As the crow flies, Owens Lake is 170 miles north of the city of Los Angeles, California.
Once estimated to be a 108 square mile lake in Owens Valley, the Owens River, the lake’s singular source was cut off in 1913 and diverted to the Los Angeles Aqueduct. By the year 1926 the lake had completely dried up, leaving a salt flat in place of the lake.
For decades, wind storms could stir up as much as four million tons of dust from the lakebed, causing respiratory problems in surrounding communities. Starting in 1997, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was legally coerced into mitigating the dust storms arising from the dry, salty lakebed. Every year, the LADWP sprays billions of gallons of water over a portion of the lakebed to dampen the dust. What is left feels like an otherworldly place. A dry lakebed dominates the bowl between the White Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. Saltgrass, brown sand and stark white salt stretch out to the foothills. In the center of the lake bed, there is a small shimmering blue pond that makes it easy to imagine what a tremendously beautiful lake was once here.
Near the water’s edge, there is a grid of sprinklers. Every ten yards or so, three feet of silver pipe protrude from the lake’s bed and spray the salt down, so that the wind might not so easily transport it from its current location into the lungs of those just on the historic shoreline town of Keeler.
Photos//Ryan Strother
Ryan Strother 