Settlement Reached

In early May--over a year following the initial release of Mono Basin Restoration Plans by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP)--parties to the restoration planning process presented a signed Settlement on Mono Basin restoration to the State Water Board.

The Board will consider the document over the summer. If approved, the Settlement will guide restoration activities and annual monitoring through the year 2014.

It was no easy matter to bring 12 diverse parties together over the highly technical features of the wide-ranging plan for restoration of the Mono Basin's streams and waterfowl habitat. While virtually everyone agreed in principle that it is best to use natural processes to recreate former habitat, it took months of negotiating to agree, for example, on specific peak flow regimes and criteria for determining restoration success.

The settling parties included parties that have been involved in the Mono Lake struggle for many years such as DWP, the Mono Lake Committee, California Department of Fish & Game, State Lands Commission, Department of Parks and Recreation, California Trout, National Audubon Society, and U.S. Forest Service. Several other parties, including the Bureau of Land Management and The Trust for Public Land, signed on this spring.

The Settlement presently is pending approval by the State Water Board. If approved, the actions described in the plan are expected to jump-start the recovery of the Mono Basin streams and waterfowl habitat which have been degraded by 50 years of DWP water diversions.

The Committee's restoration principles

The Mono Lake Committee believes that the best and most cost-effective method of restoration is re-establishing natural processes. This means re-establishing peak flows on the creeks that give the creeks enough energy to recreate their former habitats without significant intervention or continued maintenance. When past degradation is such that it is difficult to reinstate natural processes, the Committee supports a limited "helping hand," such as reopening side channels to raise water tables and provide complex habitat, or planting native vegetation to jump-start streambank recovery.

One of the restoration actions required by the Water Board--the bypassing of sediment around DWP diversion dams--was deferred for further analysis.

Flow regimes. All parties agreed that the most important means of reviving the creeks is to provide stream flow regimes that will allow naturally functioning, dynamic, and self-sustaining stream systems. The parties' disagreement centered on peak flows, termed "channel maintenance" flows.

High flows shape stream channels, transport and deposit sediments, spread seeds, scour pools and generally provide the energy necessary for the streams to re-establish their natural processes.

The problem is that all significant Mono Basin creeks have dams or diversion facilities that modulate natural flows, capture sediment, and prevent fish passage. The challenge was to come up with a plan, coordinated between DWP and Southern California Edison (which operates dams along Rush and Lee Vining creeks), that would allow spring runoff flows to pass through in as natural a fashion as possible.

The problem is particularly acute on Rush Creek. Four dams constrain its natural flows. The final dam, DWP's Grant Lake Dam, was built to divert water, not to release flows. As currently constructed, this dam does not have an outlet capable of releasing the peak flows originally recommended by the scientists.

In its plan, DWP proposed the "Lee Vining augmentation" of Rush Creek's peak flows. Water from Lee Vining Creek would be diverted over to Rush Creek, via the aqueduct and an overflow valve, to supplement releases into Rush Creek. Aside from problematic mechanical issues associated with this transfer of water, there is concern about the potential effects on Lee Vining Creek.

Many of the parties vigorously opposed the augmentation scheme as unreliable. In the end, however, the settlement parties agreed to the Lee Vining augmentation when DWP formally stated to the Water Board that it would construct an outlet in Grant Lake Dam if monitoring proved that the flows achieved through the augmentation scheme were unreliable or insufficient to restore a functioning stream.

Channel reopening. Many of the creeks' side channels were plugged with gravel or abandoned because of stream degradation during the 50 years of unrestricted DWP diversions. To address this, a certain amount of channel reopening occurred along Lee Vining and Rush creeks under court order prior to the 1994 State Water Board decision on Mono Lake.

In the stream restoration plan, additional channels on Rush Creek will be reopened to help spread water, provide fish habitat, and raise the water table along the stream course. Raising the water table will help support vegetation across a broad area, rebuilding the former cottonwood and Jeffrey pine forests that were abundant along the creeks prior to diversions. Vegetation will also stabilize a broad area across which the creeks can migrate over time.

Monitoring plan. The monitoring plan and termination criteria were not finalized until the very last moment this May. These revisions to DWP's original plan were critical to securing broad support from the settlement parties.

Monitoring will allow scientists to assess progress and guide modifications to the stream restoration actions as more is learned about the actual recovery. From the parties' point of view, monitoring will be particularly important for determining the success of the Lee Vining augmentation approach to Rush Creek flows. In the Settlement, monitoring is expected to continue until 2014, when the Water Board will review the Mono Basin's recovery.

The monitoring plan describes monitoring activities for each of the four streams, their scope and duration, the protocol to be used in gathering data, and the methodology for analyzing the collected data.

Adaptive management. The restoration approach finally approved by the parties was one of adaptive management. This means that the actions described in the restoration plan may be refined or modified based on conclusions reached through monitoring. This approach allows flexibility, particularly important in a resource management field as new as restoration.

The Waterfowl Habitat Restoration Plan differed from the Stream Restoration Plan in that DWP agreed to not participate in future decision-making on waterfowl habitat restoration and monitoring. Instead, it is proposed that DWP establish a trust fund of $3.6 million to be administered by a foundation. Initial members of the foundation would be five parties to the Mono Lake proceedings (California Department of Fish & Game, State Lands Commission, U.S. Forest Service, National Audubon Society, and the Mono Lake Committee), with a mechanism for adding new interested parties.

Activities of the foundation would include annual monitoring activities, restoring open water habitat adjacent to the lake, and rewatering Mill Creek if this project meets the requirements of CEQA/NEPA and is approved by the State Water Board.

DWP would continue its brine shrimp productivity studies, open several channels on Rush Creek, and make its Mill Creek water rights available for rewatering Mill Creek, based on the recommendations of the foundation.

Despite not getting all we wanted-- such as an outlet in Grant Lake Dam to provide reliable peak flows to Rush Creek--the Committee is pleased overall with the Settlement. It addresses an array of incredibly complex issues. Not only do we expect that significant restoration can be achieved, but data collected during monitoring will result in a case history of tremendous value to others working on stream and waterfowl habitat management up and down the Eastern Sierra.

Heidi Hopkins is the Committee's Eastern Sierra Policy Director. She liked skiing but is happy to see hiking days again.

Settlement reached on Mono Basin restoration