Salton Sea - A Lost Resort Legacy of a lost lake The Press Enterprise - 7/20/03 OWENS LAKE: The dry bed and depressed area left after LA took water could foretell Salton Sea's future By GEORGE WATSON It takes an independent sort to live in one of the long-stunted communities sprinkled around the waterless bed of sand and salt that is still known as Owens Lake. Some fill their days manning a hotel front desk and their evenings serving meals to travelers arriving to hike Mount Whitney. Others are retired or receive disability checks, providing ample time and funds to fiddle with old cars that end up unfinished in barren front yards of grit and junk.
	Even though wind storms with some of the most insidious dust found in the nation strike a few dozen times a year, people here like living far from modern civilization, where few outsiders venture because of the inconvenience. Unless, of course, vacationers are passing through this region, long known as the Great Basin. Tourists, such as those from the Inland area who make the three-hour drive north along Highway 395 to hike, fish or ski, remain vital to the economy. "People out here live here for a reason," said Mike Prather, a retired teacher and 23-year resident of Lone Pine, which is a few miles north of the lake. "They live out here to get away from things that bother them: bosses, spouses, the government." For years, similar scenes have played out at the Salton Sea. People there also choose to live on the edge of obscurity in dying towns that surround the 360-square-mile salty lake. Some wonder if the sea will share the fate that beset Owens Lake, which went dry more than 80 years ago when Los Angeles commandeered the water.
The Salton Sea is fighting for survival in the Coachella Valley because the farm runoff that fills it will likely be cut as the government reduces water to the area's farmers. In response, the sea's supporters have turned an eye northward in hopes of learning what might happen if the sea starts drying. Air quality officials working in Owens Valley are issuing warnings to the Salton Sea Authority, the agency responsible for oversight of the lake southeast of Palm Springs. "Owens Lake is gone, so it's easy to measure the air pollution," said Ted Schade of the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District. "You can't do that with the Salton Sea, so no one knows what will happen there. But my message to the people at the Salton Sea is: Don't let it happen." Terrible air In recent years, attention to Owens Lake has grown because of its poor air quality -- the largest single source of air pollution in the United States, Schade said. Salton Sea officials are focused on Owens Lake topsoil, a crusty souffle that leads to the ferocious dust torrents filled with particle pollution as much as 50 times greater than federal standards. The particles, called PM-10, are so small they lodge deep in a person's lungs. Some contain arsenic. Studies show spending a lifetime in the area causes a greater cancer risk than living next to a California oil refinery. But Schade says a comprehensive health exam related to the dust has never been made because of the area's limited population. Altogether, about 18,000 people live in all of Inyo County, which is the size of Connecticut. For years, the Great Basin district has worked to get the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to alleviate the dust problem. The department, which continues to take water from Owens Lake, has spent millions of dollars to lessen the dust. The department's work became necessary at the turn of the century when it intercepted water that filled the 110-square-mile lake. Workers built a 223-mile aqueduct from the Owens River, pouring life into the young and thirsty City of Angels and essentially killing the prosperous farming community on the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada. Owens Lake evaporated, leaving behind salt that blended with the fine sediments and clay. The lakebed varies from moonlike crusts to moist mud that in some spots is several feet deep. A handful of vehicles once used to work on the lake have been swallowed in the waterless grave. The department is in the midst of a $415 million project to grow salt grass and add scattered pools of water to control the dust. From above a cliff on the Sierra Nevada, the discolored lakebed looks like a giant bruise that has finally begun to heal. Beyond the potentially dangerous dusts, Owens Lake and the Salton Sea share a number of other similarities. The water in both has high salinity levels. The plentiful bird population that uses the Salton Sea once did the same for centuries at Owens Lake. There is also a stark difference. Man made the Salton Sea, and man killed Owens Lake. The Salton Sea was born in 1905 when a dike broke, allowing Colorado River water to flow into the new seabed. It took a year before it was repaired. Hidden Agenda A hundred years ago, William Mulholland, the renowned superintendent of Los Angeles' water department, realized that the elevation of Owens Valley provided a perfect opportunity for an aqueduct because it could flow downhill. Representatives for the city purchased land north of the lake after convincing ranchers they were buying the land for the U.S. Reclamation Service for a local irrigation project. Construction of an aqueduct to divert the water began soon after. Dust storms have plagued the region since the aqueduct began carrying water away. The swirling dust races through Keeler, an old mining depot along the eastern shore of Owens Lake, or Olancha, an aging town to the south, and then onto Ridgecrest, or up north to Lone Pine and sometimes to Bishop, 60 miles to the north. In 1984, winds whisked topsoil off the lakebed at the rate of 7 tons per second, traveled south and rained mud in Riverside and San Bernardino, air quality officials say. The dust is white as talcum powder but so fine it sneaks into everything, even refrigerators, residents say. Storms can whip up in less than an hour and make driving impossible. The dust smells like battery acid and leaves a salty, soda-like taste that stays for hours, and the storms can burn skin when the wind roars. Locals say when they wash their home's roofs with hoses, the runoff looks like milk. When a big storm hits, warnings are issued on radio stations and schools receive an alert by telephone. Still, hospitals have come to expect an influx of patients with bloody noses or asthma-like problems, residents say. "I don't like 'em," said Grace Moore, 101, who spent the first half of her life in Indiana and the rest in Keeler. "They are very destructive because the dust settles in your curtains, the flooring, everything, and the salt works gradually. It wears things down." Dust is everywhere Moore lives alone, having watched the population of Keeler steadily slip to about 50 people. In the early 1900s, 2,000 people lived along the eastern shore, working in silver mines and sending out their discoveries in steam ships across the then-30-foot-deep lake. These days, Moore sews lap blankets for the handicapped from her wooden rocking chair, swaying away the years that don't wear on her like they do most folks. She relies on neighbors to buy her groceries and waits for visitors to come and hear her spin another tale about how life used to be in Keeler. When the dust whips up, she locks her doors and windows, waits it out, and then wipes away the opaque film that covers everything. Moore is like a lot of people living in the valley. The dust has ingrained itself in their lives. "You can't just up and move because of some dust," said Leanna Smith, an 18-year resident of Olancha who waits on tables at a cowboy-themed restaurant along the highway. "You have homes and property. You can't walk away from all of that."Many wouldn't leave even if given the chance. They enjoy the blue skies, saying people in Southern California will likely die before them from stress or smog. For two years, a retired couple and their adult son have been living part-time in the office of the Pittsburgh Plate Co., which years ago mined glass-making compounds from the lake. Gene and Katy Reid, and their son, R.J., adore the peace they find on the northwest shoreline. Dealing with the dust is just part of life, and a far better option than the growing crime and population in their Santa Maria home. A generator hums 24 hours a day because the power company cut off electricity to the glass-making facility years ago. A swamp cooler sitting in the main room fights the heat, but they also climb the factory's three 80-foot silos and catch a breeze. "It's just so beautiful," said Gene Reid, a wiry, affable sort with an ever-present cigarette dangling from his hand like a sixth finger. Project called futile Craig Marshall thinks the dust-control project is worthless. Marshall is 49 with a bushy head and face, and an ailing back that he says makes a job impossible. He gets by on disability checks, filling time repairing cars, making sculptures and working on his home at "Keeler Beach," the name given by those who live close to the old shore. While doing some home repairs, Marshall found dust piled a few feet high in the cavity between the exterior and interior walls of his 109-year-old house. "It's way bigger than us," said Marshall while he tinkered with his glossy red motorcycle under the shade of a tamarisk tree. "I realize we could do a lot of sniveling. It's not going to get better. I hate to see money wasted and I hate to see exercises in futility on such a large scale." Some people see greater problems facing the area while others believe the project is making the dust problem worse. The project has divided the area's residents, pitting the mostly Republican population against environmentalists and parents who fear for their children's health. "I'm a lot more scared about Yucca Mountain," said Robin Weatherly of the proposed burial site for nuclear waste about 100 miles east in southern Nevada. Still, Weatherly understands the dust is an issue on many people's minds. A pair of longtime friends recently stopped in at her Lone Pine coffee shop. Both women carried petitions they wanted to post, one supporting the dust project and the other opposing it. The two nearly came to blows, Weatherly said, and she had to tear up the petitions and remind them of their friendship. Those who support the project are like Andy Morris, who moved to Keeler 22 years ago to retire. He bought a home that once was the town's gas station. Two pumps remain in his front yard, and Hollywood producers use them in films and commercials, he says. "Water and power caused it, let 'em pay for it," said Morris, 70, of the dust problem. Prather, the retired teacher, is thankful for the project. Birds are returning to the lake, feeding and frolicking in some of the small pools filled with water from the aqueduct. Ironically, salt has to be added to the fresh river water to support the attempt to grow the salt grass. He hopes the Department of Water and Power will keep the birds' swimming areas, even if it's not required. Prather finds it peculiar that one habitat may be returning as another faces possible extinction. "This one has a chance of resurrecting itself to some degree and the Salton Sea is in danger of biological collapse," Prather said. "Who would have thought that would happen?" Reach George Watson at (909) 368-9457 or gwatson@pe.com