Mono Lake Committee Outdoor Experiences Manager Santiago Escruceria gives everyone a nickname. Beyer High School senior Tom Rydquist’s was “Mr. Muffin.”

In December 2011 the California Museum and Comcast announced that Rydquist won the Northern California Grand Prize in their Dreamers Challenge for a video he produced. His video “Funding the American Dream: Helping California Lead the Way in Water Reclamation”  suggests a fee on sewage utilities to create water recycling programs. You can see Rydquist’s video here.

Beyer High School senior Tom Rydquist, left, monitoring water quality at Mono Lake with his classmates. Photo by Santiago Escruceria.

Along with fellow Beyer students from Modesto and their teacher Kay Myers, Mr. Muffin (more…)

Here in the office we call it the Collaborative Aqueduct Modernization & Management Plan, or CAMMP for short. But when we say things like, “Geoff, Lisa, and Morgan are CAMMP-ing,” it’s not what it sounds like. CAMMP is a State Water Board mandated series of facilitated meetings embarked upon by the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, the California Department of Fish & Game, California Trout, the State Water Board-appointed Stream Scientists, and the Mono Lake Committee with the goal of working through the details of implementing the scientific streamflow prescriptions issued in 2010 and the associated aqueduct modernization necessary for the aging infrastructure to be able to reach the restoration goals at Mono Lake.

So … what does all that mean? It means that (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.

By this time in the summer many thanks are due to all the amazing people who have volunteered their time pulling invasive plants and watering trees at Restoration Wednesdays for the past two months. We at the Mono Lake Committee want to say a special thanks to a dedicated group of volunteers, Ken & Gayle Midas as well as Donna & Jerry Farris, who have donated their time every Wednesday for the past month and a half to aid in restoration efforts. They have enthusiastically pulled enormous (more…)

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…)

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…)

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.

(more…)

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…)