The report is full of photos of the Mono Lake Committee in action in our focus areas of protection, restoration, education, and scientific research. It also has the Committee’s audited financial information for 2017, our ecological footprint, list of Mono Lake Volunteers, and the names of the Guardians of the Lake and Defense Trust members.
This year, to commemorate the Mono Lake Committee’s 40 years of protection, restoration, and education work in the Mono Basin, we created a guestbook for visitors to sign in the Information Center & Bookstore. Visitors from around the world signed their names and shared their favorite Mono Lake moments. In fact, visitors from 21 countries, 24 US states, and 139 different cities signed the guestbook this summer.
Augie’s [Hess] life intersected with the Mono Lake Committee on more than one occasion. Committee staff interviewed longtime local residents as part of a project to document conditions in the Mono Basin prior to the start of DWP water diversions in 1941. Augie sat down for an interview in 1991. He described meadows with grass fed by springs, ponds with thousands of ducks and geese, fish in all the streams. He recalled that Rush Creek always had water, even when farmers and ranchers were irrigating crops and providing water to livestock.
“2014 marks the 20th anniversary of State Water Board Decision 1631 that mandated lake level rise for Mono Lake and restoration of Mono’s tributary streams and waterfowl habitat. For the last 20 years the Mono Lake Committee has embraced D1631 and the subsequent restoration orders as if they were family members.”
“Conventional wisdom says that in life it is important to celebrate successes. By all accounts, the Mono Basin Stream Restoration Agreement certainly qualifies, so on September 30th we celebrated.
“In truth, we celebrated a lot of things that day—starting with the original State Water Board restoration orders that led us to this day and have produced the results you can already see on Rush, Lee Vining, Parker, and Walker creeks.
“The Mono Lake Committee is thrilled to announce the completion of an innovative agreement with the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) that will result in a significant leap forward in restoration of the health of fisheries, streamside forests, birds, and wildlife on 19 miles of Mono Basin streams, all without reducing water exports to Los Angeles.
“A key element of the agreement, reached jointly with CalTrout and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, is DWP’s commitment to modernize antiquated aqueduct infrastr
“Ending decades of bitter disputes over fragile Mono Lake, Los Angeles and conservationists on Friday announced an agreement to heal the environmental damage caused by diverting the lake’s eastern Sierra tributary streams into the city’s World War II-era aqueduct.
