Mono County: What it needs to do to help recover Lahontan Cutthroat Trout

When I read about California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) lawsuits, and when I read poorly-written Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs), it makes me wish I could start a nonprofit environmental consulting firm that could set the example for doing good CEQA practice while keeping costs affordable. It really isn't that hard to follow the law and do good CEQA if you don't have an agenda other than the intent of CEQA, which includes:

• It is necessary to provide a high-quality environment that at all times is healthful and pleasing to the senses and intellect of man.
• Develop and maintain a high-quality environment now and in the future, and take all action necessary to protect, rehabilitate, and enhance the environmental quality of the state.
• Ensure that the long-term protection of the environment, consistent with the provision of a decent home and suitable living environment for every Californian, shall be the guiding criterion in public decisions.

Those are only three of the fourteen statements of legislative intent, but you get the idea. How is this not the best law ever? When you read an EIR and watch how agencies behave, you wonder if any of them or their EIR-writing consultants have ever read these guiding principles of California's best and most important law.

One such frustrating EIR is the EIR for the Mono County General Plan Update. Now, most of this EIR is quite good. It actually impresses me as one of the better-written EIRs I've ever read. The biological resources section is a joy to read. But where it falls apart is the Cumulative Effects section.

And that is where most EIRs fail. In California, we generally don't do a good job of analyzing cumulative effects, so this EIR isn't out of the ordinary in this regard. But two wrongs don't make a right--we can and must do better. But more about that in part 2 about where Marin County fails, gets sued, and fails again.

In an EIR chock full of significant individual impacts due to policies that would encourage a build-out population of 48,702--this is a massive increase in population of a remote, rural county full of hazards and sensitive resources--the Mono County General Plan Update Draft EIR takes 4 pages of the 6-page cumulative effects section to discuss the "Water Transfer Program," a federal program to acquire water rights to protect and restore Walker Lake, Nevada and its decimated native fisheries.

Walker Lake, NV in the foreground, and its Mono County, CA headwaters
in the background, Fall 2007.

People and agencies often forget about cooperative solutions as they protect their turf, or myopically focus on one part of a problem. But ignoring the rest of the watershed has never worked. We are all on the same team and need to work together to help each other out. Even if it were somehow justifiable in some pathological screwed-up world to disregard your neighbors, Californians do travel to Nevada, and migratory wildlife travels back and forth, so we need to mitigate our impacts there.

Bridgeport Valley and Reservoir, Fall 2007.

But the Mono County EIR only worries about cumulative impacts of the Water Transfer Program in Mono County. It is almost comical that it totally ignores impacts of not doing the program on Walker Lake and the lower Walker River, when the impacts of water management in the watershed are clearly more severe there.

Bridgeport and Antelope Valleys account for about 19% of the consumptive water use in the watershed, and just 23% of consumptive use (in addition to long-term average inflows) is needed to stabilize Walker Lake at its 1994 salinity. Here is the ironic, absurd, and comical part of Mono County's EIR. The following, as written, are meant to apply only to the Mono County portion of the watershed (despite the effects being far greater at Walker Lake):

• "lower surface water levels … to a point that would adversely impact fishery values, including the cutthroat trout and other native fish populations."
• "Lower surface water levels may adversely impact tourism and recreational values in some reservations and downstream areas."
• "change of habitat type from meadows to drier sagebrush vegetation. This transition may impact aesthetic and scenic values in the Walker River watershed."
• "loss of meadow habitat may impact scenic values … thereby impacting tourism."
• "plant species designated as rare or threatened may be … subject to impacts associated with reduced water availability."
• Wetland delineations are required to assess potential impacts on wetland habitat.
• ability to meet future water demands for domestic consumption, fire suppression, conservation and other planned uses.

Anyone that knows the issues knows that these statements apply far more urgently to Walker Lake, Nevada than Mono County, California. Sure, transferring water rights from the upper watershed to Walker Lake has potential impacts on these resources in the upper watershed, but far greater impacts are happening at Walker Lake. Anyone familiar with the issues has got to wonder how Mono County could write this with a straight face to apply to the upper watershed and totally ignore the impacts on Walker Lake of not doing programs like these. The concept that cumulative impacts are watershed-wide, and doing nothing is having extreme and significant impacts on Walker Lake and the lower Walker River, is not found in this EIR.

Watersheds are well-suited for cumulative impacts analyses because like Las Vegas, anything that happens in the watershed, stays in the watershed. The impacts show up in rivers, deltas, estuaries, terminal lakes, groundwater, and anything dependent on those. Just because there is a state line or a property line doesn't mean that you magically can ignore watershed impacts on the other side of that line.

Walker Lake, Nevada is a Great Basin terminal lake (no outlet) that has dropped over 160 vertical feet in the last 150 years with a 7x increase in salinity due to excessive agricultural irrigation diversions upstream. Except in the wettest years, the Walker River no longer flows to the lake. The native Lahontan Cutthroat Trout is extirpated in the lake due to the huge increase in salinity, and the Loon population has dramatically declined. The native Tui Chub is probably only holding on due to the long lifespan of the individuals in the population. Photo of Walker Lake and wetlands (and former shorelines in lower right corner) as of Fall 2007. Support the Walker Lake Working Group.

This is the first part of a two-part series on cumulative impacts in Mono and Marin Counties. Read part 2 on Marin County.