The Standing Committee will meet on Wednesday, May 26. For details, please use the following link provided for the Webinar: Webex Events (classic) Event number: 187 862 0528 Event Password: 1234 The Inyo/Los Angeles Standing Committee and Technical Group were created through a 1982 Memorandum of Understanding between the City and the County. The Inyo/Los Angeles Water Agreement […]
The Standing Committee is an interesting beast. Established by the Long Term Water Agreement, it brings together the elected officials and staff from Inyo County and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. It’s been a while since the two parties met, but come together they did, virtually, on Monday morning. Maybe the news […]
By Deb Murphy For a brief time, members of the Standing Committee seemed to be on the same page despite disagreements on specific issues. If that was indeed an era of good will, it’s gone, replaced by what looked like dueling agencies. Example: Inyo Water Commission Chair Mike Prather used a visual to bring home […]
LADWP press release LOS ANGELES – During the Inyo County/Los Angeles Standing Committee Wednesday, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) announced plans to maximize the spread of water in the Owens Valley this year to levels not seen since the wettest year on record, 1983-84. The above average snowpack levels, registering north […]
By Deb Murphy Thursday’s Standing Committee meeting was a riveting tennis match of semantics and legalese. In the end the committee couldn’t agree on a framework for or anything related to reasonable reductions to agriculture which means the status quo is maintained and agricultural leases will get 45,000 acre-feet for irrigation. The only potential ag […]
By Deb Murphy The Owens Valley has seen a pattern over the last two years—and not just in terms of below normal snow pack and precipitation. It goes something like this: The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power comes out with a predictably unacceptable to Inyo County solution to water shortages, focusing on reductions […]
By Deb Murphy Inyo County representatives on the Technical Group held their ground on issues to be decided at this Thursday’s Standing Committee meeting: No test pumping on wells at Five Bridges until the mitigation reaches sustainable goals; the County still wants to see a California Environmental Quality Act analysis before new wells can be […]
By Deb Murphy With a little wordsmithing, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s request for an okay on the development of a plan to reduce water allocations for irrigation and mitigation projects in the event of a fifth consecutive year of drought came before Monday’s Standing Committee meeting in Independence. The re-wording made […]
The Memorandum of Understanding partners met last Thursday in an effort to re-allocate what little water there is to keep area ranchers’ in business. According to Inyo County Water Department Director Bob Harrington, the meeting resulted in a potential 4,000-5,000 acre-feet of water that could be added to the 16,500 acre-feet scheduled for irrigation this […]
Numbers and locations have been thrown out since Monday’s Tech Group meeting, but the final decision on how to provide adequate irrigation for Owens Valley agriculture was postponed at Thursday’s Standing Committee meeting. Farmers and ranchers will have to wait until June 4 to know how many cuts they’ll get from their alfalfa fields, how […]
The Inyo-Los Angeles Water Agreement was based on what amounts to a 1 to 1 vote over objections. Inyo gets one vote and LA gets one vote. That means LA can hang up Inyo’s concerns for a long time. Take the Black Rock area north of Independence, known as Blackrock 94. Inyo began to see […]
This time when Los Angeles comes to Inyo County for a meeting, citizens have real, material complaints. A school farm project has dragged on, and many mitigation measures have never happened. Plus, Inyo has a Drought Proclamation that points out dry wells in Bishop. Ranchers have also suffered a loss of water by DWP. The […]
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