This Wednesday, August 17, join Mono Lake Committee interns and local volunteers as we water Jeffrey pine seedlings along Rush Creek. The trees were planted in an effort to help restore healthy riparian vegetation to the creek, which ran dry for about 50 years due to excessive diversions.

Volunteers help water Jeffrey pine saplings on the banks of Rush Creek.

Jeffrey pines are unusual trees, growing primarily in a narrow corridor from southern Oregon south to Baja California. Large stands of Jeffrey pines occur right here in Mono County, where rich (more…)

Now available to download from the Mono Basin Clearinghouse is the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power’s May 2011 Mono Basin compliance report. This annual report discusses previous year and current year operations and monitoring for the State Water Board-ordered requirements of the city of Los Angeles’ water rights licenses. Highlights are (more…)

The Mono Basin and Eastern Sierra were hit by intense thunderstorms last weekend, especially on Saturday. Rainfall rates of up to seven inches per hour were recorded in the Sierra! Debris flows closed both Highway 395 and Highway 120 West for short periods of time—in Walker Canyon, Highway 395 was buried under five feet of mud in places. Rush Creek above Grant Lake Reservoir reached the highest flow so far this season, around 400 cubic feet per second (preliminary data) as rainfall combined with snowmelt from the still-extensive unmelted snowfields in the upper watershed to spill through the full reservoirs.

Lee Vining WebCam view of Saturday's thunderstorm that closed Highways 395 and 120 for short periods of time.

At the Mono Lake Committee Information Center & Bookstore in Lee Vining, we recorded (more…)

Sweet clover encroaching on the David Gaines boardwalk.

Every Wednesday at 10:00am, Mono Lake Committee interns meet a group of curious visitors on the back patio of the Forest Service Visitor Center. We give a brief presentation on the restoration work that is ongoing in the Mono Basin and introduce the group to some of the challenges we face in bringing our fragile stream and lakeside ecosystems back to a state of health.

After the talk, we invite our listeners to join us in a hands-on stewardship activity. Some weeks we water the (more…)

On Thursday, July 14, a group of employees from Patagonia’s Reno outlet visited us in the Mono Basin. In the morning we treated our visitors to a canoe tour on the lake. The weather was beautiful and we saw hundreds of gulls and phalaropes and trillions of brine shrimp.

Patagonia visitors enjoying a morning paddle on the lake.

In the afternoon we headed down to Old Marina, where the Patagonia team put in an hour’s work pulling invasive (more…)

As of late last week, Mono Lake’s elevation was 6383.48 feet above sea level. It has risen 1.2 feet since April 1st, and 2 feet since its winter low point in December. It rose 0.3 feet just in the last week!

Mono Lake has risen 8.6 feet since the September 1994 State Water Resources Control Board decision ordering the lake to rise to 6392 feet above sea level.

The 0.7-foot rise in June was the largest rise during a single calendar month since June 2006 and before that July 1995, and then three times in 1983: February, June, and December.

Mono Lake is now the highest it has been since September 2007. That year it dropped two feet during the second-driest year on record.

Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve staff and volunteers are moving signs and boardwalk sections out of the way as the shoreline moves uphill. It is about a foot-and-a-half away from 6385.1, the high point it reached in 2006 and 1999 and the highest levels since 1972.

Lee Vining Creek continued to flow Thursday at exceptional levels following a July 5th peak at 535 cubic feet per second (cfs), resulting in a ten-foot section of the Lee Vining Creek Trail being washed out. It is on a steep hillside with a big drop from the trail to the creek. There is a short but steep detour above the washed out section.

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Mill Creek, Mono Lake’s third largest tributary stream, is literally running wild! Currently in the midst of its second-highest peak since 1986, the amount of water running down this channel is more than jaw-dropping. At Lundy Lake Reservoir, the water gushing over the dam spillway travels under the road through a culvert to meet the creek on the other side. Currently, this culvert is in danger of being washed out completely due to the incredible amount of water spilling over the dam. If the culvert were to wash out, it could (more…)

A group of volunteers armed with buckets braved the heat this past Wednesday to water young Jeffrey pine saplings along Lee Vining Creek. With only a 50% survival rate, these small trees need all the help they can get!

Volunteers fill buckets with water from Lee Vining Creek in preparation for watering young trees. Photo by Mila Re.

This event was part of ongoing stream restoration efforts that include the removal of invasive plants and the watering of native Jeffrey pines along the fragile streams that flow into Mono Lake. Last summer volunteer work parties succeeded in removing over (more…)

Last week, Lee Vining Creek peaked on Thursday night, June 23, at approximately 536 cubic feet per second (cfs), according to preliminary data from the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP). Southern California Edison is releasing additional water from Saddlebag Lake Reservoir and almost the  entire natural flow from Tioga Lake Reservoir, which resulted in a very high peak flow on Lee Vining Creek. This peak flow was about the same as last year’s average daily peak flow, which had only been exceeded (more…)