By Laura Cunningham, California Director, Western Watersheds Project

A controversy has irrupted in a volcanic caldera used for livestock grazing in the scenic Eastern Sierra region of California.

Ditch irrigation is a common use of wet meadows along the eastern front of the Sierra Nevada, where snowmelt streams pour into basins and connect to rivers such as the Owens River and Walker River. According to General Land Office surveys, many ditch irrigation systems were begun in the late 1800s, and have been maintained for over a century by current agricultural users. Commonly, headgates are opened for certain periods along streams that divert a portion of the flow into artificial ditches, that often are allowed to flood out into pastures to extend areas of forage for livestock.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) owns over 315,000 acres of land in Inyo and Mono Counties, including land, water, and grazing leases in Long Valley. Much of this land is open to the public for recreational use and portions of it are leased to commercial ranching operations for cattle grazing. Historically, 6,100 acres of these lands were flood irrigated on an ad hoc basis, depending on snowmelt and drought conditions, according to LADWP, from streams flowing to the Owens River. LADWP diverts large portions of the Owens River into the Los Aqueduct, to be shipped off to the metropolitan Los Angeles Basin. That was, and still is, a raging controversy in itself.

In the summer of 2018 the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power decided to switch off water allocations to grazing lessees on its land in Long valley, saying the drought made it inefficient to continue allocating Sierra snowmelt water for commercial livestock operations. Due to local outcry from ranchers and Mono County, Los Angeles agreed to analyze its lease renewal and water allocations in an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) which began the environmental review process for the proposed Mono County Ranch Lease Renewal Project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). LADWP proposed to enter into new, 20-year leases, with 10 current lessees of approximately 28,000 acres of City of Los Angeles-owned lands in Long Valley. Ditch irrigation water would not necessarily be included in any new leases.

In the current controversy concerning water diversions in Long Valley in Mono County, transbasin diversions are ecologically unsustainable, cattle ranching operations are even more damaging, and both are environmental problems that threaten the survival of native fishes and sage grouse.

In the 1990s, I lived and worked in Bishop, California and spent many days doing field work on fisheries in Long Valley for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. This high valley, part of a volcanic caldera, is one of the most beautiful landscapes in the Eastern Sierra, rimmed by the steep wall of Sierra Nevada peaks on one side, and the obsidian-rich Glass Mountains across the valley. The Owens River meanders through it, as well as Hot Creek—world-famous for fly fishing. I enjoyed long hours wading in the clear icy water of Convict and McGee Creeks measuring trout spawning habitat, which gave me an appreciation for the productivity of stream systems that are left undisturbed by human manipulation.

Water diversions can be harmful to streams and fish, and so can domestic livestock. WWP opposes more water diversion into the Los Angeles Aqueduct during this era of climate change impacts, that would decrease water in the Eastern Sierra. Having lived in the Owens Valley for years, I personally understand the dark history of water mining by a distant city bent on growing uncontrollably at the cost of drying out another region. I learned much from the late naturalist Derham Giuliani, who witnessed springs in Owens Valley disappear with the groundwater pumping that supplied LADWP with water to be shipped south.

Yet the current excessive livestock population, and artificial ditch diversion systems that support it, are also a major environmental problem. Anyone who tells you otherwise is fooling themselves. They degrade water quality, sage-grouse populations, fisheries, and natural meadow and riparian communities in the Eastern Sierra. Ranching in Long Valley is an extractive use. Reduction in riparian vegetation and trampling of streambanks and springs by cattle has impacted much of their limited habitat (such as Whitmore Springs and Little Alkali Lake) by increasing sediment pollution in pools and channels, denuding streamside vegetation critical for shade, and converting complex stream habitats into wide, shallow riffles with little fish habitat value.

The water diversions and grazing leases currently controlled by absentee corporate ranches such as the Harris Ranch—the largest beef ranch in California—also cannot be justified. Harris Ranch runs the huge feedlot in the San Joaquin Valley, hundreds of miles distant from Long Valley, that supplies beef to fast-food hamburger chains. Ecologically valuable Eastern Sierra water and meadow forage resources should not be allocated to corporate operations such as these. During an era of extreme droughts and climate change, the Eastern Sierra should not be giving water away for beef production, especially when greenhouse gas emissions—including methane emissions from cattle operations—are radically threatening our future.

The rare Long Valley speckled dace inhabits a restricted spring and brook system at Whitmore Hot Spring in Long Valley. This native fish is one of the most critically imperiled non-listed fishes in California and requires intensive and ongoing management, monitoring and would benefit from additional protections. Livestock grazing is one of those threats.

The Bi-State sage-grouse is already a candidate for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act. It too would greatly benefit from the removal of hungry cattle herds which graze down the grass cover that sage-grouse and their chicks need to hide from predatory ravens.

The Metropolitan Los Angeles area must accept a new era of water conservation and recycling during these times of climate change and increased droughts; southern California urban areas should no longer rely on Eastern Sierra or desert water grabs to supply unsustainable urbanization and development. Lush green lawns simply cost too much water to be sustained. We are in a new era with respect to climate change, and the City of Los Angeles should look to cut back water use within its own coastal basin. At the same time, it is entirely possible that by cutting off irrigation water for livestock and maintaining water in the one irrigation ditch most important for sage-grouse to rear their chicks, the overall result will be improvements in habitat for both sage-grouse and native fishes.

Long Valley has a wealth of biodiversity and recreational value. LADWP must do its part to conserve these declining species, including reducing the impacts of livestock grazing on habitats. Sage-grouse and fish would be better off if both LADWP and the local livestock producers would leave the water in the streams.

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Laura Cunningham is the California Director for Western Watersheds Project, a nonprofit environmental conservation group that works to protect and restore watersheds and wildlife throughout the West.