Qualla: Mono Lake: Where Salt Towers Rise From Dying Water

Mono Lake: Where Salt Towers Rise From Dying Water: Introduction

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Los Angeles started killing Mono Lake in 1941 and accidentally created an art installation. The lake, already ancient and alkaline, began shrinking as its tributary streams were diverted to the LA Aqueduct. As water levels dropped, strange towers emerged from the shallows - tufa columns built by calcium-rich springs meeting the lake's carbonated water, hidden for centuries, now exposed to air like the bones of a dying beast. The towers are hauntingly beautiful, and they exist because the lake was being murdered. When environmental lawsuits finally forced LA to limit its take, the lake began slowly rising, and the tufa began slowly disappearing again. The beauty was temporary, like everything.

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Mono Lake: Where Salt Towers Rise From Dying Water: The Lake

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Mono Lake has no outlet. Water arrives from Sierra Nevada snowmelt and leaves only through evaporation, concentrating salts over 760,000 years. The lake is 2.5 times saltier than the ocean and strongly alkaline - undrinkable but not lifeless. Brine shrimp thrive in billions; alka...

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Mono Lake: Where Salt Towers Rise From Dying Water: The Theft

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Los Angeles reached Mono Lake in 1941, extending the aqueduct that had already drained Owens Lake. The city diverted Rush Creek, Lee Vining Creek, and two other streams that fed Mono, claiming water rights purchased decades earlier. The lake began to shrink. By 1982, it had lost ...

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Mono Lake: Where Salt Towers Rise From Dying Water: The Tufa

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Tufa forms where calcium-rich freshwater springs meet the lake's carbonate-laden water. The calcium precipitates as calcium carbonate, building towers around the spring vents over thousands of years. While the lake was full, the towers grew underwater, invisible. As LA drained th...

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Mono Lake: Where Salt Towers Rise From Dying Water: The Fight

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Mono Lake Committee formed in 1978 to save what remained. Lawsuits challenged LA's water rights, invoking the public trust doctrine - the principle that certain resources belong to everyone and can't be destroyed for private benefit. The litigation reached the California Supr...

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Mono Lake: Where Salt Towers Rise From Dying Water: Visiting Mono Lake

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Mono Lake is located east of Yosemite National Park on Highway 395. The Mono Basin Scenic Area Visitor Center interprets the lake's ecology and history. The South Tufa Area offers close access to tufa towers; a trail leads among the formations. Navy Beach has more tufa and swimmi...

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