|
News
View:
[ Last 15 days ] [
Last 15-30
days] [ All ]
[ All (titles only)] |
| 7/29/2010 |
Owens Valley Renewable Energy Development Public Meeting Sponsored by LADWP |
MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT (from LADWP press release)
Owens Valley Renewable Energy Development Public Meeting
Sponsored by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
When: Thursday, August 5, 2010, 6:30 pm
Where: Statham Hall, 138 Jackson Street, Lone Pine, CA
LADWP's Power System representatives will provide an overview of potential renewable energy opportunities in the Owens Valley, specific projects under development, including projects on the Owens Lake bed, and a schedule for potential environmental documents due to be released regarding the proposed projects.
Solar, small hydro and geothermal projects are being considered in the Owens Valley to help achieve renewable energy goals aimed at reducing green house gas emissions, providing clean energy and stimulating economic development and job creation.
Members of the public will have the opportunity to ask LADWP's representatives questions about their renewable energy development plans and potential opportunities.
|
| Contacts: |
Phone: |
|
| 2/10/2010 |
OVC challenges California DFG's Hatchery and Stocking EIR |
Sacramento, California--The Owens Valley Committee (OVC) filed a lawsuit February 9 against the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) challenging the adequacy of DFG’s Hatchery and Stocking Program Environmental Impact Report (EIR). OVC’s lawsuit focuses on the group's concerns about the effects of groundwater pumping used to supply DFG’s Black Rock Rearing Ponds and Fish Springs Hatchery, both located in the Owens Valley.
“Our concern is with the overpumping to supply the Black Rock and Fish Springs facilities," said OVC board member Mark Bagley. "Those facilities operated for decades on natural spring flows. Since excessive groundwater pumping by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power dried up the natural springs in the early 1970s, groundwater pumping has supplied those facilities. The annual average pumping since 1973 to supply the facilities has exceeded the prior natural spring flows by more than 6,000 acre-feet per year at each facility." He added that there are no data to suggest that the excess flows to the hatchery facilities have provided for increased hatchery production.
"The data, however, do demonstrate that the excessive pumping has significant environmental effects," Bagley said. "We’re certainly not trying to shut down the hatcheries--they play an important role in the local economy and in DFG’s statewide hatchery program. However, we believe that pumping to supply the Black Rock and Fish Springs 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.”
Water that flows through the Black Rock and Fish Springs hatchery facilities flows directly into the Los Angeles aqueduct system and is exported to Los Angeles.
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires that the Final EIR identify significant environmental effects of the project so that measures to mitigate or avoid those effects or alternatives that avoid those effects can be devised. The EIR failed to meet requirements of CEQA for disclosure, analysis and mitigation of significant project impacts.
The Draft EIR proposed a mitigation measure that would have significantly reduced the pumping at Black Rock. OVC representatives were surprised and disappointed that the Final EIR eliminated that measure.
The OVC lawsuit raises four main points and seeks a determination by the Court that the certification of the EIR is invalid and void because it fails to meet the requirements and guidelines of CEQA:
1. The EIR uses an inadequate and impermissible baseline by which to determine whether DFG’s hatchery program has significant environmental effects. Because it uses a 2004-2008 baseline, the EIR determines that only impacts above and beyond the impacts during the 2004-2008 period will be significant. When the Black Rock and Fish Springs facilities were established there were thousands of acre-feet per year flowing from the springs that fed the hatcheries. Now pumping for the hatcheries and other uses far exceed the original springs flows and have dried up the springs. However, by using the 2004-2008 baseline, DFG concludes that these impacts are insignificant because they occurred prior to the 2004-2008 baseline period. This baseline is inadequate because it disregards decades of impacts without any CEQA analysis. CEQA became law in 1970, yet this is the first CEQA analysis on the hatchery program.
2. The EIR fails to provide an adequate analysis of the Project’s impacts, and fails to provide sufficient detail regarding the foreseeable impacts that will arise from continued groundwater pumping to supply the Black Rock and Fish Springs facilities. Even using 2004-2008 as the environmental baseline, continued operation of the Black Rock and Fish Springs facilities will continue to lower the groundwater table and have groundwater impacts that are not analyzed or mitigated in the EIR.
3. The EIR failed to include feasible alternatives to the Project that were presented to DFG. Such alternatives included a groundwater monitoring plan that allows for reducing groundwater pumping for the Fish Springs and Black Rock facilities as needed to allow groundwater levels and groundwater-dependent alkali meadows to be restored. This alternative would mitigate significant environmental effects caused by groundwater pumping to supply the Black Rock and Fish Springs facilities that have occurred since the 1970s and continue to occur. Another alternative included limiting groundwater extractions at Black Rock to 8,000 acre-feet annually. This alternative was included in the Draft EIR, but omitted from the Final EIR.
4. Prior to approving the Project, DFG failed to adequately consider some of the public comments submitted during the environmental review process. The responses to comments in the Final EIR fail to meet the requirements of CEQA in that they neither adequately dispose of all the issues raised, nor provide specific rationale for rejecting suggested Project changes, mitigation measures, or alternatives.
The Final Hatchery EIR, which is the first CEQA analysis ever done on the hatchery and stocking program and which was done under a court order, was certified and the project approved on January 11, 2010. Under CEQA any challenge to the EIR must be filed within 30 days.
The Owens Valley Committee is a non-profit citizen action group founded in 1984 and dedicated to the protection, restoration and sustainable management of water and land resources affecting the Owens Valley. This legal action was filed in the Sacramento County Superior Court since DFG headquarters are located in Sacramento.
Questions regarding the OVC’s lawsuit should be directed to OVC’s attorney, Don Mooney, at 530-758-2377.
|
| Contacts: |
Phone: |
|
| 1/11/2010 |
LADWP holds Bishop meeting to discuss solar project |
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) will hold a public meeting
Monday, January 11, at 7 p.m.
at the United Methodist Church
(245 N. Fowler in Bishop, California)
to discuss preliminary plans for building one of the world's largest solar power generation facilities in the iconic Owens Valley.
LADWP Interim General Manager David Freeman, describing plans in general terms on a visit to Inyo County in December 2009, called the project a potential means for reducing dust pollution from the Owens Lake while generating cleaner power for Los Angeles, but added that he had not ruled out expansion of the project beyond the borders of the lake into agricultural or meadow zones along the valley floor. Because the project has great potential for a wide range of both positive and negative impacts both in and beyond the Owens Valley (for example, effects on climate change as well as the eastern Sierra's landscape, agriculture-and-tourism-based economy, and wildlife), we're posting this notice on our web site as a reminder for residents and friends of the Owens Valley to bring their questions, ideas, and concerns to the meeting so that project developers can develop a more coherent and inclusive plan.
If you'd like to discuss the project with others before the meeting, Eastern Sierra Land Trust (176 Home Street in Bishop) will be holding an open house Thursday, January 7, from 4 pm to 6 pm to share ideas and information and hold an informal discussion about the project.
To read more about the project in the Los Angeles Times, see:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-owens-lake18-2009dec18,0,4418512.story
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-owenslake2-2009dec02,0,1946554.story
|
| Contacts: |
Phone: |
|
| 5/8/2009 |
Supervisors uphold permit for groundwater export project |
INDEPENDENCE--The Inyo County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 this Wednesday to uphold a permit for Coso Operating Company to pump and export groundwater from Rose Valley on the east side of the Sierra Nevada, in spite of concerns that pumping the valley's entire estimated annual average recharge would cause environmental problems similar to those experienced in the Owens Valley from groundwater mining.
The Conditional Use Permit for the project would allow Coso Operating Company to pump approximately 4,800 acre feet of water per year (approximately 3,000 gallons per minute) from the Hay Ranch in Rose Valley and to export the water for use in cooling its geothermal facility approximately nine miles away. Although the Inyo County Water Commission voted against approval of the project in January, Coso Operating Company announced soon after that Inyo County's tax revenues might be severely impacted due to a decrease in production if the company did not receive permission to proceed with the groundwater export project. The Inyo County Planning Commission voted to approve the project during a meeting this March.
The decision was immediately appealed by local residents and by proponents of Little Lake Ranch, a nearby hunting club and wildlife refuge, in part, they argued, because authors of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the pumping project defined up to a ten percent loss in water supply to Little Lake Ranch as insignificant, but did not thoroughly examine the effects that such a loss would have on the ranch's groundwater-fed lake, springs, and wetlands or on the wildlife that depends on that habitat. Those who argued against the project also pointed out, among other objections, that other more sustainable alternatives to cooling the facility with pumped water had not been examined adequately, that analyses of the effects of the project assumed normal or ideal water conditions but did not examine what might happen in an extended drought, and that, although the project would last only a maximum of thirty years, its effects on water tables were expected to last more than one hundred years.
The Board of Supervisors met Wednesday, May 6, 2009, to discuss the project, to allow public comment, and to make a final decision on whether or not to approve the permit for the project. The meeting began at 9 a.m. and ended at midnight with the Supervisors' 4-1 vote to uphold the permit.
Commenting on the Board's decision after the hearing, Gary Arnold, attorney for Little Lake Ranch, said that even if a monitoring and mitigation plan suggested by Inyo County is enforced, "Little Lake will still lose at least ten percent of its water inflows, which we believe will have a dramatic effect on the habitat and wildlife at Little Lake."
If you would like to learn more about this issue, the Owens Valley Committee has posted a list of links and documents regarding this project on the lower third of our reading room page at http://www.ovcweb.org/LInks/Referencedesk.html
|
| Contacts: |
Phone: |
|
| 1/17/2009 |
Hay Ranch groundwater pumping: extracting the effects of water transfers |
Last Monday, January 12, the Inyo County Water Commission met to discuss the Coso Hay Ranch Water Extraction and Delivery System project permit. What water commissioners heard concerned them so much that they have scheduled an additional meeting to discuss the issue Monday, January 26, 2009.
Under the terms of the permit, the Coso Operating Company would extract groundwater from two wells on the Hay Ranch in Rose Valley and transfer it to the Coso geothermal project at the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station.
According to the project's Draft Environmental Impact Report, even in normal conditions, the project "would have a significant impact on water availability at Little Lake Ranch" nearby, an avian refuge and recreational hunting area that depends entirely upon groundwater to supply its lake, springs, and wetlands. Effects of the project in drier conditions were apparently not modeled. Project managers define a loss of ten percent of the groundwater supply to Little Lake Ranch--and consequent effects on wetlands there--as being acceptable. Owners and advocates of Little Lake Ranch and its environs disagree.
The extraction project would last thirty years; however, the effects of the project would last at least 100 years after the project's end, according to Gary Arnold, an attorney for and member of Little Lake Ranch. Arnold is also concerned about the stifling effect the project would have on any other businesses in the area because the project essentially consumes all of the valley's estimated annual water recharge in the best conditions.
"Coso’s Project will deprive other commercial enterprises and the future residents of Rose Valley of vital water resources, solely because the Project overdrafts the Rose Valley aquifer by pumping more water than is naturally recharged," Mr. Arnold wrote in a recent letter to Inyo County Water Commissioners. "....At least two companies have proposed additional geothermal explorations in the vicinity of Coso, including Deep Rose, both of which will need some water. The FEIR does not address these cumulative impacts because it asserts that the future projects are speculative. Coso’s Project will deplete water resources, making future development in Rose Valley impractical, if not impossible."
These and other concerns raised about the project prompted the water commissioners to meet again to discuss possible actions and alternatives. The meeting agenda follows below.
If you would like to learn more, we've posted links to documents and comments about this issue in the OVC reading room at:
http://www.ovcweb.org/LInks/Referencedesk.html
INYO COUNTY WATER COMMISSION MEETING
Monday, January 26, 2009, 6:00 p.m.
Board of Supervisors Room, County Administrative Center
224 North Edwards
Independence, California
-AGENDA-
The public will be offered the opportunity to comment on each agenda item prior to any action on the item by the Water Commission or, in the absence of action, prior to the Commission moving to the next item on the agenda. The public will also be offered the opportunity to address the Commission on any matter within the Commission’s jurisdiction prior to adjournment of the meeting.
1. Pledge of Allegiance
2. Continuation from Water Commission meeting of January 12, 2009: Consideration of recommendation to Planning Commission regarding Conditional Use Permit #2007-3/Coso Operating Co. LLC, Hay Ranch Water Extraction and Delivery System
a. Presentation by Coso Operating Company
b. Public comment
c. Consideration of recommendations to Planning Commission
3. Public Comment
4. Adjourn
|
| Contacts: |
Phone: |
|
|
