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Draining Owens Lake may have given them a burst of water but once dry you cannot get any more then the Owens River can provide. Why not just take what the river can provide below the lake and that way the lake stays and you have the same amount of water you will years after the decision is made?
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The historic Owens Lake was a brine pool similar to Mono Lake. The lake evaporated when it no longer received fresh water input. The lake had no fresh water or fresh water output since the end of the last major glaciation more than 10,000 years ago.
The size of the historic lake was the area required to evaporate the average fresh water input from it's surface each year. By the time LA bought the agricultural land in the Owens Valley, most of the river had been diverted to water crops including a claimed 100,000 fruit trees and the lake level was already dropping. LA acquired water rights by buying the land from those who had acquired the water rights for use on that land.
If LA hadn't acquired the water rights and diverted the water, it would be the farmers consuming the water who would be responsible for controlling the dust pollution caused by the desiccated lake bed. Agricultural use of the water in the Owens Valley might have avoided some of the other environmental consequences with which it has proven so difficult to make LA deal responsibly.
Dale B. Dalrymple
