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.
… As a biologist with Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources
[Kyle] Stone serves as the Project Leader for the Great Salt
Lake Ecosystem Program, which has been counting migratory birds
around the lake and its wetlands since 1997. “With these
low lake conditions, we’re seeing a lot of the birds that are
here are being artificially concentrated in the areas that are
left,” Stone said about the current spring migration. … As
other saline lakes decline, particularly in California, more of
the birds are being drawn to Great Salt Lake. “Used to be a lot
of those birds were going to the Salton Sea,”
Stone explained. “Now that the Salton Sea is mostly dry, that’s
no longer available to them.” Stone noted similar behaviors
happening with the decline of Mono Lake, just
east of Yosemite National Park.
Beneath California’s Salton Sea, there is so
much metal essential to rechargeable batteries that Gov. Gavin
Newsom calls the vast lake “the Saudi Arabia of lithium.” An
estimated $500 billion worth of lithium here could help power
our smartphones, electric cars and electricity grids. … But
not everyone is eagerly welcoming the lithium industry. The
Salton Sea is already an environmental disaster zone. It’s
shrinking, and as it does, it spews plumes of pesticide-laden
dust throughout Imperial County, home to 182,000 people.
Extracting lithium requires a steady supply of fresh
water, and locals worry the process will deplete the
region’s scarce water resources.
… The story of the Great Salt Lake’s decline is the template
for others around the world, writer and reporter Caroline
Tracey writes in her debut book, “Salt Lakes: An Unnatural
History.” … Tracey’s book documents the miraculous
efforts to save places like California’s Mono Lake, and how a
tiny, unique bird— Wilson’s phalarope,—may be key to saving
others like the Great Salt Lake. Even President Donald Trump
has said the decline of the Great Salt Lake is an
“environmental hazard” and that the country must make it “great
again.” Tracey recently spoke with Inside Climate News about
her book and the lessons saline lakes can provide us in a
changing climate.
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 the latest information on the state’s
changing hydrology, recent water conservation legislation and the
state’s efforts to stretch the available water supplies.
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.
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.
