed. “We are not in agreement that groundwater pumping from beneath Owens lake can be done in an environmentally sustainable manner,” writes Wendy Schneider. Piecemeal self regulations were proposed by LADWP to replace any type of public review in hopes that the agency could escape scrutiny or mitigation for their newest water grab. Implementing this first step, as part of a…
LADWP is attempting to increase its extraction of water supplies from the Owens Valley by developing a program of consumptive groundwater use from the Owens Lakebed. We are not in agreement that groundwater pumping from beneath Owens Lake can be done in an environmentally sustainable manner, even for a limited period of time. LADWP has improperly piecemealed review of the incremental steps it is taking to achieve increased water withdrawals from the Owens Valley. It has done so without adequate disclosure or analysis of the cumulative and adverse impacts, both past and future, of LADWP’s extractions, the interactive role of…