In a recent email from National Geographic I noticed a photo of a familiar place in a gallery called “Habitats–Freshwater Photos.”
I blinked and looked more closely, surprised to see saline Mono Lake pictured alongside places like Bow Lake in Canada’s Banff National Park, the Okefenokee Swamp in the southeastern US, and the Yellowstone River—all clearly bodies of fresh water. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed completely appropriate to include Mono Lake in a collection of freshwater stories.
After all, fresh water is what drew the City of Los Angeles to the Mono Basin in 1941. Fresh water is what put the grassroots effort of the Mono Lake Committee on the map in the 1980s. Fresh water bubbling up through Mono Lake’s salty waters forms the distinctive tufa towers. And fresh water coursing down from the snowy Sierra through Rush, Parker, Walker, Lee Vining, and Mill creeks keeps Mono Lake on the rise.
Even though Mono Lake is nearly three times saltier than the Pacific Ocean, fresh water serves as the lynchpin to its health. The fresh water reaching the lake through its streams is to Mono Lake’s salty expanse as that refreshing glass of clean tap water is to our bodies. And it’s up to us to make sure fresh water keeps reaching Mono Lake.