Sunrise light on a grove of tufa towers emerging from the water of Mono Lake with soft green and dusty-red wild grasses in the foreground, Canada geese in the shallow water with reflections of the rocky towers, and desert hills in the distance.

First California state park shutdown in history

Save Mono Lake's State Park

This post was written by Morgan, 2011 Project Specialist.

As one of the most popular state services, in recent years California’s state parks have been used as pawns in political budget games, but Friday’s shutdown announcement marks the first time in California’s history that

Mono Lake’s state park hosted a NASA and Jet Propulsion Lab team last year for field testing of a Mars rover prototype. Closure of the park would shut down scientific research—and lose permitting fees for the state.

parks will actually close. A Los Angeles Times article published today discusses state parks closure in the context of the larger California budget.

After Ruth Coleman’s precedent-setting announcement yesterday to close one quarter of California’s state parks, including Mono Lake, here at the  Committee we’re asking questions to determine all the impacts closure would cause and taking steps to prevent closure from happening.

We’re going to need your help in speaking up for the Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve to budget decision-makers, but for right now our friends at the California State Parks Foundation can help you speak directly to your state representatives and tell them that closure makes no sense for Mono Lake or any of the 70 parks listed for closure.

The Sacramento Bee has also featured Mono Lake in a slideshow of the seventy parks on the closure list. Mono Lake with its captivating tufa spires is pictured in slide number 16.

4 Comments

  1. i am horrified they are going to close mono lake. this is nature who is to say you cannot go visit a beautiful park in california? what a waste i love mono lake im so disgusted to think about these parks being closed.

  2. Well, when I first started visiting Mono Lake and the wonderful Tufas, there was no formal park, etc. No fees, no nothing. Just drive down the dirt road, get out, and enjoy the scenery. That’s how I’ll enjoy it now. What can they do? Built a chain link fence all around the lake?

  3. What else can the state do? Parks, though nice, are not essential to operating the state. Without turning this issue into a political discussion the simple problem is the state takes in less money than it spends. State parks just do not enjoy the same priority as welfare and other giveaway programs we spend money to support.

  4. Regardless of how one might feel about how our state got into its current financial mess, the effectiveness of the legislature we elected, the best governor that money apparently can’t buy, or how the required cuts are allocated to various state services (such as prisons for non-violent offenders), necessary difficult budget cuts are going to lead to unpopular decisions. With that out of the way …

    I think the question might be, with the door of Mono Lake Tufa SNR closing, what doors of opportunity will open?

    With Mono Lake Tufa SNR closed, I assume that enforcement of a strict closure will be nearly impossible. At the very least, I would assume we will still be able to park along Test Station Road and walk down to South Tufa, with varying degrees of legality. This becomes a teaching moment. As much as I would not have the opportunity of such a teaching moment, how can it be used to the benefit of Mono Lake?

    A couple of other thoughts:

    – Would the state really try to lock the parking lots?

    – Will they remove the highway signs directing visitors to various locations?

    – How would other agencies, such as Inyo National Forest, respond to closing of State facilities in the Mono Lake Basin?

    – Could LA DWP be persuaded to buy some karma points by supporting some of the former state park facilities?

    – And finally, the bottom line, will locking the doors of the outhouses result only in broken locks?