State asked to stop diverting iconic Mono Lake’s water to Los Angeles
Stay up-to-date with free briefings on topics that matter to all Californians. Subscribe to CalMatters today for nonprofit news in your inbox.
Lea este artículo en español.
As trickling snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada slowly raises Mono Lake — famed for its bird life and outlandish shoreline mineral spires — advocates are pressuring state water officials to halt diversions from the lake’s tributaries to Los Angeles, which has used this clean mountain water source for decades.
Environmentalists and tribal representatives say such action is years overdue and would help the iconic lake’s ecosystem, long plagued by low levels, high salinity and dust that wafts off the exposed lakebed. The city of Los Angeles, they argue, should simply use less water, and expand investments in more sustainable sources – especially recycled wastewater and uncaptured stormwater. This, they say, could help wean the city off Mono basin’s water for good.
In December, the Mono Lake Committee, the basin’s leading advocacy group, sent a letter to the State Water Resources Control Board requesting an emergency pause on water diversions from the lake. The water board hosted an online workshop to discuss the matter in February, and it is now considering further actions to restore the naturally saline lake.
Geoff McQuilkin, the Mono Lake Committee’s executive director, said the lake will probably rise another four feet in 2023 — reason, as he sees it, to double down and halt exports.
“This is a year to take advantage of,” he said. “We’d like to lock in these gains.”
But the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is pushing back. The agency began diverting the Mono basin’s water in 1941, and officials say this supply, though a minute fraction of its overall demands, is a vital part of its portfolio, which includes water imported from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the Colorado River. The agency also has brushed away claims that the basin’s wildlife — especially nesting birds — are threatened by the city’s diversions. “The Mono Basin ecosystem remains healthy,” the department recently stated. Moreover, the city has already cut exports from the lake’s tributaries by 85%, starting in the early 1990s, when landmark hearings triggered tighter rules on sending the basin’s water to Los Angeles.
“That’s approximately 70,000 acre-feet per year,” said Anselmo Collins, the city water department’s assistant general manager of the water system, during the February workshop.
Historic diversions to Los Angeles amounted to between 80,000 and 100,000 acre-feet, and more, of the basin’s water annually. Beginning in 1995, that was cut to between 4,500 and 16,000 acre-feet annually. Mono advocates say that’s still too much.
The state water board has remained tight-lipped about how it may respond to the demands from Mono Lake’s advocates. Samuel Boland-Brien, a supervising engineer with the board, said the agency plans to hold a hearing, though he couldn’t say when, to discuss options for recovering Mono Lake.
Its surface elevation is currently around 6,380 feet, and in the past 30 years it has never risen much past 6,385 — still seven feet below a target recovery level of 6,392 feet, established in 1994.
“The need to reach that level isn’t optional,” Boland-Brien said.
While existing rules on Mono Lake diversions are designed to manage the basin’s ecosystem – broadly categorized as public trust resources – they don’t take into account the needs of the basin’s indigenous residents, namely the Kutzadika’a tribe.
Dean Tonenna, a Kutzadika’a botanist, said his people were left out of the 1990s negotiations that led to the existing diversion rules. “The tribe has not been meaningfully engaged in any of the discussions or workshops that led to the decision,” Tonenna said.
He said “a racist legacy” led to the lowering of the lake and still compromises his people’s connection to the ecosystem. Now, he and other local tribal members want their interests considered.
Brian Gray, a senior fellow and water law expert with the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California, said the dilemma over how to restore Mono Lake could prompt a review of the historical decisions that gave Los Angeles ownership of a share of the basin’s water. If state officials conclude that the basin would benefit from having more water, he said, the water board “would have an obligation to reconsider its water rights decision, and specifically address the question of whether Los Angeles should be cut back, partially or completely.”
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: