Photos of the Lee Vining Creek crossing and work by the California Department of Transportation taken 11:15-11:30 AM.
The first two photos show high turbidity in Lee Vining Creek a quarter of a mile downstream from the highway work (below the Best Western Motel in Lee Vining) about ten minutes after someone reported to MLC that CalTrans was muddying the creek. Turbidity was observed and photographed all the way down at the county road near Mono Lake (about an hour later).
The pulse of sediment had disappeared a couple of
minutes later halfway up to the project site (at SCE substation bridge). This is the normally clear
look of Lee Vining Creek at this time of year:
Upon reaching the construction site a couple of minutes later, the
source of the sediment was obvious. The photo below shows an excavator excavating a new channel away from the new culvert (not visible on the
right) that the creek is flowing into. Note the murky water entering the
creek from the excavated channel.
The next series of photos shows the excavator dumping the excavated sediment directly onto the sloping creek bank, and the sediment rolling down the hill in a cloud of dust into the creek.
Note the splash of muddy water at the center of the
photo just to the left of the green bush:
A close up shot of sediment being pushed into the creek:
Another close shot. Note the water becoming murky
downstream:
A shot of the chocolate brown creek on the right after the sediment begins
to mix with the water.
Unnatural inputs of sediment into the creek have the potential to negatively affect the aquatic life in the creek. Unnatural sediment additions often introduce organic matter, toxins, and lower the level of dissolved oxygen in the stream. This makes it difficult for invertebrates and fish to breathe and find food. Gravels used for spawning and used by invertebrates can be smothered during this low flow time of year. Under natural conditions, most sediment moves at high flows that can flush gravels and deposit sediment on the banks and floodplain.
The Mono Lake Committee notified the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board and the California Department of Fish and Game of this and within the week met with Lahontan's representative, CalTrans representatives, and the Project Manager and Vice President of Yeager Construction on the site. CalTrans and Yeager agreed to do a better job complying with water quality regulations.
With the repeated violations on this project and the greater scope of the project than analyzed in the 1997 Negative Declaration/Finding of No Significant Impact, the Mono Lake Committee is extremely concerned about the proposed widening project along the shore of Mono Lake north of Lee Vining. We are working to ensure that the Mono Lake Widening Project is carefully designed and analyzed and only goes forward if all environmental concerns are addressed so that this doesn't happen again there.
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