Summer 2022 Mono Lake Newsletter now online
It felt like a grim spring here at Mono Lake. It was too dry. No snow to speak of in January, February, or March. Meager storms in April that barely dampened ground that had been drying out for months. It…
Mono Lake Newsletter
Streamwatch: Surface water exports curtailed by low Grant Lake Reservoir storage
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…
Protecting California Gulls at Mono Lake’s low levels
Each autumn Mono Lake Committee staff optimistically hope for a wet and snowy winter, but cautiously prepare for drought. Last fall, drought contingency planning included the possibility of re-deploying the mile-long temporary electrified fence to protect California Gulls; no small…
Traditional burn in the works at Parker Creek
The Mono Lake Kutzadika’a Tribe is currently working on a number of projects aimed at reviving the uses of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of the Indigenous peoples of the Mono Basin. These efforts confront the dispossession of Indigenous peoples from…
Property donation enables new research opportunities at Mono Lake
Last summer, longtime Mono Lake Committee members donated a home and surrounding land to bolster the Committee’s scientific research and education programs. Located northeast of Mono Lake, the house and 320-acre property are perfectly positioned to serve as a home…
Naturalist notes
Winter in the Mono Basin has more dark hours than light, chillingly cold air, and a silence so profound it feels physical. It is either a time of rest, of moving slowly, of torpor to reduce the toll simply existing…
California Gulls catch a break
Each spring tens of thousands of California Gulls migrate inland to their nesting grounds on Mono Lake’s islets. Because of the lake’s current low level, the landbridge to the islets is once again becoming exposed, which increases the threat of…
DWP rebuffs cooperative solution to air quality problem at Mono Lake
Last fall the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District hosted a Mono Air & Water Workshop in Lee Vining. The purpose of the workshop was to initiate a dialogue among stakeholders, agencies, and the Great Basin governing board to…
Groundwater exports benefit Los Angeles, impact Mono Lake
DWP captures more than streams in the Mono Basin Heading south from Mono Lake, drivers on Highway 395 zoom past a road junction marked with a sign for a mysterious “West Portal.” Portal to what? Is there a matching one…
Winter & Spring 2022 Mono Lake Newsletter now online
Here at the Mono Lake Committee, we very much enjoy knowing detailed bits of obscure Mono Basin knowledge. Often these pieces of information are important, but they aren’t always particularly interesting, especially on their own. Some examples: In April 1983,…