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Summer 2010
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Draft Synthesis Report Released Ballot Measure for State Parks New Lake Trail Summer at Mono Lake
C O V E R P H O T O B Y R A Y P A R S O N S
P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F R O N W O L F
The
Mono Lake Newsletter
is a quarterly publication of theMono Lake Committee. Written material contained in thisnewsletter may be quoted or reproduced for review, reporting,educational purposes, or related non-profit uses; a copy of thepublication is requested. Reproduction or quotation for otherpurposes may be approved upon written request.ISSN #0275-6633. Copyright © 2010 Mono Lake Committee.Printed on 100% recycled paper.
Directors Emeriti
Helen Green • Ed GrosswilerGenny SmithBrent Coeur-Barron, Corporate CounselFounded by David Gaines in 1978
Staff
Executive Director...........................Geoffrey McQuilkinEastern Sierra Policy Director ...................Lisa CuttingEducation Director ....................................Bartshé MillerCommunications Director...............Arya DegenhardtOffice Director ......................................Erika ObedzinskiMembership Coordinator .............................Ellen KingInformation Specialist......................................Greg ReisSacramento Policy Associate ...........Betsy ReifsniderOutdoor Experiences Mgr ..........Santiago EscruceriaLos Angeles Education Coord ....Herley Jim BowlingCommunications Coordinator .....................Elin LjungInfo Center & Bookstore Mgr ..............Rosanne WilsonBook & Map Buyer .......................................Laura WalkerBookkeeper ......................................Donnette HuseltonInfo Center & Bookstore Assistants .......Jessica Horn..............................................................................Russ ReeseOutdoor Education Lead Inst ..........Michael ClausenOutdoor Education Instructor ......................Rosa BreyCanoe Tour Supervisor ...............................Gary NelsonCanoe Coordinator ..............................Morgan LindsayInterpretive Tour Associate .....................Duncan KingBirding Intern ....................................................Nick NeelyMono Lake Interns ...........Sarah Bird, Claudia Corona.........................................Sarah Melcher, Logan Parsons
Mono Lake OfficeInformation Center & Bookstore
Highway 395 at Third StreetPost Office Box 29Lee Vining, California 93541(760) 647-6595
Mono Lake Committee Mission
The Mono Lake Committee is a non-pro
fi
t citizens’ group dedicated to protectingand restoring the Mono Basin ecosystem, educating the public about MonoLake and the impacts on the environment of excessive water use, and promotingcooperative solutions that protect Mono Lake and meet real water needs withouttransferring environmental problems to other areas.
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Mono Lake Newsletter – Summer 2010
Board of Directors
Sally Gaines, Mammoth Lakes, Chair Tom Soto, Santa Monica, SecretaryDavid Kanner, Redwood City, TreasurerVireo Gaines, BishopMartha Davis, RiversideRichard Lehman, FresnoSherryl Taylor, Mammoth LakesDoug Virtue, San Pedro
info@monolake.orgmonolake.orgmonobasinresearch.org
M
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NEWSLETTER
Summer 2010Volume XXXI, Number 4
Los Angeles Office
1718 Wellesley AvenueLos Angeles, California 90025-3634
A male Osprey (
Pandion haliaetus
) at Mono Lake delivering a fish (not from Mono Lake) to hismate at their nest atop a tufa tower. Osprey can often be seen at South Tufa.
A
t 6:30
AM
every morning a Red-shafted Flicker lands on the railing of the deck outside my bedroom, and pecks with determination. The jack-hammering noise always startles me and the vibrations shake the wholehouse. He arrived in early April, and has come a-tapping every single morning since.The morning
fl
icker visit is a little bit like how it feels when summer comesknocking on the door of the Mono Basin. You know it’s coming—in fact every year,right around the end of March you start getting excited about things like bare feet.Yet, when it hits, suddenly the summer clouds are overhead and you’re standingthere warm to the bone with your T-shirt on, it’s a little bit shocking.This issue of the
Newsletter
features one of the most exciting milestones in thehistory of stream restoration at Mono Lake: the synthesis report. Twelve years of courtroom litigation, rugged
fi
eld work, collaborative meetings, dedicated monitoring,passionate debate, and steadfast determination on the part of many people have goneinto this report. Upon completion, it will point the way for stream restoration in theMono Basin for the foreseeable future, change the way it recovers from the damage of the past, and determine what it will look like for future generations.The development of the synthesis report was ordered by State Water Board in1998. Since the day the order was written the Mono Lake Committee has workedtirelessly to prepare for this moment, and yet, somehow we
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nd ourselves a bitsurprised that the day has actually arrived.To understand the magnitude of what the report means for the Mono Basin, you’llhave to read Lisa’s article on page 3. And there are more of these good surprises inthe pages that follow too … a budget solution for state parks … a beaver on LeeVining Creek … hope for Mill Creek … a new trail to the lake….And then, get on out there, its summertime! Change is afoot, and Mono Lake hasin
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nite surprises in store.—Arya Degenhardt, Communications Director
Summer 2010 – Mono Lake Newsletter
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Turning research into restoration
Twelve years of research and monitoring chart new course in unparalleled restoration process
by Lisa Cutting
Continued on page 4
S
ixteen years after the precedent-setting decisionby the State Water Resources Control Board tosave Mono Lake and its tributary streams—and 12years after detailed restoration orders were issued—Mono’srecovery is again approaching a watershed event.As called for in 1998 in Order 98-05, the State WaterBoard-appointed stream scientists (see box on page 5) are inthe process of
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nalizing recommendations to re
fi
ne restoration
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ows for Rush, Lee Vining, Parkerand Walker creeks. They have beenhard at work “synthesizing” allmonitoring data,
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eld observations,and current scienti
fi
c research toinform their recommendations,which are expected to be
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nalizedthis summer.The recommendations andsupporting documentation havebeen released in a draft reportthat, as of press time, all interestedparties including the Mono LakeCommittee have reviewed andcommented on. Achieving the bestoutcome for Mono Basin streams iscritical to their continued recovery.This is the most important work the Mono Lake Committee has donefor the health and restoration of thetributary streams since winning theirrewatering in the courtroom in the1980s and setting their restoration inmotion at the State Water Board inthe 1990s.And for the streams,
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sh,songbirds, and riparian forests,this is the critical moment that willin
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uence their recovery and healthfor decades to come.
What’s in a title?
Actually, in this case quite abit:
(Draft) Mono Basin Stream Restoration and MonitoringProgram: Synthesis of InstreamFlow Recommendations to the StateWater Resources Control Board and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power
, lays out exactlywhere we are in the process of securing the necessary
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owsfor the streams.The report takes all the information the stream scientistshave collected through monitoring and studies throughout theyears, and by applying a fairly rigorous analytical strategy,it identi
fi
es new
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ow regimes for the creeks. In general, the
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ow recommendations call for higher spring peak
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ows, lowerwinter base
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ows, and a much more sophisticated range of intermediary
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ows that addressspeci
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c needs of the system, suchas riparian vegetation recruitmentand
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ows that stimulate benthicmacroinvertebrate production.
The synthesis
The synthesis part of the processwas perhaps the most challenging.It’s (relatively) easy to say what
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ows are needed in the summerfor trout or the amount of waterneeded to move sediment andscour out pools. But when you tryto combine all of those necessary
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ow amounts and address all thedifferent needs of the system asa whole, it becomes signi
fi
cantlymore complicated.The stream scientists used anapproach called Number of GoodDays (NGD). First, they identi
fi
edthe optimum
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ow ranges for 14ecosystem components—these
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ow ranges would achieve desiredecological outcomes for a rangeof dates when that particular
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owshould be delivered. For example,between October 1 and March 31the optimum
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ow in Lee ViningCreek for brown trout winterholding habitat is 16–22 cubicfeet per second (cfs). Similarly,to achieve
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oodplain deposition,movement of coarse sediment, andscouring of deep pools on RushCreek, a
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ow of between 450 and600 cfs at some time between April1 and September 30 is necessary.Years when this threshold is
A 2003 aerial view of the Rush Creek watershed.
P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F M C B A I N & T R U S H A N D R O S S T A Y L O R & A S S O C I A T E S
Grant LakeReservoir Parker Creek Walker Creek Rush Creek Mono Lake
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