Los Angeles DWP agrees to control dust at Owens Lake in eastern Sierra

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power will not be fined for dust pollution at Owens Lake. The DWP has compromised with air quality regulators in the eastern Sierra region.

A century ago, the City of Los Angeles drained Owens Lake to divert its water southward. That left behind a dry lakebed where wind swirled dust into the worst source of fine particulate air pollution in the country.

Ted Schade runs the Great Basin Air Pollution Control District. "Solving the problem at Owens Lake is really easy – just add water. But that's not very practical in the environment we have here."

As water's become even more valuable, DWP has used less of it in the eastern Sierra. Schade says that under the terms of a compromise, the DWP will use gravel and plants – along with sprinklers – to combat dust storms.

"It's three square miles of new dust controls, but the projects is actually going to entail taking another three square miles out of shallow flooding and vegetating those areas and then, then taking the water saved and applying it to a new project. So, yeah, now we have to fix it using less water than we would have 10 years ago."

In a dozen years or so, the City of L.A. has added 40 square miles of dust control measures at the lake – at a cost of a billion dollars. DWP is working with federal, state and local agencies to restore wildlife and consider renewable energy at the site too. Schade figures that in a couple of years, Owens Lake will still be dry – but the dust storms will be history too.