Drain - The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century - page 135

The river now runs about two to six feet deep and flows smoothly south for sixty-two
miles. It takes about sixteen days for it to meander through the Owens Valley floodplain,
before it pours into storage ponds on the northern edge of dusty Owens Lake. There,
four 600-horsepower pumps draw the water up and discharge it back into the concrete
and steel aqueduct, where it continues its journey to Los Angeles.
When I visited the Owens River, just a few months after Mayor Villaraigosa's rewa-
tering ceremony, Michael Prather , a botanist who worked tirelessly for the dust mitiga-
tion agreement, drove me along Owens Valley in his rattling pickup truck. “The wildlife
and native vegetation are making a slow comeback,” he said, explaining how the thin
film of water from the river and the sprinklers on the bed of Owens Lake have had a re-
juvenating effect. “he really good news is, the migrating birds have found us again.” He
raised his binoculars to peer at gulls, teal, scaup, sandpipers, and blackbirds wheeling in
the distance.
During the fall and spring, the shallow waters in Owens Lake come alive with algae
and brine flies, which supply food for some fifty thousand migrating birds. Peregrine
falcons feed on the birds. Audubon California has designated the lake and its resurging
wetlands one of the state's most important birding areas. Since then, the project has ex-
panded to encompass thirty of the lake's hundred square miles and added another nine
square miles of ponds in 2010; record numbers of birds, of over a hundred species, were
counted at the lake in 2008. But California was in its second year of drought, and ques-
tions were being raised about the necessity of LADWP's dust-mitigation efforts. The
project had suffered cost overruns and used sixty thousand acre-feet of water a year ,
which was worth some $54 million and was enough to supply sixty thousand house-
holds. Critics thought the money and water could be better spent elsewhere.
By 2009, Los Angeles had become a megacity with 3.8 million residents, in a broad
combined statistical area that had swelled to 17.8 million people—thanks in good part
to the water drained from Mono County. The city is also hydrated by water from the
Sacramento Delta, channeled south by the California Aqueduct, and by the Colorado
River, channeled west by the Colorado River Aqueduct.
If current growth rates continue, it is estimated that Los Angeles's population will
reach 33 million by 2020. Where is the water to supply such a megalopolis going to
come from?
“REMEMBER THE OWENS VALLEY!”
It is difficult to overstate the significance that Westerners ascribe to the debate over Los
Angeles's water grab. The tension over Owens Valley remains a potent symbol for people