Why is ecological restoration needed at Mono Lake?
• A: In 1941, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) began diverting four of Mono Lake’s five tributary streams for urban water use. By 1982, Mono Lake had dropped 45 vertical feet, doubled in salinity, and lost a number of freshwater habitats, such as delta marshes and brackish lagoons that formerly provided lake-fringing habitat for millions of waterbirds. The tributary streams dried up and lost stabilizing streamside vegetation. Periodic floods in high runoff years degraded the stream channels and caused downcutting, which lowered the water table. In turn, the lush cottonwood forests in the streams’ floodplains died. The Mono Basin lost a premier fishery on Rush Creek as well as over 90 percent of its former ducks and geese.
In 1941, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) began diverting four of Mono Lake’s five tributary streams for urban water use. By 1990, Mono Lake had dropped 45 vertical feet, doubled in salinity, and lost a number of freshwater habitats, such as delta marshes and brackish lagoons that formerly provided lake-fringing habitat for millions of waterbirds. The tributary streams dried up and lost stabilizing streamside vegetation. Periodic floods in high runoff years degraded the stream channels and caused downcutting, which lowered the water table. In turn, the lush cottonwood forests in the streams floodplains died. The Mono Basin lost a premier fishery on Rush Creek as well as over 90 percent of its former ducks and geese.
