Mono Lake

From a distance that oval of dark blue at the base of the Eastern Sierra looks much like what Mark Twain dubbed it--"the Dead Sea of California." So why would anyone put a "Save Mono Lake" sticker on a car? You have only to detour to the water's edge to discover that Mono Lake is not dead but decidedly alive and vital. A good place to get acquainted is at the new reserve on the south shore that protects the odd minarets made from mineral deposits called tufa.

Paul Hiller visited the Eastern Sierra in October to camp and photograph the changing aspen leaves. During his trip, he took a detour to Mono Lake to take in its splendor. "I captured this image just before dusk and was intrigued by the still water and incredible reflection of the blue sky against it, along with the symmetry that the reflections created," he said. The Woodland Hills resident used a Canon PowerShot S95. View past photos we've featured . To upload your own, visit our reader travel photo gallery . When you upload your photo, tell us where it was taken and when.

Paul Hiller visited the Eastern Sierra in October to camp and photograph the changing aspen leaves. During his trip, he took a detour to Mono Lake to take in its splendor. "I captured this image just before dusk and was intrigued by the still water and incredible reflection of the blue sky against it, along with the symmetry that the reflections created," he said. The Woodland Hills resident used a Canon PowerShot S95. View past photos we've featured . To upload your own, visit our reader travel photo gallery . When you upload your photo, tell us where it was taken and when.

The good news: Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve has been given a reprieve from the budget-chopping plan to shut 70 California State Parks by next summer. The bad news: Visitors will have to pay a new fee to stop at the ancient saltwater lake in the Eastern Sierra near Lee Vining, Calif. State parks announced Thursday that the Bodie Foundation has stepped forward and signed a contract to collect fees -- no word yet on how much -- at Mono Lake that would raise money to keep the park open.

Consequences for aquatic plants and animals at varying lake depths, according to the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences: At 6,430 feet above sea level (historic high in 1919): Plankton and algae flourish, as do brine shrimp and brine flies. Migrating grebes and Wilson's phalaropes--types of birds--stop at lake to feed and molt; California gulls breed.

There should have been little surprise at the U.S. Forest Service's recommendation last week that the level of Mono Lake be maintained at the range of 6,390 to 6,377 feet above sea level. The lake now is at the lower limit, just above the point at which Negrit Island ceases being an island and is linked by a land bridge to the Mono Lake shore. This permits predators like coyotes to walk onto the island and prey on this important bird-nesting area.

An extraordinary coalition has gathered in support of state legislation designed to buffer Mono Lake against the sort of water diversions that have reduced the area of the unique saline lake by more than 20 square miles over the past half century. The bills sponsored by Assemblymen Phil Isenberg (D-Sacramento) and William Baker (R-Danville) deserve quick approval by the California Legislature and Gov. George Deukmejian.

The results of the latest scientific study of Mono Lake are valuable, but constitute no dramatic surprise: If the City of Los Angeles imports its full water-right entitlement from the Mono Basin, there will be a dramatic effect on the thriving ecosystem of the lake. A 30-foot drop in the lake level could kill off brine fly and brine shrimp populations and thus drive away many of the birds that use the lake for a seasonal stopover, as well as the California gulls that nest there.

A federal appeals court today rejected a National Audubon Society lawsuit alleging that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power violated federal air and water pollution laws by diverting streams flowing into Mono Lake. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the lawsuit belongs in state courts because federal law does not apply to any of the questions raised in the 1979 lawsuit.

It has been politically controversial for quite some time. But that is only one reason why every year nearly as many visitors flock here as birds. Mono Lake also attracts sightseers who want a close look at its curious calcium carbonate formations called tufa (pronounced too-fah) that were made when freshwater springs forced themselves up through the salty lake water to create white limestone towers.

The stage was set by a coy news release from NASA that hinted at a discovery tied to the search for extraterrestrial life. The blogosphere went wild: Had bacteria been found on one of Saturn's moons, or life of some sort on Mars? FOR THE RECORD: Mono Lake bacteria: A Dec. 23 article in Section A about a bacteria from Mono Lake that may be able to survive on the toxic element arsenic quoted Harry Collins, who studies the sociology of scientific knowledge at the University of Cardiff, and said that the university is in England.

Last week, amid much fanfare, scientists reported they had found an organism that ? unlike all previously observed life on Earth ? was able to do without phosphorus and use the normally deadly element arsenic in its place. This week, skeptical scientists expressed serious concerns about the discovery and the researchers' interpretation of their experimental results. "There must be a hundred things in that paper that have people going, 'Hey, wait, that can't be right,'" said Rosie Redfield, a microbiologist and professor of zoology at the University of British Columbia who kicked off the widespread criticism with a blog post last Saturday.

After days of rampant speculation that NASA was on the cusp of revealing it had detected extraterrestrial life, the reality was slightly more down-to-Earth. A team of scientists revealed Thursday that they had found a remarkable quality in a bacterium growing quietly in California's Mono Lake ? it is the only known life form able to subsist on the deadly element arsenic. The organism even uses arsenic to build the backbone of its DNA. To researchers searching for life elsewhere in the universe, the discovery still qualified as a heaven-sent event.

In summer, thousands of visitors converge on Mono Lake to see its tufa formations and enjoy its remarkable scenery. Motels and restaurants are jammed, and the small town of Lee Vining, which sits at the eastern gateway to Yosemite National Park -- bustles. But in winter, when the area is sugarcoated with fresh snow, the experience is much more serene, a good time to enjoy the beauty of the lake and the near solitude. Besides, getting to Mono Lake is easy.

Re "A high-water mark for Mono Lake," July 24 Thank you for the stories on the rebirth of California's endangered wetlands. I am blessed to have seen Mono Lake the way it used to be before Los Angeles began to take its water. In 1926, when I was 12, my family took me camping in the high Sierra. The way there was hazardous, with narrow, winding roads. Highway 395 was primitive and rough. The land to the east was a vast meadow extending clear to the lake shore. In the near distance, there it was -- the shimmering jewel of Mono Lake.

It sometimes appears that the Earth is so damaged by human activity that there is nothing we can do to repair it. When something as seemingly innocent as switching on the lights or starting the car helps push the global climate off-kilter, what hope is there for redemption? Californians' apparently unquenchable thirst has dried up lakes and rivers. Owens Lake turned to dust; Mono Lake's level dropped so low that islands once safe for birds to breed on became a peninsula prowled by coyotes.

Not so long ago, and with appropriate drum rolls, we predicted in this space that the old, old war over Mono Lake would soon conclude. And, pushing our luck to the max, we further predicted the winners to be the good guys. OK, score us with two clean doubles. The Mono Lake war has turned into a rout. It now appears that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power will never fulfill its dream of shriveling Mono into a mudhole so it can feed the city's lawn sprinklers.

There was a time when it was hard to find yellow warblers at Rush Creek. But on a recent bright and sunny morning, a yellow warbler plunged through a gap in a stream-side cottonwood forest, flying back to the nest where her chicks were hiding. Suddenly, she was stopped in midair, tangled in a mist net. Field biologist Chris McCreedy found the bird in his snare a few minutes later. "Hi there, sweetie," McCreedy said as he set to work.

Re "Hetch Hetchy restoration is a pricey pipe dream," column, Nov. 30 All the reasons that George Skelton presented to argue that the O'Shaughnessy Dam will not be removed and Hetch Hetchy restored were made (and quickly dismissed as irrelevant) when the issue was the restoration of Mono or Owens lakes. Well, every argument except one: There was never a question about who would pay to restore the flow into Mono Lake. It was always Los Angeles and never the California or U.S. taxpayers.