This week, the online news outlet SFGate released an extensive article on Mono Lake. The article, by Mountain Town News Editor Julie Brown Davis, begins with the 1976 Mono Lake research group and deftly connects the dots right up to today’s continuing efforts to raise Mono Lake.
Interviews with Mono Lake Committee and Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) staff are particularly illuminating in light of the upcoming State Water Board hearing.
The committee maintains Los Angeles is chipping away at Mono Lake’s progress. That’s why [Mono Lake Committee Executive Director, Geoff] McQuilkin wants Los Angeles to stop taking water from the Mono Basin until the lake reaches the 6,392-foot mandate laid out by the water board.
“In other words, the lake would be stable, but for diversions, it’s going down. And this is the problem that we’ve seen over decades now,” McQuilkin said.
McQuilkin insists it’s not an either-or decision. He specifically called out a project to build a water purification facility at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, which the Los Angeles Times reported will produce enough recycled water for 500,000 people in Los Angeles. It’s scheduled to come online next year. McQuilkin said the new plant will create more than enough water to offset what’s being taken from Mono Lake.
But [LADWP Director of Water Operations, Adam] Perez at the Department of Water and Power doesn’t see it that way. He affirmed the city is working toward sourcing more water locally, but said if the city cuts back on its imports, those cuts would come from the Colorado River or from the Metropolitan Water District. Perez said the Department of Water and Power has no intention of stopping the stream of water it imports from the Mono Basin.
—Saving Mono Lake was a California victory. But it still needs water. SF Gate, October 2026, Julie Brown Davis, emphasis added
For those who know the story of the original hearing leading up to the State Water Board’s historic 1994 decision to raise Mono Lake, DWP’s approach today remains surprisingly unchanged from its approach over 30 years ago.
Los Angeles is not the main culprit for Mono Lake’s continued struggles, Perez continued. Rather, the lake is a victim of its own hydrology and climate change. “It’s really not the city’s export that is really driving the overall lake level rise and drop,” Perez said, pointing to the big winters over the past decade that delivered plenty of water.
—Saving Mono Lake was a California victory. But it still needs water. SF Gate, October 2026, Julie Brown Davis, emphasis added
The SFGate article makes clear that this perspective about the driving force behind Mono Lake’s level does not reflect the whole picture, especially in years like this one, when the lake would have risen without DWP exporting water.
Read or listen to the complete article here.
Top photo by Arya Degenhardt.