Owens Valley officials accuse Los Angeles of trying to avoid responsibility for the environmental damage its water use has caused.
Even as worsening drought and aridification force Los Angeles to end its overwhelming dependence on imported water, Angelenos may soon realize that weaning themselves off supplies from the rugged eastern Sierra Nevada doesn’t mean they will stop paying for the city’s long, complicated history there.
Arguing that climate change and drought have fundamentally altered the state’s water supply, DWP officials suggested that it was impossible for them to ensure Mono Lake remained at certain dust-damping levels. “Despite this achievement, Great Basin has refused to acknowledge the success of the program, and instead has issued a series of orders and associated fines that demonstrate a clear pattern of overreach of its regulatory role,” read a DWP statement.
The DWP has responded by filing its own lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accusing the air district of exceeding its authority and ordering dust control measures without first conducting an environmental analysis of its impacts, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act. “We are shocked to see Great Basin attempting to mandate that LADWP act in opposition to the requests of our tribal partners,” read a statement from Paul Liu, manager of the utility’s Owens Lake Dust Mitigation Program.Great Basin argues that the mitigation area is not on tribal land. The agency says it is held in trust by the State Lands Commission, which supports the implementation of air pollution controls.
Particulate-matter air pollution can remain airborne for long periods and can lodge deep in the lungs and cause scarring, respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular disease, as well as more frequent attacks of asthma in children.
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