The California State Water Resources Control Board will schedule its long-awaited hearing about Mono Lake and implementation of the Board’s mandated, healthy 6,392-foot surface elevation for 2025. Agency officials have shared the plans in recent meetings.
On a multi-party video call last week, State Water Board staff made it clear that the hearing schedule had accelerated after surprise and disappointment about the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power’s (DWP) water exports exceeding the planned 4,500 acre-feet. DWP’s reversal on its commitment to voluntarily limit water diversions clearly undermined the potential for solution-oriented collaboration.
The State Water Board had been considering facilitating a series of pre-hearing collaborative discussions to see if voluntary agreements could be found that would streamline the hearing process. However, DWP’s abandonment of the City’s collaborative approach has caused the Board to cancel those plans and accelerate the schedule for the hearing itself.
On the call DWP was unable to explain why there was no consideration given to the impact on Mono Lake of its increased diversions, nor why it had failed to communicate with the State Water Board about its decision to nearly quadruple exports. The call included the Mono Lake Committee and parties that are concerned about the lake’s current low level and will be present at the hearing, including the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, California Trout, the Mono Lake Kootzaduka’a Tribe, Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District, California Air Resources Board, US EPA, and California State Parks.
The hearing will focus on the lake’s transition to the management level required by the Board in 1994. The 6,392-foot elevation lake level, once achieved, will protect numerous Public Trust resources at Mono Lake, including ecological health, air quality, scenic and Tribal resources, and unique, internationally significant habitat for millions of migratory and nesting birds.
The hearing will consider actions needed to achieve the lake’s recovery from the impacts of decades of excessive water diversions by DWP.
Mono Lake friends know the lake is only halfway to the required level and a decade late in getting there. Modifying stream diversions to deliver more water to the lake to implement the overdue protections all parties agreed to in 1994 will be at the top of the Committee’s goals for the hearing.
The hearing process begins with a formal notice, which is likely to be issued in spring 2025. The notice will describe the hearing topics and questions and will set the schedule for several months of major document submittals, including expert witness testimony, research studies, and legal position statements. The in-person portion of the hearing, likely four to six months after the notice, will allow for testimony and cross examination of witnesses.
Thirty years ago, the State Water Board acted to protect Mono Lake for the people of California and to preserve and restore the remarkable ecosystem we know and love. There are many signs that DWP’s attorneys are preparing to fight against water diversion changes that benefit Mono Lake at the hearing, and the Committee is preparing accordingly to strongly make the case for achieving Mono Lake’s long-awaited protection. True success for Mono Lake comes when it reaches the healthy level of 6,392 feet, with a thriving ecosystem, safe bird habitat, clean air, and a secure future.
Top image by Fiona Travers.