For over 30 years, visitors to Lee Vining have been lured off of Highway 395 and into the Mono Lake Committee by the iconic storefront and mural—and for many the colorful front with its deep steps has become the lasting image of the Mono Lake Committee and the town of Lee Vining.
Left to right: The Mono Lake Committee storefront in 1978, 1982, and 1990. Archive photos.
But visitors this past summer arrived to find a sight not seen since the Committee first moved into the building more than three decades ago: a complete renovation of the building-front and (more…)
As the first splotches of yellow begin to appear in the aspen groves of Lundy Canyon, the time has come for many of us to think about the future. Many interns who spend a summer working for the Mono Lake Committee eventually return to the basin—working either for the Committee or the Park Service or another conservation group. Some interns never leave, and instead slip first into winter seasonal work and then eventually into new roles as their knowledge and skill set grow.
It takes a 16,000-member, 20-staff village to save Mono Lake. Photo by Arya Degenhardt.
But what about those of us who are headed off to other jobs and divergent paths this fall, and who may return only as visitors: what has a summer in the Sierra meant to us? (more…)
A new study published in “McKinsey Quarterly” demonstrates what many business owners have long recognized—good resource management and efficient resource use is simply good business.
On Wednesday, August 29th, the Mono Lake Committee hosted PRBO Conservation Science’s Eastern Sierra Project leader Ken Etzel for our last Refreshments with Refreshing ‘Ologists talk of the year. Ken came to talk to us about ongoing research in the Eastern Sierra on aspen regeneration and its effect on native bird populations. As a researcher for PRBO, Ken has partnered with (more…)
Mono Lake Intern Lynette Villagomez recording measurements at Mill Creek.
For many Mono Lake interns, one of the main draws of working for the Mono Lake Committee is the opportunity to work outdoors in the Mono Basin. One of the opportunities to do this is the weekly stream monitoring that the Committee carries out at Mill Creek. Mill Creek monitoring, as we call it around the office, is part of the broad effort to track the status of the streamflows and ecology of the five creeks that feed Mono Lake from the Sierra Nevada. (more…)
Last Wednesday afternoon brought a second hour of engaging ideas to the Mono Lake Committee’s Theater & Gallery, as US Forest Service Senior Scientist Connie Millar gave a provocative and fascinating talk on mountain ecology and climate change; a topic which she has artfully christened “Mountain Climecology.”
Connie Millar discusses mountain climecology with the group. Photo by Arya Degenhardt.
The aim of her talk was to illustrate the difficult task of predicting what kinds of ecological changes might result from fluctuations in global temperature and changing climate patterns, and how accepted wisdom about the effects on plants and animals needs to be carefully tested in the field.
Dr. Millar, faced with only 45 minutes to explain and defend her argument, chose several examples from her own research on mountain ecology to illustrate her point. One example was (more…)
On August 1, the Mono Lake Committee was treated to a rich and erudite presentation on the future of the Owens Lake—the first in our annual series of speakers titled “Refreshments with Refreshing ‘Ologists.”
Those familiar with the history of Mono Lake will know that before the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) extended their aqueduct to the Mono Basin, their main source of water was Owens Lake; located 60 miles south of the Mono Basin along Highway 395. But between 1913 and the early 1930s Owens Lake was drained with such abandon that by the mid-1930s all that remained was miles of dry lake floor and a rough coastal skeleton of the former lake. Having extinguished Owens Lake, DWP began work (more…)
