What precedents were set during the fight to protect Mono Lake?
• A: Over twenty years of citizen advocacy underlie Mono Lake’s current protection. Before the Water Board decision protecting the lake could be achieved, important legal concepts were debated and decided upon. One of these debates related to restrictions that prohibit dam owners from drying up downstream fisheries. Written into the state’s Fish and Game codes, these provisions were not enforced until lawsuits were brought in the 1980s. Small flows of water were returned to Mono Lake’s tributaries as a result. But a much more fundamental legal issue was decided by the California Supreme Court in 1983. Lawsuits brought by the Mono Lake Committee, the National Audubon Society, and Friends of the Earth proposed that excessive water diversions damaged Mono Lake, violating the public’s right to enjoy the lake and its tributaries. These “Public Trust” rights to navigable bodies of water are written into California’s constitution, yet they had largely gone unenforced in water rights issues. T
