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horner – Son, Raymond Louis, II, born July 13, 2009 at Northern Inyo Hospital to Glenn Horner and |
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Tuesday, 21 July 2009 |
 Beginning this week, motorized use on Klondike Lake has been authorized three times a week; Friday, Saturday and Sunday. File Photo By Mike Gervais
Register Staff
7-18-2009 It’s official: cooperation does work.
Thanks to a diligent effort on the part of the Save Klondike Lake Committee and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to reach a compromise rather than squabble over unpopular decisions, Klondike Lake will be open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday through September.
“We are pleased to be able to make Klondike Lake available to motorized watercraft on two additional days each week through the remainder of the summer,” said LADWP Aqueduct Manager Gene Coufal. “Watercraft can now use Klondike on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through Sept. 6, 2009.”
“It feels so good to see how fast everything went with this,” said Russ Markman, a founding member of the Save Klondike Committee. “It shows that everybody, on all sides, wanted this to happen. Just think what would happen if everyone cooperated like that on other issues.”
Since it began considering closing Klondike to motorized access in April, the LADWP has been meeting regularly with Second District Supervisor Susan Cash and Fourth District Supervisor Marty Fortney and members of the Save Klondike Committee to reach an agreement on the future of the only lake accessible for motorized water recreation in northern Inyo County.
“Things just happened so smoothly,” Fortney said. “The DWP has done everything in its power to keep that lake open. It’s been a great deal and everyone worked hard.”
The first compromise reached by the cooperative group was to open the lake on a one-day-a-week trial basis to see how much use the lake got.
To do that, the LADWP had to pay an employee to man the gate at Klondike to be sure all vessels that were launched on the lake had been inspected for invasive quagga mussels, which are the reason the department considered closing the lake in the first place.
To make the plan cost-neutral, the LADWP began charging a small fee for inspections of boats heading to Klondike.
Residents took advantage of that one day pass on the lake, and the LADWP decided to extend the one-month trial run through the rest of the summer.
But, according Assistant Aqueduct Manager Clarence Martin, the LADWP was still faced with the extra expense of having an employee earning eight hours of overtime to man the gate every Saturday.
Faced with that problem, the principles, LADWP, Cash and Fortney and the Save Klondike Committee went back to the drawing board.
According to Markman, the LADWP came up with the idea of placing a one-way spike strip at the gate to Klondike, which would prevent vehicles with trailers from gaining access to the lake when the LADWP isn’t on duty, but would allow boaters to leave the lake at will.
With the traffic spikes in place, the LADWP will have its employee manning the gate from 8-10 a.m. to be sure all boats launching on the lake have been inspected.
Because that employee is working fewer hours each day, the LADWP was able to open the lake Friday and Sunday as well.
Markman said the LADWP even went a step further, and agreed to allow boaters who have paid for the inspection to get “three days for the price of one.”
Anyone who has their boat inspected by the LADWP can gain access to the lake all three days, if they are consecutive days. For example, residents can go Friday, Saturday and Sunday, or just Saturday and Sunday, but won’t be able to gain access Friday and Sunday.
The LADWP is sticking with that regulation to be sure that boaters don’t get inspected, head to Klondike on Friday, then go to a body of water that is infested with quagga mussels on Saturday, and return to Klondike with the bivalve hitchhikers on Sunday.
All-in-all, Markman said, “everyone seems really happy with the way this all worked out. We’re glad to be able to use the lake.”
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 04 August 2009 )
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