Shortly thereafter, concerns over the legal adequacy of the 1991 EIR were presented to the Court by state agencies and environmental groups. In 1994, the Court ordered the County and LADWP to respond to certain of these issues. After several years of settlement discussions among all parties, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was executed that resolved the concerns regarding the EIR, particularly concerns related to the adequacy of mitigation described in the EIR for impacts due to LADWP's activities related to its water gathering in the Owens Valley from 1970 to 1990. The MOU was lodged with the court, which in June 1997, discharged its writ ending the litigation between Inyo and LADWP and freeing the parties to implement the Agreement and the 1991 EIR mitigation measures. The parties to the MOU are LADWP, the County, California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), State Lands Commission (SLC), Sierra Club, the Owens Valley Committee, and Carla Scheidlinger (hereafter called the "MOU parties").
The MOU included provisions to expand the LORP beyond the description of the project in the Agreement and in the 1991 EIR and to clarify commitments to implement the project. The MOU specifies goals for the LORP, a timeframe for the development and implementation of the project, specific project actions, and requires that a LORP ecosystem management plan be prepared to guide the implementation and management of the project. It also provides certain minimum requirements for the LORP related to flows, locations of facilities, habitat and species. In May 1999, a draft LORP ecosystem management plan (LORP Plan) was completed by Ecosystems Sciences and was submitted to the MOU parties.
[LORP Final EIR/EIS 1.0 INTRODUCTION - 1.1.2 Memorandum of Understanding]