The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) has diverted water from the Mono Basin for 85 years, and the impacts to the lake’s ecological health are accumulating. Diversions from Mono Lake’s tributary streams have dramatically reduced the lake’s…
A note from the editor: This issue of the Mono Lake Newsletter feels to me like the whole Mono Lake story distilled into one publication. It’s a familiar story to anyone who knows Mono Lake. It starts with the lake…
As I write this note for the Mono Lake Newsletter, winter feels like a distant memory. Two weeks into an astonishing heat wave, the aspen trees are leafing out, the desert peach is starting to bloom, and Mono Lake’s tributary…
LA leader’s “commonsense” plan links new local water with healing Mono Lake Last fall the President of the Los Angeles Water & Power Commissioners made headlines in the Los Angeles Times when he proclaimed, “This is a solution with lots…
This post was written by Caelen McQuilkin, Project Specialist, and Teri Tracy, Eastern Sierra Policy Coordinator. Stormwater capture and recycled water projects supply LA but Mono’s only source of water still diverted “Roller coaster” and “whiplash” metaphors have dominated articles…
This essay, written by Marc Del Piero, appears in the 2026 Mono Lake Calendar. “The price for the protection of water rights is vigilance.” —Attributed to Henry Miller of the Miller-Lux Ranch Now is the time that all residents of…
Working on this Mono Lake Newsletter, it struck me how many complex, technologically advanced systems are part of the articles that make up this issue. Air quality monitors, Motus stations, water treatment and recycling. Easements and grants for property transfer.…
The Mono Lake Committee’s decades-long effort to secure new local recycled water for Los Angeles, and effectively replace stream diversions from Mono Lake, may be on the precipice of finally being realized. The story begins in the 1980s when the…
Spending millions of ratepayer dollars to undermine State Water Board decision The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) is preparing to fight at the future hearing before the California State Water Resources Control Board. While the date has…
In the spring, the Mono Lake Kootzaduka’a Tribe finalized the purchase of Tupe Nobe, land formerly known as Burger’s Sierra Retreat. Located on the Tribe’s ancestral homelands, this land sits ten miles east of Yosemite National Park and five miles…
