Owens Lake Dust Mitigation Program, Inyo County, California

NewFields has served the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in multiple functions in the concept development, design, implementation, and operations of approximately 30 square miles of playa stabilization for dust control on the Owens Dry Lakebed. NewFields staff were integral members of the engineering and science team on an extremely aggressive schedule for designing water delivery, irrigation, and subsurface drainage systems for dust control on the Owens Dry Lakebed. Systems included a novel fresh-saline water blending system, more than 50 miles of smaller diameter pipe, and nearly 4 square miles of subsurface drip irrigation. NewFields staff:

• Developed and managed 50 acres of saltgrass seed production farms to provide 29 million plants from local native seed from the lower Owens Valley for planting 2,200 acres of saltgrass;
• Developed plans and implemented applied research to support dust control concept developments and refinements;
• Advised on methods for growing target plants and developing portions of the feasibility study for the project;
• Planned and conducted monitoring of plant health status for irrigation scheduling recommendations on a 2,200-acre managed vegetation dust control measure; monitoring included data collection and data analysis using ArcPad and ArcView GIS software to identify and delineate areas requiring special management.