MAMMOTH LAKES — Los Angeles has bigger fish to fry than the Delta Tunnel.

To get an inkling of what that is, you need to stand along the shores of two lakes.

One you can find on the edge of the Great Basin at 6,791 feet near the foot of the Eastern Sierra.

The other is 160 miles south of the Delta.

The first is Crowley Lake.

It was created by a dam built in 1941 by the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power on the upper Owens River.

The LA agency is the much despised engineer of the destruction of Owens Valley agriculture that relegated the local economies to dependency on tourism.

The lake, 15 miles south of Mammoth Lakes on the way to Tom’s Place, can be seen as you fly down a stretch of four-lane Highway 395 that rivals Interstate 5 south of Patterson for speeding.

The lake that holds 183,465 acre feet of water is named for “The Desert Padre”.

Father John J. Crowley faithfully served Catholics and communities  from Death Valley to Bishop to Lee Vining until his untimely death in a 1940 automobile accident.

LA Water & Power literally killed off Owens Lake that, just over a century ago, covered over 108 square miles by diverting eastern Sierra snowpack runoff into a series of canals, pipelines and aqueducts to fill Los Angeles bath tubs instead of filling Owens Lake.

It was Father Crowley who led the charge to save the Owens Valley from economic misery by pushing for the promotion of tourism.

There is little doubt the good padre viewed the destruction Los Angeles visited on his flock and their neighbors as the work of the devil.

It destroyed a mini-agrarian desert paradise and forever stunted economic prosperity so Los Angeles boosters could destroy endless citrus groves in Southern California and fuel what is arguably one of the most unparalleled expansions of economic prosperity in the history of mankind.

The lake was named in his honor.

This Saturday is the traditional opening of the trout fishing season in Mono County.

The last Saturday in April sees anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 trout fishing enthusiasts flock to the county. The most popular destination is Crowley Lake, considered among the best — if not the best — trout fishing lake in California.

As a result, trout fishermen returning to Mono County at the end of April have been as dependable as the swallows returning to Capistrano.

Not this year, however.

Crowley Lake was still frozen as of Thursday.

It is expected to stay that way for at least a week.

Meanwhile, up and down the Highway 395 corridor, LA Water & Power crews are scurrying to prevent nature from unleashing wanton destruction on the water conveyance systems LA relies on once the melt of a snowpack that is almost triple of normal starts in earnest.

As the “Mother of All Snow Melts” approaches, Southern California’s water manipulators that have drained the lifeblood economic well-being of other parts of the state to fuel growth they can’t sustain by precipitation within their own watersheds, are plotting their next move.

It is the Delta Tunnel.

It will make what happened to the environment, farming and economic vitality of the Owens Valley look like child’s play.

So, what is the “bigger fish to fry?’

Climate change.

While climate change is natural and there are two schools of thought at how much mankind is, or isn’t acierating it, one thing is for sure.

Los Angeles water interests have used it to hammer hard on the need for the Delta Tunnel to protect critical water needs for 26 million people down south.

As an aside, the climate band wagon the tunnel boosters jumped on what is a Johnny-Come-Lately battle cry.

The main reason when the push for the twin tunnels started was the supposed need to protect LA’s water supply from being disrupted if Delta levees collapsed during a major earthquake.

But when weighing the science made that an over the top concern, LA quickly latched onto the social media sensation the issue of climate change has become.

If everyone agrees — including the LA water purveyors — that extreme weather swings are now the norm, it is clear the infrastructure is already in place is great peril.

Investing in the Delta Tunnel purely from a  selfish Southern California perspective is akin to investing in cutting edge fuel injectors while there are signs that all of your pistons are damaged and worn so much that engine failure is imminent.

And it isn’t just the various components of the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

Tulare Lake — once California’s largest at 687 square miles until water diversions dried it out a century ago allowing the conversion into massive tracts of farmland in the southwestern San Joaquín Valley— is no longer dry.

The California Aqueduct — the main artery that brings water to the heart of Southern California — skirts the western edge of the Tulare Basin.

It is in no danger of being breached by Tulare Lake “refilling” on a temporary basis.

But Tulare Lake stands as a symbol of the San Joaquin Valley’s complex water woes where demand often exceeds supply and supplies can overwhelm infrastructure.

The threat to the California Aqueduct is what you can’t see.

Portions of the valley in the area in and near the Tulare Basin has subsided in spots between 20 and 30 feet since the 1930s from groundwater over drafting.

As such, it has reduced the design capacity of the aqueduct that 26 million people rely on by 20 percent.

One would hope the focus on the touch-and-go prospect of massive flooding throughout the Tulare Basin region this spring might hold the attention of rank-and-file Southern Californians on how water gets to their faucets

If it does, they might realize the water czars going after the Delta tunnel are doing so while ignoring the need for major investment to protect the flow of water south.

Yes, the levees might fail.

Yes, that could increase salinity of water heading south triggering more expensive treatment.

But at least with the Delta there would still be ways water could make it to the Clifton Court Forebay northwest of Tracy into the California Aqueduct and flow to southern valley farmlands and Los Angeles homes.

The climate — tunnel boosters tell us — is changing.

True.

But they conveniently forget that engine that drives most of the water south is widespread, worn out and heading toward collapse.

They should address those issues and stop crying wolf about the need for the tunnel they use to disguise their reason intent which is even more water flowing south.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com