Amended settlement returns streamflows to Mono Lake’s third-largest tributary The Mono Lake Committee is dedicated to protecting and restoring Mono Lake and its tributary streams, but while protection and restoration were afforded to four of Mono Lake’s major creeks (Rush,…
Warm days are rapidly melting high country snow and increasing the flow of water in Mono Lake’s tributaries. As of this week, Lee Vining Creek is flowing in full force past the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP)…
Streamwatch: Astonishing snowpack numbers portend record runoff A dry 2022 ended abruptly in November with a foot of snow. Despite the continuous precipitation all winter, consistently cold weather kept winter streamflows low. But with record snowpack, 2023 will bring record…
Last fall the California State Water Resources Control Board ordered new requirements to further the restoration of 20 miles of Mono Basin stream habitat on Lee Vining, Rush, Walker, and Parker creeks. Order 21-86 implements new Stream Ecosystem Flows (SEFs)…
During the 2021 runoff year (April 1, 2021–March 31, 2022), the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) was allowed to export up to 16,000 acre-feet of stream diversions from the Mono Basin because Mono Lake was above 6380…
Each spring the Mono Lake Committee’s team of modelers and Mono Basin hydrology experts uses the lake level on April 1 together with the Mono Basin snowpack numbers and similar-year and other relevant hydrological statistical data to produce the Mono…
Mono Lake Committee and partners start implementing State Water Board Order 21-86 This winter Mono Lake Committee staff were even busier than usual, working to set Order 21-86 into motion to initiate an exciting new phase of restoration for Mono…
This morning Angelenos and Los Angeles Times readers around the world woke up and saw Mono Lake above the fold in an article with the headline, “Push to tame dust from lake.” The story is one that those following Mono…
The LA Times published a timely editorial on the achievement of State Water Board Order 2021-86, which launched a new era of stream restoration for Mono Lake’s tributary streams on October 1. The well-written article shines a spotlight on both…
After driving all day, I arrived at the Pumice Palace in Lee Vining just after sunset, and no one was home … in June 1995 … and in September 2021. In 1995, I was starting my summer internship with the…
