the LAtimes revisits the Lower Owens River Restoration Project:
Mark Hill, the lead scientist in the Lower Owens River Project, pointed out that “if you’re a fish or a duck, the project has been a boffo box office success. We’ve created 3,000 acres of water and wetlands. There are 4,000 largemouth bass and 2,000 bluegill per mile, and 108 species of birds, 41 of them new to the area.
“The only issue plaguing us right now is too many tules and, as a result, there are huge access problems when it comes to angling and boating,” Hill said. “But we have a plan to deal with them.”
I take major issue with the LATimes characterization of the restoration project as a failure, where they portray the verdant tules is a negative feature because of how it limits human access to the river.
Check out the 2007 video of the river 6 months after the flow was restored.
my friend and Owen Lake hero Mike Prather.
Creating Lower Owens River Master Plan seems like a great studio project!
Infrascape Design 
This quote from the article re: the unanticipated growth of the verdant tules makes it hard to agree with the idea of the project as a failure. Seems pretty within “spec” to me.
“about 10% more than had been anticipated, project ecologists said.”
Plus, such a characterization seems to be ignore any ecological upside and focusing on the human recreational impacts. I would assume those weren’t the main drivers of the project to begin with…
William Davies Bill Davies