100 Years of Dust:
Owens Lake and the Los Angeles Aqueduct

An in depth documentation of the environmental, cultural and political conflicts over water rights and air quality in California's Owens Valley.

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Shallow flood irrigation zones at Owens Lake are designed to prevent blowing dust with a minimum amount of water. Newer shallow flood zones include “habitat islands” to provide additional habitat for migratory shore birds while reducing water use.
Shallow flood irrigation zones at Owens Lake recirculate water through a series of very shallow ponds to keep the lake playa moist and prevent blowing dust.
Shallow flood zones now cover about 39 square miles of the Owens Lake playa with a few inches of water. Naturally occurring salts precipitate out of exposed areas of the soil.
Shallow flood dust mitigation at Owens Lake also includes holding ponds filled by large irrigation pipes. These ponds may hold anywhere from a few inches to a few feet of water at different times of the year. They are contained by berm roads on every side and have become attractive habitat for migratory birds.
Gravel based dust mitigation has been substantially expanded between 2015 and 2017 to meet Los Angeles's water use reduction goals. During the construction process, the gravel is laid out in long rows before being spread across the Owens Lake playa at a uniform two-inch depth on top of geotextile fabric.
Construction workers lay geotextile fabric on the Owens Lake Playa before covering it with exactly 2 inches of gravel for dust mitigation.
Managed Vegetation is the third technique originally approved for dust mitigation at Owens Dry Lake. The oldest and most established managed vegetation zones are at southeastern shore of the dry lakebed. They use buried drip tubing to irrigate rows of native salt grass.
It usually takes several years for newly planted vegetation to establish itself on the Owens Lake Playa. Salt seepage can make it difficult to grow grass on many areas of the dry lakebed, especially those that were not close to the original shoreline.
Sand Fences are another approved dust control method on Owens Dry Lake. A large grid of permanent sand fences is installed near the town of Cartego on the western shore of the dry lakebed.
The LADWP implements a summer dry down for their irrigation at Owens Lake to save water during the driest months. Shallow flood ponds are allowed to evaporate, leaving behind bizarre salt and brine formations.
Construction workers plant native shrubs next to hay bales in an attempt to revegetate the Keeler Dunes at the eastern shore of Owens Dry Lake. This project is intended to stop these sand dunes from blowing dust into the adjacent town of Keeler, CA. The hay bales are supposed to both reduce blowing dust and protect the newly planted shrubs from wind as they establish permanent root systems.
Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District has spread more than 100,000 hay bales across the Keeler Dunes in one of the final pieces of the project to mitigate dust pollution from Owens Dry Lake. Six months after the November 2015 planting in the Keeler Dunes, most of the shrubs have been buried, blown away, or eaten by rabbits. The shifting sands of the Keeler Dunes are also rapidly burying the hay bales.
This is the intake for the Los Angeles Aqueduct first constructed in 1913. It originally diverted the full course of the Owens River into the aqueduct canal, which runs 233 miles from here to Los Angeles. Today, Los Angeles supplies about 33% of its drinking water from the LA Aqueduct system in an average year, but this percentage can be heavily impacted by drought and flood cycles.
This LADWP groundwater pump is one of many adjacent to the upper section of the LA Aqueduct south of the town of Independence. This area was a wetland meadow before the LADWP began pumping the groundwater into the LA Aqueduct in the early 1970s. Twenty years of litigation between Los Angeles and Inyo County eventually resulted in the 1991 Inyo-Los Angeles Long Term Water Agreement. This legal agreement has never been enforced effectively, and the LADWP continues to pump groundwater in excess of the Long Term Water Agreement’s environmental protection goals.

Jennifer Little

Jennifer Little lives in Oakland, California. She received a B.F.A. in Photography from Washington University in St. Louis and an M.…

Topics
Environment Pollution Social Justice
Sub Topics
Agriculture Conservation Drinking Water Drought Environmental Degradation Habitat Destruction Resource Use
Regions
United States
Water Rights

About 100 Years of Dust: Owens Lake and the Los Angeles Aqueduct

100 Years of Dust: Owens Lake and the Los Angeles Aqueduct is an in depth documentation of the environmental, cultural and political conflicts over water rights and air quality in California’s Owens Valley. The project includes still photography, documentary videos, historical photographs, and aerial images produced with a drone. I am working concurrently on a photographic book, an educational multi-media exhibition, a multi-media web site, and a documentary film on this topic. This project won a prestigious Curator’s Choice Award from CENTER and a Critical Mass Top 50 Award from PhotoLucida.