Happy Holidays!
Sierra Club Chapter/Group Elections
If you are a member, you should have received a postcard about local Executive Committee elections in early December. Voting is online for those who have an email address with the Sierra Club at www.sierraclub.org/toiyabe/elections. If the Club doesn't have an email for you, you should have received a ballot in the mail. If you need help, email member.care@sierraclub.org. Please vote. All three candidates are incumbents. Elections are closed December 31. Thank you! We will appreciate the votes of encouragement.
If you would like to be on our board or help with our projects, let us know at rangeoflight.sc@gmail.com. It is the members that make things happen! |
Light Bites
Keep Long Valley Green on CBS This Morning!
 CBS's morning news program, This Morning, will be airing a story on Keep Long Valley Green on December 30. This Morning runs from 7-9 am M-F. The piece will talk about the controversy over LADWP withdrawing irrigation water in Long Valley. If you miss it, we will have a link to the video in the next newsletter.
Up Coming Hearing for Keep Long Valley Green
Mark your calendars for January 21, 2021 at 1:30 pm when an Alameda County Superior Court judge will hear the case against LADWP regarding their change in practice as to how much water they will provide the ranchers in Long Valley and Little Round Valley. Both sides have submitted briefs and reply briefs leading up to this. Mono County and the Sierra Club with CDFW as an interested party will be arguing that LADWP's radical change to the usual water allocations should have been addressed through CEQA. If the hearing is recorded, we will put a link to it in the next newsletter.
Solitude Canyon: Revised Proposed Action
On November 8, 2020 the Inyo National Forest released a revised proposed action for the Sherwin Area Recreation Plan. The Forest Service will bring forward the Lakes Basin portion of the proposal, while removing the Solitude Canyon trail from consideration. A trail through Solitude Canyon will require a more extensive assessment of environmental impacts.
Road Easement Request: for Use Change?
Representatives from the ROLG, the Center for Biological Diversity, and a local advocate for responsible recreation met with newly installed Inyo National Forest Supervisor Lesley Yen and District Ranger Phillip DeSenze to discuss the request from Inyo County for four road easements. There are community concerns that granting these easements would likely lead to mixed use (ORVs and vehicles), which would result in increased ORV use on National Forest and National Park lands without monitoring or enforcement in place.
Saline Valley Monarch Butterfly Count
Saline Monarch Count is seeking adventure citizen scientists, avid hikers, and those with wilderness experience to help count Monarch Butterflies in Saline Valley weekly from October through January. Three surveys have been completed so far this year, with two more happening soon. Interested? sign up!
30x30 Ensures Biodiversity & Combats Climate Change
To help solve the crisis facing nature and climate, scientists are urging us to conserve at least 30% of our land and ocean by 2030. Governor Newsom has issued an executive order supporting 30x30. 30x30 is also in Biden's environmental policy as well. ROLG ExCom members are active in 30x30 team strategy meetings. What should be protected in the Eastern Sierra and how? If interested in working on this, contact us at rangeoflight.sc@gmail.com.
A New Resident to the Mono Basin!
Antelope ground squirrels, though common elsewhere, are not often sighted in the Mono Basin. They may be expanding their range as they have been recently sighted on the north side of Mono Lake and in the southern end of the Bodie Hills. Look for the distinctive flash of white on the underside of their tails as they dart across the road. If you have the inclination, please report sightings to: rangeoflight.sc@gmail.com (with GPS coordinates, if possible).
Drilling at Spring Peak on Hold
 OceanaGold has been approved to do exploratory drilling at Spring Peak, NV, which is in the SE corner of the Bodie Hills. OceanaGold leveled five of the planned 23 sites in preparation to start drilling this fall. They also weed-whacked an area to be used for staging that happened to be in the only patch of old growth sagebrush that survived a wildfire in 2013. They couldn't get their drill and crew down here from Alaska before winter and now have to wait until next summer to resume. To protect the Bi-state Sage Grouse, OceanaGold is not allowed to drill from Feb 1-July 15 during the lek and brooding seasons.
Drilling at Conglomerate Mesa Completed
K2 Gold has finished drilling at four sites at
Conglomerate Mesa.  No matter how careful K2 Gold was, it was impossible to leave no trace. K2 Gold still has to re-contour and re-seed the drill sites. They submitted a request to the BLM this month to drill at 30 more sites and to build roads to drive to each site. However, it was incomplete so a BLM scoping document for that project isn't expected until early 2021.
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Lone Pine Rally for Conglomerate Mesa
 In October, a Canadian company, K2 Gold, started drilling for gold at Conglomerate Mesa in southern Inyo County. The Mesa, which is the ancestral homeland of the Paiute-Shoshone and Timbisha Shoshone Indigenous peoples, overlooks Death Valley National Park and is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Even as it drills into the Mesa, K2 Gold hopes to greatly expand its mining activities there to include miles of damaging road construction and 120 drill holes. These are serious and unsettling steps toward a possible industrial scale open pit cyanide heap leach mine that would forever scar this beautiful and, culturally and ecologically important landscape. Your help is needed to stop K2 Gold! Read on
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Picking Up After Our Visitors -- Sierra Trash Eliminators
 Due to Covid-19, (and aren’t we all thoroughly tired of that phrase?) many non-profits, government agencies and businesses which sponsor Eastern Sierra cleanups have been unable to schedule their usual events, Range of Light Group included. However, tourists still show up, and trash accumulates along roadsides, trails and waterways. Many unofficial, citizen driven efforts to deal with the problem sprang up over the summer such as members of the June Lake Trails Committee efforts to monitor and maintain high use sites on The Loop. Then along came Erica Johnson. Read More
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Serving Inyo and Mono Counties
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