Sunrise light on a grove of tufa towers emerging from the water of Mono Lake with soft green and dusty-red wild grasses in the foreground, Canada geese in the shallow water with reflections of the rocky towers, and desert hills in the distance.

Mono Basin Clearinghouse updates for May 2010

This is the first big update that we’ve had a chance to do since October 2008.  We’ve got quite a backlog of updates to get through, and in this update we’ve gone back  as far as October 2009. One major change since our last update is that the internet has so many more resources on it now. We used to be able to keep a pretty good handle on what Mono Basin resources were out there on the internet, but now every time we do a Google search we find new and valuable sources of information that we did not know about. This explosion of Mono Basin content means that the Clearinghouse Website can no longer be comprehensive, and the format of the site needs updating and ideally will be converted to a search-focused format that lists sources on the site first followed by internet search results. Until that day comes, we’ll do our best to keep up and share with you the best and most relevant and interesting information about the Mono Basin–but be aware that an internet search can also turn up some Mono Basin gems.

New on www.monobasinresearch.org since October 2008:

Reports and Studies Online

  1. The Los Angeles Water Plan 2008
  2. Feasibility of Rejuvenating the West-side Springs of the Rush Creek Bottomlands, Mono County, California (650KB–note that the title page and bibliography are missing; contact author for these), By Scott Stine, CSU East Bay; and Peter Vorster
  3. Grant Lake Operations and Management Plan (LADWP, 1996)(7 MB)
  4. Summer Thermal Characteristics of Grant Lake, 1993 Report by Trihey & Associates (27.5 MB)
  5. Mono Basin Stream Restoration and Monitoring Program: Synthesis of Instream Flow Recommendations to the State Water Resources Control Board and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Final Report, April 30, 2010
  6. 2009 LADWP compliance reporting to SWRCB
  7. Lower Rush Creek Flow Analysis By Bill Hasencamp, LADWP Aqueduct Division, September 28, 1994

Historical Information

  1. Creel returns from Rush Creek Test Stream, Mono County, California, 1947-1951, Elden H. Vestal, Inland Fisheries Branch, California Department of Fish and Game
  2. 1933 Map of Mono Basin property ownership, hydrographic stations, wells, test holes, gages, and streams
  3. McIntosh. F. W. 1908. Mono County, California: The Land of Promise for the Man of Industry. Reno, NV: Gazette Publishing Company

Data

  1. Lee Vining monthly weather data
  2. Mono Lake monthly levels
  3. Eared Grebe counts (October): 1996-2005 & 2008-2009

Current Research

  1. A bird-caused trophic cascade in the context of riparian habitat restoration: does it exist and does it represent a “restoration service?”, Sacha K. Heath, Humboldt State University
  2. Capturing small-scale variations of water isotopes in ambient air and natural waters of California: Results of field measurements using Wavelength Scanned Cavity Ring-Down Spectrosopy (Rush Creek watershed), Priya Gupta, Michael E. Loik, Todd E. Dawson, and others
  3. New 40Ar/39Ar ages reveal contemporaneous mafic and silicic eruptions during the past 160,000 years at Mammoth Mountain and Long Valley caldera, California, Gail A. Mahood, Joshua H. Ring, Simone Manganelli and Michael O. McWilliams
  4. Reconstructing the Mediaeval low stands of Mono Lake, Sierra Nevada, California, USA, Nicholas E. Graham and Malcolm K. Hughes
  5. Predicting and Managing Climate Change Impacts on Semi-arid Land Wetlands, Migratory Birds, and Their Prey: An Integration of Remote Sensing, Molecular Genetics, Hydrology, and Environmental Modeling, Dr. Susan Haig (USGS FRESC) and Dr. John Matthews (WWF)
  6. Response of high-elevation limber pine (Pinus flexilis) to multiyear droughts and 20th-century warming, Sierra Nevada, California, USA, Constance I. Millar, Robert D. Westfall, and Diane L. Delany
  7. Satellite observations indicate rapid warming trend for lakes in California and Nevada, P. Schneider, S.J. Hook, and R.G. Radocinski ( NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California) and others, Additional Mono Lake analysis by the Mono Lake Committee
  8. The unknown trajectory of forest restoration: a call for ecosystem monitoring. Washington D.C., The Wilderness Society. DeLuca, T.H. , G.H. Aplet, and B. Wilmer. 2008.
  9. Reforming Watershed Restoration: Science in Need of Application and Applications in Need of Science. 2008. Margaret A. Palmer, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

GIS Data

USFS – Pacific Southwest Region GIS Clearinghouse, INF 2009 Omnibus wilderness layers (plus existing wilderness) are available:
WildernessExistingR5_09_2
is designated Wilderness intersecting Region 5 and Toiyabe National Forest
WildernessExistingCA_09_2
is ALL designated Wilderness in California

Links

  1. California Pika Consortium – interdisciplinary collaborative effort to foster research, monitoring, education, conservation, and adaptation planning for pikas and other high elevation species
  2. California Roadkill Observation System – submit and track roadkill observations statewide
  3. Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, & Snow Network
  4. Eastern Sierra Land Trust conservations easements in Mono County
  5. Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy – informative and interactive maps
  6. NEPA documents recently approved in Mono County

New updates format

We are now posting these updates on The Mono-logue, the Mono Lake Committee’s blog at www.monolake.org/today/. Interested individuals can sign up for the email update here, or with your RSS reader here.