They are remnants of another time. A time when the Southwest’s climate was much cooler and probably wetter, and large lakes covered vast tracts of land in Nevada, Utah, southeastern Oregon and California’s Eastern Sierra. Beginning some 14,000 years ago, the region’s climate grew warmer and drier, shrinking these lakes’ shorelines and leaving behind an arid landscape dotted with isolated bodies of water including Pyramid Lake, Mono Lake and the Great Salt Lake.

Introduction

They are remnants of another time. A time when the Southwest’s climate was much cooler and probably wetter, and large lakes covered vast tracts of land in Nevada, Utah, southeastern Oregon and California’s Eastern Sierra. Beginning some 14,000 years ago, the region’s climate grew warmer and drier, shrinking these lakes’ shorelines and leaving behind an arid landscape dotted with isolated bodies of water including Pyramid Lake, Mono Lake and the Great Salt Lake.

Known as terminal water bodies or closed basins, these lakes present unique water management challenges. Unlike other lakes, evaporation is the only natural outlet. Yet as the water disappears into the atmosphere, the salts remain behind. How to control that salinity is just one question facing those who are working to preserve or restore the region’s terminal lakes.

“The saline lakes – the terminal lakes of the West – are extremely important in this region. These are oases for birds in this arid climate,” said Don Paul, coordinator of the Great Basin Bird Conservation Region of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative.

Dry lakebeds/salt flats throughout the region, often adjacent to one of the remaining terminal lakes, tell the story of the prehistoric change in climate and, in some cases, the history of water development in the West – in which streams feeding these lakes were diverted for other uses. These dry lakes include Owens Lake in California, Sevier Lake in Utah and Lake Winnemucca in Nevada.

“Winnemucca Lake is an example of what can go wrong if a terminal lake is not protected,” said Paul Taggart, former deputy attorney general for the state of Nevada. “The construction of Derby Dam on the Truckee River diverted much of the river to the Carson River as part of the Truckee- Carson Irrigation District, so for years no water flowed past Pyramid Lake, drying up Winnemucca Lake.”

In contrast, Taggart said, “Anybody trying to protect a terminal lake should look at the Pyramid Lake Paiute Indian Tribe because they have been very successful.”

Lessons learned in managing terminal lakes were discussed at a September 2004 State Management Issues at Terminal Water Bodies/Closed Basins conference. Held in Salt Lake City, site of the largest remaining terminal lake, the conference was sponsored by the Western States Water Council and co-sponsored by the Water Education Foundation.

“Terminal lakes face many challenges, particularly in the current water conflicts and pollution created by urbanization,” said Erik Ringelberg, executive director of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe’s fisheries program.

“Single management lakes, such as Pyramid Lake, have advantages, but still require constant vigilance of upstream conditions,” he continued. “But terminal lakes can be recovered and protected from impacts through diligence and partnerships.”

Often overlooked or ignored in a region focused on management of traditional water supply projects, there is growing interest among stakeholders and state, federal and tribal officials to restore terminal lakes. Securing an adequate source of inflow, reducing or controlling a lake’s salinity level, protecting endangered species – these are all challenges federal, state and tribal leaders must confront as they work to restore the Southwest’s terminal lakes.

But even the definition of restoration can be a challenge. Consider California’s Salton Sea, the saline lake in the Imperial and Coachella valleys created by the forces of man and nature 100 years ago. Efforts to save the sea are the focus of the local Salton Sea Authority and, following the passage of related Colorado River legislation in 2003, of California water resource officials.

“The authorizing legislation established an advisory committee to help us work through this process,” said Jeanine Jones, chief of the California Department of Water Resources’ Colorado River and Salton Sea office. “And we have had discussions with the committee on several occasions: ‘What does restoration mean in a system where the baseline has been constantly changing?’”

As with the Salton Sea, legislative actions and water rights decisions often set the course for the future of individual terminal lakes. As such, according to Betsy Rieke, area manager of the Lahontan Basin Area Office of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Mid-Pacific Region, the issue of preserving a terminal lake comes down to the concept of “hydropower:” “the hydrological resources” of a particular basin and the “political power of the interest groups” within that basin.

“It’s important that you have an ability to deal, the capability of innovation and the ability to form alliances because if you don’t have those key indicia of political power and the ability to acquire political power, we aren’t going to restore the desert terminal lakes,” said Rieke, whose Lahontan area includes three terminal lakes.

This issue of Western Water examines the challenges facing state, federal and tribal officials and other stakeholders as they work to manage terminal lakes. It includes background information on the formation of these lakes, and overviews of the water quality, habitat and political issues surrounding these distinctive bodies of water. Much of the information in this article originated at the September 2004 State Management Issues at Terminal Water Bodies/Closed Basins conference.

NOTE: A complete copy of this 16-page magazine is available from the Foundation for $3. Visit our Products Page and add the January/February 2005 issue of Western Water to your shopping cart.

Editor’s Desk

Jean Auer, a woman of great spirit who made large contributions to improve the waters of California, died unexpectedly in January. Jean was part of the history of California water during the last three decades, and was a long-time Board Member of the Water Education Foundation.

When she was appointed by then- Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1972, she became the first female member of the State Water Resources Control Board. At that time the building of the great California water projects was reaching its height and water quality was not a big issue. Jean joined the growing movement for regulation of pollution and relied on the new federal Clean Water Act and new state laws to regulate this problem.

She came to the water world from a background as a member of the League of Women Voters. It’s easy to forget the debt we owe the women of her generation who, while raising their families, educated themselves – and Californians – on state and local issues. She did not serve on the State Water Board for any political reason but simply to be a good citizen.

Jean always said that raising three sons who were close in age prepared her to broker California’s water wars. She used her skills as a former teacher when she agreed to take on the idea of creating the Foundation’s mentoring class for young water leaders. For eight years Jean coordinated the one-year program for people at the beginning of their careers. She insisted that the class comprise people from diverse backgrounds, including members of minority and ethnic communities.

Jean asked leading stakeholders and top policy-makers to serve as mentors to class members. No one, busy and important as they may have been, ever refused her request to be a mentor. When she assigned mentors to class members, she often matched individuals who had different views and little in common. For example, a class member with a farm background was placed with an urban or environmental mentor and vice versa. Sometimes the water leaders questioned that approach, but in the end, they always agreed they learned so much more with the approach of “walking in another person’s shoes.”

I learned so much from Jean’s leadership of this program, but also I learned from her as she lived her life. She lost her husband last year and, and while she lost a lot of her strength, she still carried on and was looking forward to leading this ninth class.

Her legacy will be the approximately 150 former water leaders who are now developing in their fields as community leaders, attorneys, engineers, planners, environmentalists, scientists, legislative members and aides and tribal leaders.

In her honor we are establishing the Jean Auer Scholarship program within the William R. Gianelli Water Leaders Class. If you know of young people beginning their careers who are interested in water issues, urge them to apply for this annual class; applications are accepted each fall. The graduates of these classes will devise the solutions of the future based on what they learn today.

– Rita Schmidt Sudman

In the News

Report Calls for Changes in Central Valley Flood System

Warning that the flood control system that protects millions of Central Valley residents is at risk of failure following years of deteriorating conditions and reduced budget allocations, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) in January released a sweeping set of recommended policy changes, program reforms and funding proposals to improve the system.

The report, “Flood Warnings: Responding to California’s Flood Crisis,” recommends that landowners in the Central Valley floodplains be assessed to generate the necessary funds to improve the system that protects the valley. It also recommends that all homes and businesses in flood-prone regions be required to buy flood insurance.

“Unless California implements a strategic plan, the next major flood could easily overwhelm the state’s deteriorating flood protection system and have catastrophic consequences for our people, property and environment,” DWR said in the report. “The state will continue to pay out millions, and potentially billions, of dollars every time a levee break occurs in the flood control system. An aggressive investment in the flood management system and a new flood management philosophy is vitally important to public safety and our economic wellbeing.”

With many of the system’s levees a century old, DWR said a combination of recent factors has increased the risks to public safety and state liability, including the so-called Paterno decision in which the state was found liable for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from a 1986 Yuba County levee collapse. Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal includes nearly $500 million to help pay for the judgment.

Compounding the liability issue is the Central Valley’s continuing development, with new subdivisions and businesses being built behind the very levees that experts say have not received enough maintenance in an era of reduced budgets. The new flood management report was issued some six months after a Delta levee failure caused extensive flooding on Jones Tract, which DWR said will cost the state nearly $100 million for emergency response, damage to private property, lost crops, levee repair and pumping water from the island.

To implement its recommended strategies, DWR suggested that several legislative and constitutional actions be taken:

• Examine existing flood insurance requirements and consider the creation of a “California Flood Insurance Fund,” a sustainable state insurance fund to compensate property owners for flood damage.
• Create a Central Valley Flood Control Assessment District with the authority to assess fees that would provide adequate flood control protection for regional participants.
• Enact legislative and constitutional changes that would reduce taxpayer exposure for funding flood disaster claims. Revisions would include constitutional amendments to exempt flood control projects from inverse condemnation liability and exempt local flood control districts from the Proposition 218 two-thirds voting requirement.

DWR developed the report at the Legislature’s request and it was released after review by the governor’s office. Assemblymember Lois Wolk, D-Davis, chair of the Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, said she is willing to carry reform bills. “We’re in a crisis,” she told the Sacramento Bee. “I applaud the administration for taking it on.”

Sue McClurg