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County seeks delay of water meeting in L.A. |
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Wednesday, 14 November 2007 |
 Listening to public comment during the Inyo-L.A. Standing Committee meeting in Bishop are committe members (l-r) Inyo County Supervisor Jim Bilyeu, LADWP Board President David Nahai and L.A. Councilmember Jan Perry. Nahai and Mary Nichols of the LADWP board have resigned, prompting Inyo County to ask for a delay of the next meeting. Photo by Jon Klusmire By Jon Klusmire
Register Staff 11-13-2007
Driving to Los Angeles isn’t much fun, and it’s even less fun when there’s nothing to do after hitting the big city.
The prospect of heading to L.A. for a non-productive Inyo/L.A. Standing Committee meeting prompted Inyo County to seek to delay, if possible, the Nov. 19 committee meeting.
A pair of new faces representing Los Angeles and not enough time to get information packets and background information on a long list of somewhat complex agenda items to committee members were cited as the two main reasons for trying to push the meeting into December.
The meeting, though, could be seen as a good introduction to the basics of the relationship between LADWP and Inyo County, with a long list of “informational” items on the agenda that cover everything from water supplies to the Lower Owens River to the Green Book to land releases.
The LADWP is in a transitional period right now, with two board members having left, the general manager resigning and a former board member slated to become the GM.
“It’s nobody’s fault” that the LADWP commission is in a bit of turmoil at the time of a scheduled Standing Committee meeting, said First District Inyo County Supervisor Linda Arcularius. However, she was less forgiving of staff from both the LADWP and the county Water Department which had not prepared background materials for distribution to committee members two weeks in advance of the meeting.
The dilemma facing the Standing Committee is that the two now-departed commissioners were on the committee.
Mary Nichols left the LADWP commission to head the California Air Resources Board. More recently, David Nahai stepped down from the commission to get in the running for the top job at LADWP. And he won the race. Soon after the resignation of Ron Deaton, who had been on medical leave with heart problems since this summer, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa tapped Nahai to become the new general manger of LADWP. The city council must approve the appointment of Nahai, an attorney with the backing of the city’s environmental groups and LADWP’s unions.
Nahai made several visits to Inyo County and the Eastern Sierra while an LADWP commissioner and more recently as the president of the commission.
While all that moving around was going on, the remaining LADWP commissioners were standing still when it came to appointing new representatives to the Standing Committee. The board was slated to pick its Standing Committee members last Tuesday.
The committee is made up of two representatives from Inyo County, two LADWP board members, an L.A. City Council member, and the assorted support staff and, of course, legalcounsel representing all involved.
In defense of the staffs from both sides, without knowing who was going to be on the Standing Committee, it was a bit tough to send out packets for the coming meeting, said Inyo County Water Department Director Tom Brooks. He did point out that his department did get most of its background information complete and ready to go, but not all of it.
Arcularius hadn’t received the packet as of Tuesday, Nov. 6, so she said somehow the ball had been dropped. At the last Standing Committee meeting, the group said it needed all the background information and studies and reports about agenda items in plenty of time to review the material. The committee said two weeks would be the minimum needed to review what can be some pretty complex information on issues the committee will be asked to make decisions about.
The agenda for the planned November meeting, however, was shaping up to contain only “information items,” and maybe a few discussion items, it was noted. With no mandated decisions on the docket, the Inyo Board of Supervisors said delaying the meeting would not interfere with any of the Standing Committee’s legally mandated actions. Giving the two new LADWP commissioners on the committee plenty of time to study the staff reports even on informational items was also seen as crucial to those new members being able to begin to grasp the issues facing LADWP and the county.
The tentative agenda for the next Standing Committee meeting includes the following possible items:
• A review of the Standing Committee’s duties and responsibilities. The previous committee had asked for an outline of the committee’s legally obligated duties and decisions it must make, and where the committee fits in the political and legal processes created by the Inyo/L.A. Long Term Water Agreement and other legal decisions.
• An update on the Lower Owens River Project from LADWP staff. The “new” river is flowing, but decisions are looming about the upcoming “pulse flow” later this winter that will push about 200 cubic feet of water down the river to simulate high runoff and further clear out the channel.
• A report and update on the Blackrock Waterfowl Area monitoring, and its potential flooding, which is also mandated by the most recent LORP lawsuit settlement. Additional information about the status of the LORP’s “off-river lakes and ponds” will also be presented.
• The workplans being developed to update and revise the Green Book will be presented, as will some sort of timeline for the project to revise the technical groundwater pumping and management guidelines in the Owens Valley. The county Water Department and LADWP are working cooperatively to update the Green Book, and both entities have agreed to an “interim management plan” that will simplify annual pumping for three years so staff time can be devoted to the Green Book work, not pumping plans.
• The LADWP staff requested time to discuss “water supply issues” and generally update the committee on the impacts last winter’s drought had on water exports from the Sierra.
• The “ad hoc” group’s effort to revise or find another set of compromises concerning the mandated Hines Spring mitigation project. The informal group had come up with a plan for Hines Spring involving pumped groundwater, then proposed four additional “regreening projects” to use the 1,600 acre-feet of water allocated to the mitigation effort. The Owens Valley Committee and the Sierra Club, both of which had a representative on the ad hoc group, rejected the Hines Spring plan, noting that it would take too much groundwater (940 a.f.).
• A report on the destruction caused by the Inyo Complex fires this summer on the proposed yellow-billed cuckoo project. The fires burned a large section of proposed habitat in the Baker Creek area, and the cuckoo effort, which was nearly complete, has been set back considerably. Now, a major concern is the need to possibly revegetate or restore the area before creating some sort of habitat designed to attract the rare yellow-billed cuckoo.
The Board of Supervisors suggested two more agenda items for the meeting.
Fourth District Supervisor Jim Bilyeu wanted to see the LADWP land release program on the agenda. He noted that LADWP has missed the “fall 2007 deadline” to get the first phase of the land releases on the auction block and sold to the public.
Second District Supervisor Susan Cash said more than a few times residents and the local chapter of the Native Plant Society have urged the Standing Committee to at least discuss, on a philosophical or theoretical level at least, how to deal with “impacts.” Specifically, the conflicting views that water decisions should be made to “avoid impacts” in the first place, rather than “mitigate for impacts after the fact.”
Another aspect of the “impact” debate is whether it makes sense to allow negative impacts to be created in other areas in order to create a mandated mitigation project.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 29 January 2008 )
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