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 package of documents must be digested.
The decisions and orders:
- 1994 Decision 1631 ordering minimum flows and channel maintenance flows, limiting water exports, and requiring the preparation of the restoration plans,
- 1998 Water Rights Order 98-05 ordering the implementation of the 1996 plans with certain changes,
- 1998 Water Rights Order 98-07 ordering revisions to Order 98-05 monitoring and termination criteria.
The plans implemented by the orders:
- 1996 Grant Lake Operations & Management Plan describing hydrology and aqueduct operations,
- 1996 Stream & Stream Channel Restoration Plan describing stream restoration measures,
- 1996 Waterfowl Habitat Restoration Plan describing waterfowl habitat restoration measures.
In addition to these documents, there are other background documents, such as the 1997 settlement agreement and DWP exhibit 68B. Not present here are an Executive Summary, Comments and Response to Comments, Stream and Stream Channel Restoration Plan Appendices, and Grant Lake Operations & Management Plan Appendices—these have not yet been scanned and are not available online at this time. Nevertheless, the documents above should provide the detail necessary to understand the current restoration requirements in the Mono Basin. In order to see the status of restoration compliance for each requirement, updated each year, see the annual compliance reports released in May of each year.