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Water Rec ENVIRONMENT For nearly 50 years, the city of Los Angeles diverted up to 85,000 acre-feet a year from Mono Lake's tributary creeks via the Los Angeles Aqueduct; 20 percent of the city's fatal water supply. After environmental studies were conducted on the eastern Sierra lake, it was determined that the water exports had caused lake levels to drop 40 feet, seriously degrading the ecosystem. In 1994, the courts (from a 1983 decision for the National Audubon Society) and the State Board re- stricted Los Angeles' exports of fresh water from Mono Lake feeder creeks until the iake level rises to a certain level. To help replace Los Angeles' reduced suppiy from Mono Lake, state legislation was passed allocating $36 million to secure other water sources for Los Angeles. Approximately $20 million was allocated for the construc- tion of the East Valley Water Reclamation Project, which is expected to produce up to 35,000 acre-feet a year of disinfected tertiary water, primarily for recharging groundwater basins in Eastern San Fernando Valley. In the city of San Jose, it was not the export of fresh water harming the environ- ment but the low-salt content of the fresh water effluent being discharged into the San Francisco Bay ecosystem. The city was dumping up to 135 mgd of tertiary-treated eltluent into the south Bay and as a result, the discharges were turning the Bay's salt water marshes into fresh water habitat, threatening two endangered species: the salt water harvest mouse and California clapper rail. To resolve the problem, the city of San Jose designed and built a $236 million dual piping system to reuse its treated wastewater and reduce discharges to the south San Francisco Bay in the summer. The South Bay Recycling Project, a network of 60 miles of underground pipelines and pumping plants, is designed to deliver up to 20 mgd of recycled water to large water users, including the city's municipal golf course. In two projects, recycled water is used to enhance waterfowi habitats. Secondary treated effluent has clin in Action been used to help restore 172 acres of marsh on the Hayward shoreline along the San Francisco Bay since 1988. Under Ihis Marsh Enhancement Project run by the Union Sanitary District, 3 mgd of recycled water is sent to the Hayward wetlands to support dozens of bird species. In a comparable project, the Padre Dam Municipal Water District developed a Wood Duck Program at the Santee Lakes Regional Park and Campground. The program began after a pair of wood ducks, rare to southern California, were noticed at the lakes. Over 700 acre-feet of recycled water is delivered through 25 miles of pipeline to form the lakes - and surrounding habitat - annually. Eventually, the project hopes to increase its reclaimed water deliveries to 1,000 acre-feet annually. If numbers are an indication of success, over 250 ducklings were hatched at the park in 1998. Rare wood ducks were recently discm'ered atlhe Padre Dam Municipal Water District's Salllee Lakes, a recreation area that lIses recycled water to create wildlife a/ld fish habitars - --...~ -~ .~- - - ---.-. -.". - '...