Contributing to conservation efforts in the Central Valley and Delta

Those legal doctrines—and a siuprising number of Mono people—are now playing a vital role in the efforts to preserve and rehabilitate river and estuarine environments in the San Francisco Bay-Delta-River watershed. Most noteable is the San Joaquin River, the watershed that starts high in the Sierra, adjacent to Mono’s own Rush Creek drainage.

The Mono public trust legal decision (the "Audubon" case) provides the legal underpinning (through the "Racanelli" decision) for the ongoing efforts to insure that the water users who rely on the Central Valley rivers and Delta for their supply contribute to the improvement of water quality in the Bay-Delta Estuary. The CalTrout court decision that ordered the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) to release enough water below its dams to keep fish in good condition is today being used to ensure sufficient flows in Putah Creek, a tributary to the Delta that runs through the city of Davis. That decision is also plays an important role in the legal cases to restore the San Joaquin River

11 years ago, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a lawsuit in an attempt to get enough water released from Friant Dam into the San Joaquin to restore what was once the biggest and southern-most run of spring run Chinook salmon in the country. The lawsuit (NRDC v. Patterson) relies on the precedent in the CalTrout decision that established that Fish and Game Codes require dam owners to release enough flow to keep fish in good condition.

In addition to the doctrines, Mono Lake people are playing critical roles. Elden Vestal was the district biologist in the Mono Basin when DWP started the Mono diversions in the 1940s; his notes were very helpful 50 years later. After the Mono Basin, Elden became the district biologist over in Fresno responsible for the San Joaquin. He tried unsuccessfully to have water remain in the San Joaquin in the l950s. (Elden tried to do the same with Rush Creek when DWP started drying it up, and was told by superiors to drop the issue. At least he got the pleasure of seeing water returned to Mono streams; alas he died last year and will not get to see the San Joaquin restored.)

Critical to today’s effort to restore the San Joaquin River below Friant dam near Fresno is Peter Vorster, consulting hydrologist for the MLC since 1979. Through his work with The Bay Institute (TBI), a San Rafael based non-profit that focuses on the restoration and rehabilitation of the San Francisco Bay-Delta-River watershed, Peter helps provide technical assistance, including complex hydrologic modeling, to the coalition of groups led by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

This past summer, Peter drew on his years of Mono Lake work when he took charge of scheduling releases from the Bureau of Reclamation’s Friant Dam as part of a pilot project to restore riparian vegetation to a reach of the San Joaquin River that normally is dry. Says Peter, "I can understand from my Mono experience the push and pull that dam operators have in trying to satisfy competing interests. This was the first time in the more than 50-year life span of Friant dam that water was released for environmental purposes. Hopefully a new mind-set can be established, just as it has at DWP, that water for the environment is not a waste."

Peter is not the only Mono person who is part of the San Joaquin effort—and in many cases The Bay Institute family. Former MLC executive director Martha Davis is a board member of TBI along with UC Davis law professor Hap Dunning, who was instrumental in helping to formulate the other great Mono legal legacy, the public trust doctrine. Grant Davis, who along with Peter and Stephen Johnson conceived and produced the first Mono Lake Calendar back in 1985, is TBI’s executive director. Also working actively on the San Joaquin is former Committee science associate John Cain, who is now a restoration planner at the Natural Heritage Institute.

And that’s just the beginning. Numerous Committee members and past staffers are at work on environmental resoration and protection projects throughout California as consultants, scientists, and community leaders. Congratulations to you all!