The Owens Valley Committee
Promoting citizen involvement in water and land management

 The Owens Lake

Photo courtesy of Mike Prather

(Ed. note: After massive surface water diversions by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, including the diversion of the Owens River to the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, dropping water levels in the Owens Lake exposed toxic sediments in the lake bed.  The lake became the single largest source of particulate matter air pollution in the United States. On the web, photos of the Owens Lake are on display at David Maisel's Lake Project slide show at Grist Magazine, Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District's Owens Lake Dust Cam site, and the Library of Congress (search for "Owens Lake" to see a 1911 panoramic shot of the lake with water in it). See also: a checklist of the birds of Owens Lake. )

Owens Lake is a Nationally Significant Important Bird Area (IBA) as designated by the National Audubon Society. The lake was so designated due to the thousands of shorebirds that migrate through each fall and spring between the Arctic and Central and South America and also because of the large numbers of snowy plovers that nest there. In addition several thousand snow geese and ducks winter at the lake.

 Owens Lake may appear dry, but it is still alive. A chain of wetlands lines its shores with water from springs and artesian wells.

Historically Owens Lake was one of the most important stopover sites for migrating waterfowl and shorebirds in the western United States. Joseph Grinnell from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in Berkeley when visiting in 1917 reported, “ Great numbers of water birds are in sight along the lake shore--avocets, phalaropes, ducks. Large flocks of shorebirds in flight over the water in the distance, wheeling about show in mass, now silvery now dark, against the gray-blue of the water. There must be literally thousands of birds within sight of this one spot.”

Currently Los Angeles is shallow flooding 10 square miles of the lake’s surface for dust control. This effort holds great promise for the restoration of wildlife habitat that was lost in the past at Owens Lake, but Los Angeles’ purpose is primarily dust control. Perhaps pressure can be brought to bear on Los Angeles to use as much shallow flooding as possible in perpetuity for wildlife habitat. The alternative method of dust control is growing native salt grass that provides far less value for wildlife. Shallow flooding provides both dust control and wildlife habitat restoration.

Look for Eastern Sierra Audubon Society field trips to Owens Lake or contact Mike Prather at 760-876-5807 or at prather@qnet.com

photo courtesy of Mike Prather

Related links:

A checklist of the birds of Owens Lake

International Society for Salt Lake Research (www.isslr.org)

Point Reyes Bird Observatory (www.prbo.org)

Manomet Conservation Center (www.manomet.org)

Eastern Sierra Audubon Society (www.csupomona.edu/~larryblakely/ESAS/)