SierraDescents.com - Climb Up and Ski Down » Nature http://www.sierradescents.com Climb Up and Ski Down Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:10:45 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Images from Japan http://www.sierradescents.com/nature/2011/03/13/images-from-japan.html http://www.sierradescents.com/nature/2011/03/13/images-from-japan.html#comments Mon, 14 Mar 2011 02:57:27 +0000 Andy http://www.sierradescents.com/?p=2722 “In this vast and uncaring darkness, I am but a tiny, fragile spark of life, clinging to an illusion of safety that never was and never will be real…”

(Earthquake aftermath images at the Atlantic)

]]> http://www.sierradescents.com/nature/2011/03/13/images-from-japan.html/feed 0 NYT: Owens River Returns http://www.sierradescents.com/nature/2008/01/15/owens-river-returns.html http://www.sierradescents.com/nature/2008/01/15/owens-river-returns.html#comments Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:43:45 +0000 Andy http://www.sierradescents.com/blog/nature-90/owens-river-returns.html ‘What Los Angeles took a century ago — a 62-mile stretch of river here in the parched Owens Valley — it is now giving back.’

]]> http://www.sierradescents.com/nature/2008/01/15/owens-river-returns.html/feed 0 An Owens River Resurection? http://www.sierradescents.com/nature/2007/07/09/an-owens-river-resurection.html http://www.sierradescents.com/nature/2007/07/09/an-owens-river-resurection.html#comments Mon, 09 Jul 2007 19:12:24 +0000 Andy http://www.sierradescents.com/blog/?p=18 The Los Angeles Times ran a story on the restoration of the Owens River this past weekend. Via the Department of Water of Power (DWP), Los Angeles began buying much of the farmland in Owens Valley in the early Twentieth Century. Then, in 1913, the DWP abruptly diverted the Lower Owens River into the Los Angeles Aqueduct, turning the fertile Owens Valley farmland into the dust bowl-desert it is today—and utterly destroying Owens Lake.

Owens Valley residents and DWP have been in a long, contentious fight ever since.

As part of a legal settlement, DWP began pumping water back into the lower Owens River in December—the largest river restoration project ever attempted in the West. DWP pumps the water back into the Aqueduct before it gets to Owens Lake (another story entirely), but the river is showing signs of coming back to life.

It’s hard to imagine what might have been had Owens Valley’s water stayed put. A green paradise on the flanks of the Eastern Sierra? Or (as Galen Rowell is said to have speculated) another Bakersfield? In any case, it’s nice to see at least a little progress made in reversing the incredible ecological damage done to Owens Valley by the DWP’s infamous turn-of-the-century water-grab.

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