Saving the Eastern Sierra: Recreation or Generation?

BISHOP — East of the Sierra Nevada crest, extending into the Great Basin deserts, lies a land known to millions of Southern Californians as “Inyo-Mono,” nearly 10 million acres harboring hundreds of mountain lakes, miles from the summit of Mt. Whitney to the floor of Death Valley, and ski slopes ranking among the most heavily used in the world.

So popular is the eastern Sierra that visitor use in the Inyo National Forest alone (only 20% of Inyo-Mono’s total area) currently exceeds combined annual visitation at Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and Glacier national parks, more than 7 million visitor days. Add to this the Toiyabe National Forest’s Walker River drainage to the north, large areas administered by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in Owens Valley (such as Crowley Lake) and desert lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service lying to the east, we have within Inyo and Mono counties the most valuable recreational resource in the world.

As California expands into the next century, with major growth occurring in Southern California within an easy five-hour drive to Inyo-Mono, it is reasonable to expect that recreational pressure will expand accordingly. As it does, the inexorable economic law of supply and demand will make these resources increasingly valuable. One would naturally think, then, that government agencies entrusted with stewardship of such resources would be exerting every effort to preserve them. In reality, the agencies are no better stewards than their policies, mixed with the application of law--both strongly influenced by politics--allow them to be.

The father of the American conservation movement, Aldo Leopold, observed that persons with an ecological education live alone in a world of wounds. As a biologist with the Department of Fish and Game, it has been my lot to fall into this category of the ecologically aware. Much of my effort during the past decade has necessarily been directed toward protecting valuable fish and wildlife habitats from the unfeeling hand of developmental interests, often strongly supported by agencies of government.

At the end of World War II, California’s population was heading toward 7 million. Since that time, in the relatively short period of 43 years, it has exploded to nearly 30 million, by far the most populous state in the nation, with no sign of stopping or even slowing significantly. The impact on local recreational resources has likewise exploded.

But the important point is that during these same 43 years, the area’s aquatic resources--the basis of the recreation industry--have continued to dwindle. More than 85% of the eastern Sierra’s stream mileage downstream from Forest Service wilderness boundaries has been impacted by water diversion, and more than 25% of the historical stream resource no longer exists in this area, which somehow still survives as one of the world’s most spectacular scenic resources.

How did these losses occur? Because naive but well-meaning officials through the years were “flexible and compromising,” putting short-term political and administrative expedience above long-term public interest. They compromised away major portions of a recreational resource that increases daily in value to the people of this state and nation.

I remember the frustration and helplessness I felt in 1953, when I was assigned to rescue trout from the Owens River Gorge as the entire Owens was diverted into gorge hydroelectric penstocks and the river gradually dried up; it remains dry today, 35 years later. The Owens Gorge was dried up to supply hydroelectric power to burgeoning populations in Southern California. Ironically, these same people now flock to the Inyo-Mono area only to find ever-fewer recreational opportunities. Many ask, as they stop by our office: “What happened to the gorge?”

Unfortunately, fewer and fewer individuals have this historical perspective, and newcomers arrive with the naive and erroneous impression that our resources remain at the 100% level and can continue to be exploited without long-term damage to the recreational economy.

During the 1970s Congress passed two energy bills in an effort to provide for the nation’s energy needs and decrease our dependence upon foreign oil--both admirable goals. These bills were the Geothermal Steam Act and the Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act; both provided strong financial incentives for entrepreneurial development of energy resources. Environmental protection clauses, however, did not fare so well and were essentially left to the National Environmental Policy Act, which is no better or more effective than the way it is administered. In some cases it is almost overlooked, along with the public interest, as evidenced by the way in which the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has ignored strongly expressed concerns of thousands of Bishop area residents and moved ahead toward the licensing of the proposed Rancho Riata project on lower Bishop Creek, which would take water from historic stream channels and divert it into penstocks to generate hydroelectric power. Although financially rewarding to the developer, the project would provide only minuscule amounts of electrical energy. Such an action, although legal, surely seems immoral.

At one time, in the early 1980s, our local Fish and Game office faced more than 90 applications for hydroelectric projects on 45 streams that provide the heart of our recreational resource from the West Walker River to south of Lone Pine, a distance of more than 200 miles. The engineering principles of all such projects are the same: to divert water from lower sections of the stream, usually in prime recreational reaches, and put it into a pipe for hydrogeneration purposes. Although many projects have failed to materialize, several are still in the administrative process and we are making every effort to assure that if they are ever built, they cause absolutely no damage to our streams. This is a very difficult task at best in the arid rain-shadow areas of the eastern Sierra.

Hot Creek Hatchery, located in the Mammoth Lakes area, is Inyo-Mono’s key trout-rearing installation and produces trout for the entire area and quality eggs for other hatcheries throughout the West. Crowley Lake is almost completely dependent upon Hot Creek Hatchery, whose economic contribution exceeds $20 million annually. Yet the same geothermal resource that provides the key to successful hatchery operation, and the blue-ribbon trout stream below, also attracts energy developers who would drill steam wells and use this heat source to spin turbines. Conservationists are fearful that such development will irreversibly damage the thermal structure basic to successful operation of the hatchery. It is ironic that the Department of Fish and Game has utilized this geothermal resource, as supplied by nature, for more than a half century, with great benefit to the public.

Although the administering federal agencies are confident that no damage will occur, the Department of Fish and Game is supported by competent geologists in its belief that such development is very risky and is likely to cause irreversible damage to hatchery water sources.

California has no current energy shortage. However, if developers can put their projects “on line” within the next year or so, they will receive greatly inflated prices for energy they produce--prices that are passed on to the consumer. The energy laws passed in the 1970s require utility companies such as Southern California Edison to purchase this power at inflated prices whether there is a need for it or not; this is the primary reason developers are pushing their projects so hard.

I began my association with the eastern Sierra more than 40 years ago, shortly after World War II, and have spent all but two years of my 38-year career in Bishop as a steward of the area’s diverse aquatic ecosystems and their associated life forms, while providing an acceptable angling experience--both of which depend upon the integrity of aquatic habitats.

I cite this history to explain why I feel it is terribly wrong to jeopardize something as valuable and irreplaceable as Inyo-Mono’s prime recreational resources without a strongly demonstrated need to do so. The only sure winners in such development are stockholders in energy companies and, in the short term, bureaucracies that administer the programs. Somewhere way down the list is the public interest.