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Hatchery analysis doesn’t float with OVC or DWP |
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Tuesday, 16 February 2010 |
 Both the LADWP and the OVC are challenging the Department of Fish and Game's plans to continue pumping an additional 6,000 acre-feet of water a year into the Blackrock Fish Hatchery. File photo By Mike Bodine
Register Staff
2-13-2010 Two local advocates of water in the Owens Valley do not agree with a recent environmental study of state hatcheries drafted by the California Department of Fish and Game.
One, the Owens Valley Committee environmental group, is concerned that continued water pumping at the current rate is not necessary and will disrupt the perfect conditions that made the valley an ideal spot for fish hatcheries. The other owns the pumps and is worried that any reduction in pumping will impact the citizens of the City of Los Angeles and perhaps the entire state.
The group who owns the pumps, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, made its comments first. And, opposition to DWP’s suggestions never made it to the final document, and pumping is going to be allowed at its current rate.
The OVC has filed a lawsuit against DFG for failure to adequately address alternatives, such as limiting the pumping rate.
The lawsuit stems from a study the DFG conducted after a generation-long delay.
After more than 30 years, the DFG completed an environmental study last month on its hatchery and stocking program. And just days after the study’s release, the Owens Valley Committee has filed suit against DFG alleging it is pumping more water than it needs to supply the Black Rock and Fish Springs facilities.
The California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, was enacted in 1970 and it required the DFG to conduct environmental impact reports and studies, or EIRs and EISs, for all of its fisheries and other operations that were established prior to CEQA. It took a court order by a Sacramento County Superior Court in 2007 to get DFG to conduct the studies.
The first-ever environmental study done under CEQA by the overseers of the state’s hatchery was certified on Jan. 11, 2010. The OVC alleges the Final Hatchery EIR not only uses “inappropriate” aquifer baselines but comes to “wrongful conclusions” when it comes to environmental impacts, according to OVC board member Mark Bagley.
DWP claimed during the public comment period of the study that the EIR/EIS does not consider the affects the pumping will have on water exportation.
Both seemingly opposing entities agree that the study done by the DFG is inaccurate, and both have similar arguments against the same data. But, the OVC claims there is too much water, while DWP claims the proposed limited pumping amounts alternatives represent “a significant reduction to the Los Angeles water supply.”
DWP also claims that the DFG has no jurisdiction to set pumping levels on DWP pumps.
The current pumping flow is 6,000 acre-feet per year more than it was before DWP pumping dried up natural annual springs and runoff, Bagley said.
The OVC and DWP claim that the data used for the FEIR, which are based on the period of 2004-08, are not correct. The OVC claims the data does not reflect the time between 2004 and 2008 and the time CEQA was enacted.
The press release from the OVC states, “This baseline is inadequate because it disregards decades of impacts without any CEQA analysis.”
A comment letter on the EIR from Gene Coufal, aqueduct business group manager for DWP, states “… that analysis was inaccurate in not considering the increased pumping rates began over 30 years prior to the beginning of the baseline evaluation period (2004-08).”
Comments from Coufal continue that the proposed reduction of groundwater pumping to the hatcheries by 4,000 acre-feet per year “is about 6 percent of all groundwater pumped in the Owens Valley during the 2009-10 runoff year, and is about equal to the annual supply of water for over 8,000 Los Angeles households. A 4,000 acre-foot per foot per year reduction in water exported from the Owens Valley will likely require a proportionate increase in water exported from the California Bay-Delta system through the State Water Project. DFG’s EIR/EIS must consider the whole impacts on the state’s water supply from its proposed actions.”
Bagley said by phone Thursday that the EIR/EIS conducted by the DFG did not analyze or mitigate the environmental impacts to endemic plants and other flora and fauna of constantly lowering the groundwater to feed the hatcheries.
He said the area has turned from “meadow to a shrub meadow” and just shrubs may be all that will survive if pumping continues.
In the press release, Bagley states that the OVC understands what an “important role in the local economy” hatcheries play, “however, we believe that pumping to supply … the facilities can be reduced to the levels the natural spring flows used to provide without much effect on hatchery operations and with the effect of mitigating the impacts that excessive pumping has had and continues to have.”
Bagley explained on Thursday that one of the reasons these vital hatcheries were planted in the Owens Valley was because of the perfect conditions of water, shade and runoff it has to offer for ideal conditions. But, he noted, with continued pumping that environment will be lost.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 08 March 2010 )
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