User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox

(PD) Photo: U.S. EPA, Region 9
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LADWP (still the owner of most of the valley's water rights) to hammer out a plan to curtail the dust storms by re-flooding and planting salt-tolerant grasses on 29.8 square miles of the dry lake bed.

• http://www.epa.gov/region9/air/owens/

Beginning in the 2000, Los Angeles has shallow flooded or ponded 25 square miles of the lake bed in order to control massive dust pollution (Clean Air Act requirement). This has led to a substantial increase in the acreage of wetland habitat on Owens Lake. By 2010, Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power will add 9 square miles more of flooding and ponding. Owens Lake appears to be a major stop-over site for shorebirds and waterfowl in the southern California interior. Each spring and fall, brine flies on the lake support thousands of shorebirds, mainly Western and Least sandpipers, and thousands of ducks utilize the wetlands (especially the impoundments along the edges). An estimated 63,000 American Avocets stop at the lake during fall (Page and Ruhlen 2002). A wintering group of 300-400 Snow Geese winters here.

• http://iba.audubon.org/iba/viewSiteProfile.do?siteId=213&navSite=state

nseverance@audubon.org mprather@lonepinetv.com