The Owens Lake Dust Control Project is a multi-million dollar program to control dust from Owens Lake, which has dried as a result of the City of Los Angeles diversion of water from Owens River for water supply. One element of the work involves flood irrigation of the lake bed to prevent dust from being airborne. The work involved the construction of a flood irrigation system, drainage system, access roadways, embankments, flood control, and other infrastructure to maintain and operate the system.

The project has been implemented in several phases, and MARRS, as a subconsultant to design and construction management teams, was responsible for three representative elements of project work. Task 1: Development of design-build request for proposal for the flood irrigation system in which MARRS performed preliminary engineering for the flood irrigation system, drainage system, access roadways, power supply, and other infrastructure to build and operate the system for a 14-square mile area. Task 2: Environmental database administration where MARRS provided document control, including data validation, conversion and management services for all collected groundwater, surface water, soil, biological and air quality monitoring data. MARRS developed data management strategies and procedures, applications using Microsoft (MS) Access, Structured Query Language (SQL), and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) on data checking processing, validating, formatting, and uploading. MARRS created and edited GIS maps using ESRI’s ArcGIS system. Task 3: Preliminary and detailed design for flood irrigation systems where MARRS prepared preliminary and detailed designs to flood irrigate area 5-3, comprised of 130 acres. The work elements included distribution system, embankments, spillways, drainage pump, and erosion control. For Area 5-1, MARRS completed a feasibility study and the design of a drip irrigation system for a 20-acre site as a demonstration project.

Project Features:
• Water Conveyance
• Water Distribution
• Embankments
• Roadways
• Water Filtration