In
July of 1998 Los Angeles and the Air Pollution Control District entered into an historic Memorandum of
Agreement (MOA) to mitigate the dust problem.
The MOA delineated the dust producing areas on the lakebed that
needed to be controlled, specified what measures must be used to control
the dust, and specified a timetable for implementation of the control
measures. The MOA called
for phased implementation to permit the effectiveness of the control
measures to be evaluated and modifications to be made as the control
measures were being installed.
1) completing at least 10 square miles of dust controls by the end of 2001 2) completing an additional 3.5 square miles by 2002 3) completing an additional 3.0 square miles by 2003 if the area has still not met the federal standard 4) complete an additional 2 square miles each year until the APCD determines that the standard has been met. The
MOA was incorporated into a formal air quality control plan by the APCD.
This plan was approved by the United States Environmental
Protection Agency on October 4, 1999. The
MOA specified that the City must choose from amongst 3 control measures
the District has certified as Best Available Control Measures (BACM) for
Owens Lake. The 3 BACM are
shallow flooding, managed vegetation, and gravel.
The MOA permitted the City to implement mitigation of its own
choosing on one very problematical portion of the lakebed if the APCD
verified that the control measure selected by the City was effective. The first phase of dust control implementation will consist of Shallow Flooding. Shallow Flooding involves flooding the area to be controlled until it is either inundated with a few inches of water or the soil becomes thoroughly saturated to the surface with water. This first phase is expected to cost more than $100 million. It has been estimated that the total amount of water that will be required by the dust control measures at full build-out will be approximately 40,000 acre-feet of water per year. |
The
City is committed to: