Hey all you Amazon.com holiday shoppers….

Did you know that by clicking on the shop for Mono Lake link on the Mono Lake Committee’s website, Amazon will donate 5% of your purchase to help the restoration, education, and protection of Mono Lake?

It’s as easy as that! If you are going to do your holiday shopping on Amazon, simply click this link or type “www.shopformonolake.org” into your browser, and it will take you to Amazon. From there, Amazon will track what you buy and give Mono Lake 5% of your total purchase.

When you’re done there, don’t forget to shop the Committee’s online store for all of your Mono Lake Committee logo gear!

As always, thank you for your support and have a wonderful holiday season.

A new camera has been installed at the Mono Basin National Forest Scenic Area Visitor Center for the Mono Lake Cam, one of the Mono Lake Committee’s three Mono Basin web cams.

The new camera comes with perks; one of which is the elimination of the light streak that was present on the old web cam. It also (more…)

The Mill Creek WebCam is back in action, and it’s better than ever! It had been down since 5:55pm on Monday, July 4th, after lightning fried the Ethernet port and the router that connected it to the Internet. During the downtime we found a good deal on webcams, so last weekend Geoff was able to install a brand-new camera to keep us updated on Mill Creek. Check out the great image quality of the new cam!

The brand-new Mill Creek WebCam's view south toward Mono Lake.

The other new webcam we bought will be installed at the Scenic Area Visitor Center in the next few months, which will offer a view without pink light streaks, dramatically improving this stunning view of Mono Lake.

At 5:55pm on Monday, July 4th, distant lightning fried the Mill Creek WebCam‘s Ethernet port and the router that connected it to the Internet. The camera still works, but the Ethernet port no longer works. While the camera is out for repairs, we’ve ordered a new one to replace it. That means the Mill Creek WebCam should return by the end of August!

A portion of the Mill Creek Cam's view on July 4, 2011, right before distant lightning damaged the camera.

We managed to get a really good deal and bought two WebCams, so we will replace the Mono Lake WebCam at the Scenic Area Visitor Center as well during the next couple of months. This should dramatically improve the quality of that image as well.

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…)

On April 19, 2011, the Lee Vining WebCam moved from its long-time home looking out the attic vent above the Committee’s front door to the top of the roof, about two feet below the anemometer. The vent will be closed as part of the remodeling of the front of the building, which will begin this week (watch for a Mono-logue post about that coming soon).

In its former location, the WebCam captured (more…)

It’s now easier than ever to keep in touch with Mono Lake! For the latest updates on everything from local weather and road information, to upcoming events, to current lake level and stream flows, follow our posts on Twitter (@Mono-Lake or @MonoLakeCmte) or Facebook (Mono Lake or Mono Lake Committee).

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 December, after we posted links to papers by Ron Oremland with the US Geological Survey, Ron sent us a few more references. These are now available here on the Mono Basin Clearinghouse. He also included a few references from lakes with similarities to Mono Lake, such as Big Soda Lake in Nevada and Searles Lake, California.

This brings us to 40 scientific papers or abstracts related to Mono Lake or arsenic that can be downloaded from this page.