LETTER: Will Flathead learn same lesson as Owens Valley, California?

Much of the “discussion” surrounding the proposed Montana Artesian Water Company has been characterized by valley residents’ challenges to the proposal’s approval and DNRC’s response that these challenges are without merit and based on ignorance.

One concern is unequivocal, however: no one, not even employees of DNRC, can be certain of the impact of removing millions of gallons of water from our Deep Aquifer.

One only has to look at the history of the Owens Valley in California to learn of the effect of water diversion or robbing. Once described as the “American Switzerland,” this lush 75-mile-long valley, located on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, became a major water source for Los Angeles in 1913 when the Owens River was diverted into the newly constructed L.A. Aqueduct.

By 1926 Owens Lake was dry and the valley was rapidly becoming a desert. But things got worse when, in the 1970s, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power constructed a second aqueduct and began filling it by pumping the valley’s groundwater. Pumping continues to this day and desertification of the Owens Valley worsens: the pumping is at a higher rate than that with which the aquifer recharges. The groundwater source results from mountain snowmelt, much like our own.

Will our water tables drop? Will the pothole ponds and lakes on the eastern side of our valley dry up? Will our agriculture be threatened by desertification of the valley floor? Will our stream and river flows be impacted? No one, not even the employees of DNRC, can give us 100 percent assurance that the same will not happen in the Flathead Valley. History is a marvelous teacher. We need to learn by following its examples!

—Wayne A. Miller, Kalispell