A Visit to the Owens Lake and Mono Lake region

Recently, members of the Farmlab team joined colleagues from the Annenberg Foundation on a fact-finding trip to the Owens Lake and Mono Lake region of California's Eastern Sierras.

The group was shown around in part by the good folks at the Mono Lake Committee. Various tour stops included a fledgling fish hatchery, the Dr. Suessian, limestone tufa, and a geothermal operation.

Among other related topics, the trip was an extended watershed study. The area's H2O, of course, had long-since -- and controversially -- been depleted by the city of Los Angeles. The epic story, known by most Angelinos and certainly by Sierra residents, involves legendary Zanjera William Mulholland, spectacular feats of engineering, land speculation, anger, lawsuits, and other 20th century recriminations.

Last December, as this recent newspaper story recounts, Los Angeles began diverting -- or re-diverting, perhaps? -- some water to the Lower Owens River.

Please check back to this Farmlab.org blog in the coming weeks for more text, as well as for photos and audio, from the visit.



Photo captions

At the top of the page, the famous tufa of Mono Lake; also, visible in the lower right-hand corner of the shot, the flies that line the lake's shorline.

Immediately above, a dry patch of the lakebed.

Farmlab photos by Kate Balug