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…)

Hot … er, cold … on the heels of the rainiest October on record, at our Lee Vining weather station, the Mono Lake Committee measured 21.3 inches of snow—the most snowfall in November since 1994! Almost all the snow fell between the Saturday before and the Sunday after Thanksgiving. This resulted in lots of traffic accidents due to the slippery roads combined with holiday traffic.

The total precipitation for October and November was (more…)

Thursday was my last day in the field before a well-advertised storm was to drop 1–3 feet of snow in the Mono Basin. As I drove down to Rush Creek, the winds were picking up, snow was blowing off Sierra peaks, and lenticular clouds graced the late-afternoon skies.

Rush Creek bottomlands, a day before the storm hit.

The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) had just lowered the flows in Rush Creek and Lee Vining Creek, and I was checking to see if certain side channels were still flowing, as well as checking on a few other things before the expected deep snow made travel to the streams difficult. (more…)

On July 28th, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power submitted to the State Water Resources Control Board a feasibility report in response to the stream scientists’ Synthesis of Instream Flow Recommendations. The feasibility report primarily focuses on meeting the flow recommendations using the existing aqueduct infrastructure and defers additional analysis to the future.

Not surprisingly, an aqueduct system that was built 70 years ago for the purpose of maximizing water diversions presents some challenges in delivering precise flows to the creeks. The feasibility of retooling this infrastructure to meet today’s needs is a central question as this process moves forward.

To consider public comments on these matters, the State Water Board will hold an informal public workshop on Tuesday October 12, 2010, at 10:00 am at the Community Presbyterian Church at the corner of Mono Lake Avenue and Third Street in Lee Vining.

Click here to return to the Streamflow Center.

Students and leaders from Beyer High School along with OE staff were glad to help pick up trash along Lee Vining Creek.

This past Saturday, 18 staff and volunteers spent the morning along Lee Vining Creek and Silver Lake picking up trash as part of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy‘s Great Sierra River Cleanup. Thirty-eight pounds of trash might not sound like a lot, but our efforts were worthwhile, since as in many places along waterways in the Eastern Sierra, the trash includes a lot of fishing line. Fishing line (more…)

It’s hard to believe summer’s almost over. The air is cooler, the days are shorter, and leaves are beginning to turn brown along the streams of the Mono Basin—but sweet clover and woolly mullein are still flourishing near Mill Creek. This coming Wednesday is your last chance to help make a dent in this season’s population of weeds, and we need all the help we can get.

The fourth and final pulling party of the summer will be held at the Mill Creek culvert on Cemetery Road from 9am to 12pm on Wednesday, September 1st. If you have an hour or two to spare, please drop by to chat, eat snacks, and take down non-native plants.

Over the past two months 56 volunteers have (more…)

Weeding is a remarkably therapeutic activity. It’s easy to fall into a rhythm, letting your mind drift along with the current as you tug at clover roots in a shady nook along Mill Creek’s bank. Every now and then you take a break, settling back with some fresh fruit and cookies (courtesy of the Mono Lake Committee) to admire the view of Gilcrest and Dunderberg flanking Lundy Canyon to the west. After a couple of hours your work is done, and you load the weeds into garbage bags and drive back to the Committee for the most exciting part of the morning: (more…)