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…)

Mono Lake Committee interns visit Mill Creek at the Cemetary Road culvert.

Earlier this week, Eastern Sierra Policy Director Lisa Cutting took the Committee’s seasonal staff to the north Mono Basin to learn about the region’s complicated plumbing. They braved rain and sleet to visit Lundy Lake Reservoir, the Lundy power plant, the ditches and waterways that irrigate ranches, and Mill Creek, following the water toward Mono Lake.

On Tuesday afternoon when the group visited Lundy Lake Reservoir, it wasn’t spilling yet, but by Wednesday morning the spillway was full of water and Mill Creek was running at over (more…)

Willow Flycatcher expert Chris McCreedy has a fascinating bird sighting post about these rare visitors on Rush Creek. You can read it here.

Now available on the Mono Basin Clearinghouse are the 1996 restoration plans that have guided restoration in the Mono Basin since they were implemented under Water Rights Orders 98-05 and 98-07 in 1998. Not everything in these plans was ordered as written—to understand the current restoration requirements, a (more…)

In 1994, the State Water Resources Control Board issued Decision 1631, restoring Mono Lake and its tributary streams through a plan of reduced water diversions to Los Angeles. At that time, the decision considered LA’s water supply projections:

The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) projects that the city will use approximately 700 thousand acre-feet per year by 1995, increasing to 756.5 thousand acre-feet by 2010 due to population growth. DWP cautions, however, that large uncertainties exist regarding future projections.

The decision went on to (more…)