Mono Lake is an inland sea sitting near the border of the Nevada
state line, east of Yosemite National Park. It was the target of
a major environmental battle between the 1970s and the 1990s.
The lake has a surface area of about 70 square miles, is the
second largest lake in California and one of the oldest in North
America. Its salty water occupies former volcanic craters and is
highly alkaline.
Los Angeles began diverting water from Mono Lake tributaries in
the 1940s, extending the Los Angeles Aqueduct from the Owens
Valley. Forty years later, the water level of the lake had
dropped more than 40 feet to threaten wildlife (shrimp and birds)
and uncover stretches of the lake bed, which in dust storms stirs
up toxic dust.
In 1983, the California Supreme Court held the public trust
doctrine applied to Los Angeles’ rights to divert water from Mono
Lake’s feeder streams. In 1991, a superior court halted LADWP’s
water exports. Restoration is underway to increase the water
level by 20 feet by 2021.
… In the early 20th century, Los Angeles built a massive
aqueduct to take water from the Owens Valley and soon dried up
Owens Lake. Reaching for even more water, L.A. leaders pushed
farther and began tapping water from the mountain streams that
feed Mono Lake. … In 1994, state regulators ordered the
L.A. Department of Water and Power to take steps to raise the
lake 17 feet by taking less water from the creeks, leaving more
to flow into the lake. … The 1994 decision included a
backstop: If the lake level doesn’t rise enough, the State
Water Resources Control Board is to hold a hearing to determine
if the rules need to change — an assessment that both
environmental advocates and the DWP’s managers say they hope
will happen soon.
The picturesque tufa towers on the shores of Mono Lake, formed
over centuries by underwater springs and left high and dry as
Los Angeles diverted water from nearby creeks, have long been a
symbol of the saline lake. … But residents, local officials
and environmentalists say the lake’s level should be much
higher than it is today, and that the fully exposed tufa spires
show L.A. remains far from meeting its obligation to restore
the lake’s health. … Frustrated by what they view as
L.A.’s lagging progress, environmental advocates are looking to
the State Water Resources Control Board to set new rules
further limiting diversions so the lake can rise toward the
target level. … DWP officials say they welcome an
opportunity to revisit Mono Lake’s issues, and have encouraged
the state water board to schedule a hearing.
Every spring, tens of thousands of California gulls, some from
the Bay Area, leave their home on the coast for a lengthy
flight over the Sierra Nevada to summer at Mono Lake. There,
the next generation of birds is born. Last year, however,
long-simmering problems with the gull population exploded into
view. The number of chicks that hatched at Mono Lake dropped to
its lowest level on record: just 324 birds, down from about
11,000 chicks the prior year, according to a new report by the
research group Point Blue Conservation Science. The dramatic
decline is not only raising questions about the future of the
gulls, but it’s rekindling concern about how the iconic lake
200 miles from San Francisco is being
managed. … Those working to protect the lake see
the record-low gull numbers as a sign that the water
restrictions haven’t gone far enough and need to be revisited.
California gulls that nest at the eastern Sierra’s Mono Lake
suffered a catastrophic breeding failure last year, according
to the latest installment in a four-decade-long series of
reports tracking the birds’ health. Biologists with Point Blue
Conservation Science said in their study of the gulls’ 2024
breeding season that although 20,000 breeding birds built
roughly 10,000 nests at the lake, just 324 chicks survived.
… The report attributed the low survival rate to the
scarcity of the brine shrimp essential to the breeding gulls’
diet. That scarcity, in turn, is the product of an unusual
stratification of lake waters due to its artificially low
levels. … The gulls’ reproductive crash is prompting
calls for state water regulators to reconsider
measures ordered more than three decades ago to restore Mono
Lake’s degraded ecosystems.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Rights Law, recognized as
the most thorough explanation of California water rights law
available to non-lawyers, traces the authority for water flowing
in a stream or reservoir, from a faucet or into an irrigation
ditch through the complex web of California water rights.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes sections on flood management; the state,
federal and Colorado River delivery systems; Delta issues; water
rights; environmental issues; water quality; and options for
stretching the water supply such as water marketing and
conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of the guide is a
section on the human need for water.
A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect
gift for the water wonk in your life.
Our 24×36-inch California Water Map is widely known for being the
definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the
state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s
natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts
– including federally, state and locally funded
projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and
natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of
California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects,
wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the
text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water
projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado
River.
The Pacific Flyway is one of four
major North American migration routes for birds, especially
waterbirds, and stretches from Alaska in the north
to Patagonia in South America.
Each year, birds follow ancestral patterns as they travel the
flyway on their annual north-south migration. Along the way, they
need stopover sites such as wetlands with suitable habitat and
food supplies. In California, 95 percent of historic
wetlands have been lost, yet the Central Valley hosts some of the
world’s largest populations of wintering birds.
Mono Lake is an inland sea located east of Yosemite National Park
near the Nevada border. It became the focus of a major
environmental battle from the 1970s to the 1990s.
The lake has a surface area of about 70 square miles and is the
second largest lake in California and one of the oldest in North
America. Its salty waters occupy former volcanic craters. The old
volcanoes contribute to the geology of the lake basin, which
includes sulfates, salt and carbonates.
They are remnants of another time. A time when the Southwest’s
climate was much cooler and probably wetter, and large lakes
covered vast tracts of land in Nevada, Utah, southeastern Oregon
and California’s Eastern Sierra. Beginning some 14,000 years ago,
the region’s climate grew warmer and drier, shrinking these
lakes’ shorelines and leaving behind an arid landscape dotted
with isolated bodies of water including Pyramid Lake, Mono Lake
and the Great Salt Lake.
This issue of Western Water examines the challenges facing state,
federal and tribal officials and other stakeholders as they work
to manage terminal lakes. It includes background information on
the formation of these lakes, and overviews of the water quality,
habitat and political issues surrounding these distinctive bodies
of water. Much of the information in this article originated at
the September 2004 StateManagement Issues at Terminal Water
Bodies/Closed Basins conference.
