Owens Lake Water Conservation

For the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) Owens Lake Dust Mitigation Program, NewFields has prepared large-scale water conservation strategies and plans, including developing and pilot testing water conserving dust control measures. Water consumption on Owens Lake is currently in the 68,000 to 95,000 acre-feet/year range. Therefore, strategies for conserving water while implementing dust control measures are of great interest and are critical for the long term sustainability of the Program. Our concepts have the potential to conserve up to 50,000 acre feet per year, over half of current consumption. NewFields continues to support LADWP operational staff in implementing these strategies and related regulatory negotiations:

• Developing and demonstrating new dust control approaches that require little or no water
• Managing site salinity to reclaim suitable areas and convert facilities to drought tolerant vegetative land stabilization, and to concentrate site salts in specific areas and manage their chemistry to form erosion resultant crusts with negligible evaporation
• Developing Water management tools such as water demand prediction and scheduling programs, SCADA system support programs, and automated surface condition monitoring methods

Together, these strategies minimize consumptive water use, lower capital costs, reduce labor intensity, and reliably achieve compliance.