Giving public comments is how we make our voices heard. We will show LADWP and the Inyo County Water Department (ICWD) that we care and we are paying attention. You will have two to three minutes to give comments at the beginning of the meeting and before each agenda item. Make your comments personal to you! What do you want these LADWP Commissioners to know about water extraction in Payahuunadü (the Owens Valley)? What would you like to see LADWP do differently? Here are some “asks” you may want to include: -
Improve public transparency. LADWP takes actions in our valley with barely any input from the people who live here. They announce most public meetings only a few days in advance, and they often release the agenda a day or two before the meeting. They also often take actions to aid water extraction without any public announcement at all. We need to transform this entire dynamic: the public should have a meaningful role in decisions that affect our environment.
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Store water in the Owens Valley – not Rose Valley or Inyo County more broadly. The Standing Committee is considering where to “bank,” or store, water in wet years. They are currently focused on a potential water banking location in Rose Valley, to the south of the Owens Valley. This plan would still involve moving water out of its natural pathway in our watershed. Springs have dried up and vegetation is suffering all over the Owens Valley: we need water stored here, not elsewhere.
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Redirect funds for groundwater-pumping wells in Payahuunadü to Los Angeles’ local water development programs instead. LADWP dedicates significant time, money, and effort to its groundwater pumping wells in Payahuunadü. These resources go towards studying their wells, drilling new wells, installing new pumps on existing wells, and more. Our ecosystems deserve a break to recover from this ceaseless pumping. We urge LADWP to use that money and manpower to aid its transition to its own local water, through programs like Operation NEXT.
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Do not install wells that pump water solely from deep aquifers. Last month, we successfully convinced LADWP to pause plans to install two new deeper wells that would pull only from our valley’s deeper aquifers. However, we learned that they have slowly started
“replacing” older wells with these new ones that pump only from the deeper aquifers. These new wells have not undergone public review. Pumping from these aquifers could have numerous unintended and unpredictable effects on our ecosystems. We need LADWP to halt this style of pumping. We also ask that they develop a new, more effective way to monitor the impacts of their pumping.
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