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In October the very busy folks at Sierra Solar installed new solar panels on the Mono Basin Outdoor Education Center (OEC) roof. The photovoltaic system is the first step in the energy and water efficiency development of the OEC site, demonstrating the connection of energy and water and the increasing value and need to minimize our carbon and water footprint.

Sixteen new solar panels were successfully installed at the Mono Basin Outdoor Education Center in October. Photo by Bartshe Miller.

Thanks to a bequest by the Ward Family, the new solar panels will offset approximately 80–100% of all electrical use at the site. Because the Mono Basin Outdoor Education Center is on a long-term lease (more…)

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This post was written by Lisa Godenick, 2016 Outdoor Education Instructor.

The Roosevelt High Outsiders pause for a breath on their high-altitude snow hike. Photo by Santiago Escruceria.

Written from the perspective of students from Roosevelt High School.

I am from Guatemala. I have never seen snow.

I am from Mexico. I have never seen snow.

I am from El Salvador. I have never seen snow.

I LOVE SNOW! ME GUSTA LA NIEVE!

I go to Roosevelt High School. I should be a senior, but because I have to pass all four of the English Language Development courses, I am a sophomore. This is my first time in (more…)

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This post was written by Lisa Godenick, 2016 Outdoor Education Instructor.

The latest group that traveled to the Mono Basin Outdoor Education Center from Los Angeles was Communities for a Better Environment (CBE). Aimed at empowering communities of color and low-income communities, CBE works on a myriad of environmental issues in neighborhoods to improve public health, air quality, and drinking water.

Members of CBE pause for a group photo after learning about the brine shrimp and the alkali fly. Photo by Antonia Chihuahua.

There were 15 participants, including staff, who came for a week of experiential education in the Mono Basin. Communities for a Better Environment was founded in the same year as the Mono Lake Committee, 1978. (more…)

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The Thousand Year Journey is showing in the 2016 Wild & Scenic Film Festival, Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of @jedidiahjenkins.

“The routine is the enemy of time; it makes it fly by.”
—Jedidiah Jenkins, The Thousand Year Journey

Step out of the routine and join us for the 2016 Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Los Angeles March 10 & 12. You will be transported around the world and everywhere you look will bring a new and different perspective. We will take you skiing, skateboarding, biking, kayaking, surfing, slacklining, and freerunning, to wild places that otherwise go undiscovered. Each film is (more…)

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This year marks the Committee’s fifth year hosting a Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Los Angeles. Photo by Arya Degenhardt.

Tickets to the Mono Lake Committee’s Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Los Angeles are now available! Simply visit the Mono Lake Committee online store to purchase yours today. We are thrilled to be continuing our event at the Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo on Thursday, March 10 at 7:00pm, which will kick off with a Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ performance (not to be missed). We are also expanding the festival to the Sierra Madre City Hall Council Chambers on Saturday, March 12, for a special children’s program at 2:00pm and our full lineup at 7:00pm.

This year’s festival features 14 short films on everything from skiing to cycling, bighorn sheep to dogs, and slacklining to skateboarding, all through beautiful, poignant, and fun (more…)

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We are excited to announce the Mono Lake Committee’s fifth annual Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Los Angeles this spring. The festival features inspiring films on outdoor adventure, environmental activism, natural wonders, and more. This year we are expanding the festival to a second date and venue!

All proceeds from the event go toward the Committee’s Outdoor Education Center programs, which bring youth from Los Angeles to the Mono Basin to learn about where their water comes from and allows them to experience this magical place.

We hope you plan to join us this year to see these inspiring films and support outdoor education programs at Mono Lake! We look forward to reconnecting with Committee members and friends of the Los Angeles area who help make our work here possible and we’ll continue to post festival updates here on the Mono-logue. Stay tuned for information about tickets, which will be on sale soon!

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This essay, written by Ron Ozuna, appears in the 2016 Mono Lake Calendar.

Theodore Roosevelt High School had more than 5,000 students on a year-round schedule when we first started going to the Mono Lake Committee’s Mono Basin Outdoor Education Center in 2001. I was part of the Humanitas Program, teaching Environmental Science, and my partner (and wife) Phoebe MacAdams Ozuna, taught Environmental Literature. Together, we developed classes that included an unusual component: a five-day field trip to the Sierra Nevada for students to live, work, and learn about nature, animals, geology, water, and life.

A group of students from Roosevelt High School start their visit to the Mono Basin with a South Tufa tour. Photo by Santiago Escruceria.

We began planning the first trip by talking to Herley Jim Bowling, the Mono Lake Committee’s Los Angeles Education Coordinator. There were major obstacles—the trip would require the school to (more…)

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The fourth year of drought has ushered in intensive urban water conservation efforts across the state.

South Tufa, with Negit and Paoha islands and the Bodie Hills beyond. Photo by Erv Nichols.

In Southern California there are many ways residents can save water (see the Mono Lake Committee’s water conservation web page for a lot of great and simple ideas). One highly popular option is replacing water-hungry lawn turf with drought-resistant native plants. So popular, in fact, that all $350 million in rebate incentives authorized by the Metropolitan Water District in June was spent by July. (more…)

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The Mono Lake Committee’s 2015 Annual Report is now available online.

The 2015 Mono Lake Committee Annual Report is now available online. Cover photo courtesy of Phil Lindsay.

It is chock-full of photos of the Mono Lake Committee in action in our focus areas of protection, restoration, education, and (more…)

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After four years of drought, this year Mono Lake dropped below 6380 feet of elevation for the first time since July 1996, two years after the landmark State Water Board Decision in 1994. Because Mono Lake passed this critical threshold, water diversions to Los Angeles were reduced by nearly 70%, from 16,000 acre-feet to 4,500 acre-feet. Many visitors this summer have wisely asked how Los Angeles is able to compensate for such a reduction in water from the Mono Basin.

California’s four-year-long drought makes water conservation efforts even more critical today. Photo by Elin Ljung.

As an environmental non-profit, part of our mission is to promote cooperative water solutions without transferring the problem to other regions. The Mono Lake Committee has worked extensively with the city of Los Angeles over the years to ensure that (more…)