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Public Process to Examine North Basin Water Issuesby Heidi Hopkins In early February, the Trust for Public Land announced it had secured a six-month extension of its option to purchase the Conway Ranch property in the north Mono Basin. The extension buys time to consider implementation of the Mill Creek restoration proposal and other proposals relating to use of Mill Creek water in the north Mono Basin. A public processNearly everyone involved with Conway Ranch agrees on the need to protect the Ranch's open space. Questions remain, however, about how additional proposals for the land might fit together. The proposals are diverse: The county is interested in constructing and leasing a fish-rearing facility in some kind of public-private partnership. Certain members of the community are interested in reviving historical agricultural practices that the property supported 100 years ago, including growing fruit trees, alfalfa, and potatoes. Others want to retain the fishery and flows in Wilson Creek. The Committee's primary interest is returning Conway irrigation water to the Mill Creek bottomlands and delta to restore the kind of habitat complex that supported Mono Lake's formerly vast populations of waterfowl and other water birds. A number of parties are involved in these proposals, including the Mono Lake Committee, Mono County, the Trust for Public Land, People for Mono Basin Preservation, agencies operating in the Mono Basin, and local residents. Currently these groups are working together to establish a public fact-finding process that will allow all those interested in the Conway purchase and in Mill Creek water to examine the array of ecosystem benefits and impacts, historical values, and operational opportunities and constraints. Ultimately, the public process will help define the scope of any EIR that may be required should a particular proposal move forward. The public process will be defined by a Memorandum of Understanding that memorializes the parties' general support for public acquisition of the Conway Ranch and describes a fact-finding process for information gathering. While the public process will focus on the acquisition of Conway Ranch and future management of its resources, the water linkage will likely extend the reach of the public inquiry to all areas where Mill Creek water is applied, from Thompson Ranch adjacent to Highway 395 east to DeChambeau Ranch and Ponds. As described in the winter Newsletter, the thicket of issues surrounding Conway Ranch and Mill Creek has grown from two separate but related projects. The first is DWP's waterfowl habitat restoration plan, which is pending approval by the State Water Board, and the second is the Trust for Public Land's option to purchase the historic Conway Ranch. Water links the two proposals. DWP's restoration plans propose redirecting Mill Creek water, to which the Conway Ranch has irrigation rights, back into the creek's natural stream course for waterfowl habitat restoration in the Mill Creek bottomlands near Mono Lake. Because the issue is water and possible changes in water use, the State Water Board agreed in January to help design the public process now underway. The public process, which will be based in the Mono Basin, will remain separate from the Water Board restoration proceedings. Waterfowl habitat restorationInterest in restoring water to Mill Creek has grown in response to the 1994 State Water Board requirement that DWP restore waterfowl habitat in the Mono Basin. Scientists hired by DWP recommended the rewatering of Mill Creek as the most important waterfowl habitat restoration action next to raising the level of the lake itself. Redirecting Mill Creek's water back into its natural stream course, argued the scientists, would bring back the former lush bottomland and delta environment that today is depleted of water and associated riparian vegetation. This in turn would recreate a portion of the productive riparian and lake-fringing habitat that characterized pre-diversion Mono Lake and provided refuge for millions of waterfowl and other wildlife. The twist with the Mill Creek rewatering recommendation is that Mill Creek water has been diverted for over 100 years--for hydropower generation and irrigation--and the diverted flows incidentally created natural values on various properties in the north Mono Basin including irrigated meadows and a year-round stream where none existed before. In particular, the naturally ephemeral Wilson Creek was lengthened and augmented such that the creek now runs year-round and supports a regenerating brown trout population in the section that flows through the Conway Ranch. It does not, however, offer bottomlands habitat upstream from the lake. The restoration proposal supported by the Committee--which would return much of the Mill Creek irrigation water to Mill Creek, allowing Mill Creek to become a functioning stream with lush bottomlands--could be accomplished with minimal impacts to the irrigated meadows but not without impacts on the year-round flows in Wilson Creek. The public process is designed to engage the community in a thoughtful examination of the opportunities and impacts of changing the current use of Conway Ranch water. Heidi Hopkins is the Committee's Eastern Sierra Policy Director. She's looking forward to a long spring season filled with corn snow.
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