For the Inyo County/Los Angeles Standing Committee Meeting Independence CA, Friday, February 7, 1:00 PM From Yaney Lee Ann MacIver fourth generation native: pioneer/settler descendant Hello Inyo County and Los Angeles Standing Committee Members. Thank you for taking my written testimony. I was born in Bishop on September 11, 1955 and lived there until I was around five. And my delivering doctor, Dr. Denton is still alive. (How cool is that?) My family left because my father had to take a job outside of the area. And so once a month for every month of my life from when we left Bishop through when I graduated from high school (Victor Valley High School 1973) my family would travel to Bishop to visit my their parents. We continued to be part of the Owens Valley community. And to this day folks think I even graduated from Bishop Union High School, I wish! I did live for a summer in Bishop in 1980 and noticed that I had not been back since Jacks Waffle Shop turned 50 (1996). So last Labor Day Weekend, I managed an impromptu visit. I was sad to see so many places I remembered, shut up and out of business. This is continuing to this day. Many businesses in Bishop and Big Pine are gone, as is the Pines in Independence. The Owens Valley remains my home, and am looking forward to ending that hiatus from Buttermilk, the Sierras, the Whites, the Inyos, Glass Mountain, and the Bristlecones. My goal in life now is to return by at least the Christmas after next. Dears, it is a new century between us, the Owens Valley and Los Angeles. How shall we proceed? Your Mayor, Eric Garcetti is calling on Los Angeles residents to sign a pledges to fix both the LA River and the DWP, he is also asking residents to submit suggestions about what needs to be done in their neighborhoods. I am sure that those of us in the Owens Valley can give him good many suggestions about what needs to be done in our neighborhoods and sign on to both pledges. I have signed both petitions and have offered comments on how the Mayor can assist our communities here in the Owens Valley. I am sure that my friends in living in the Owens Valley have many suggestions as well. And I am looking forward to working with Marcie Edwards, her experience is quite impressive. I am also encouraged to hear that dust mitigation will begin on Owens Lake, this is great news and so very needed. I hope that many local residents will be hired for this project. Some of you may know, my McGee ancestors and their Summers in-laws were responsible for the atrocity and massacre at sacred Owens Lake over a century and a half ago. I dont even know how to discuss this. But the DWP is also disenfranchising and contributing to the massacre as did my ancestors in not recognizing the water and other rights of the tribes. One of the ways to fix the DWP is to have the DWP uphold and implement the Van Norman Enhancement/Mitigation agreements as well as the other 55 mitigation agreements still outstanding with Inyo County. Especially this, the Lone Pine High School Farm project. What is so difficult about a mere 30 acre feet of water? This .008 % of what LA residents (not including commercial) purchased in 2010-11 per the DWPs Websites Facts and Figures page (https://ladwp/ladwp/faces/ladwp/aboutus/a-water/a-w-factandfigures?_adf.ctrl-state=1t88m4iju_4&_afrLoop=62831165023525). As we in the Owens Valley have had to learn how to live within our water means, Im sure we can teach LA residents how to do likewise. This high school plan is a wonderful idea that should have been producing results for the last decade and a half. And as we go into a period of climate change that none of us can predict exactly what will happen, we all very much need to focus on local agriculture. This is one project that should be implemented immediately. We need these youngsters to learn how to produce food for the future. Also I learn from the Sacramento Bee that the DWP owns many buildings in Independence and that they are letting them rot due to alleged budget constraints (sacbee/2014/01/05/6046630/outrage-in-owens-valley.html). I just dont understand how letting our towns disintegrate makes any more water or it cheaper for LADWP ratepayers? Can someone please explain that to me? Also in another round of the ancestors are back. The land that the DWP wants to build the Solar Farm on is land that was my great grandparents MacIver (McIver). My great-grandfather Finley McIver had to sell that land to the DWP (due to the Quakers first sell out to the DWP). And that sale ended their marriage. We, the kids, (my parents and their cousins, etc.) do not know the exact reason but the marriage did not last beyond that sale. There have been articles written that say that if LA put solar on all of its rooftops LA could power half the state of California. So why do this project in the Owens Valley? Treating the Owens Valley correctly is what is needed. No one in any of the Sci-Fi I read gives LA very good press—this is your time to turn that around. LA you can be Heros. Lets talk how. Tavaiju!
Posted on: Fri, 07 Feb 2014 04:32:51 +0000
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