In addition to Facebook, you can now follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Keep up to date with all Range of Light Group activity by following @SierraClubROLG on your social media platform of choice, or on them all! 

California Natural Resources Agency has an upcoming virtual event featuring expert panelists:  Using Nature-Based Solutions to Advance Equity on June 15. There is no obligation to participate, but we can provide speaking points if you'd like. Please register here. CNRA also has a series of recorded virtual topical workshops focused on the State’s 30x30 commitment and to enlist California’s vast network of natural and working lands in the fight against climate change. We have been helping collect recommendations from each of the California chapters for lands and waters that should be considered for 30x30 protections. If you would like to participate in the 30x30 effort, please contact us at rangeoflight.sc@gmail.com. 

Kore Mining has submitted a Plan of Operations to the Inyo National Forest to drill at 14 locations near Hot Creek outside Mammoth Lakes. They are promoting a mining operation on their website here, as a “Simple open pit & heap leach; Simple=Low Cost.” 

Over 1,300 unique comments, most against the drilling and for an environmental review, were submitted so far. An environmental review would make Kore Mining's desired June 2021 start date impossible. As we wait to learn if there will be an environmental review, you can still influence the outcome of this proposed project by writing a Letter to the Editor or Opinion piece for your local newspaper. Read more.
Tom Harrison map labeled by Lynn Boulton

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Do you have expertise you can lend to represent us at community meetings and report back, participate in Citizen Science, lead a hike, adopt a fishing line tube, or help with a lake cleanup? There are many ways you can participate in the many projects we're leading. Learn more here.
Photo by Bryce Wheeler

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) filed an appeal on May 3, 2021 challenging the Mono County/Sierra Club lawsuit. For now, the court ruling stands. This is a typical LADWP tactic to drag this out in the courts.

LADWP also released a Bi-state Sage Grouse Adaptive Management Plan that they submitted to U.S. Fish and Wildlife on December 20, 2020. In it, LADWP says they will supply enough water to green up 100 meters of pasture along the sagebrush edge by Convict and McGee Creeks when there is enough water in the creeks to do so and still meet CA Dept. of Fish and Wildlife’s stream flow requirements for fish. This would be less than the lawsuit requires them to provide most years. Read more.

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K2 Gold has submitted its phase two drilling plan to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The BLM is preparing a scoping document that will be out soon. The public will have 30 days to comment on it and we hope you will comment. The project tentatively involves drilling one to four holes at 30 sites going down almost 1,000 feet. Read more.
Photo by Range of Light Group

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Springtime is here and it’s time to put on your citizen science hat! Please enter data on, bugs, butterflies, flowers, and more in iNaturalist (especially bugs and butterflies). There is a lot of data on flowers and birds, but not much on insects. You can help with that! Register for our live virtual tutorial to learn how on June 29 at 6.30pm, with Lynn Boulton, ROLG Executive Committee Chairperson.
Photo by Range of Light Group

It looks like we might be able to lead hikes again starting in July. To be a Sierra Club hike leader you need a current first aid/CPR certificate and to take a one-hour online outings leader training. To learn more, email wils.cain@sierraclub.org.
Photo by Joanne Hihn

A five-year, adaptive management plan for the Blackrock Waterfowl Management Area will address cattail overgrowth filling the marsh. Up to 500 acres were flooded year-round since 2007 to provide marsh and wetland habitat for migrating and resident waterfowl, ultimately resulting in cattail overgrowth leaving little open water and food for the waterfowl. The LADWP Standing Committee has approved the plan to correct this by letting the ground dry out during the summer and then cutting the cattails to keep them from growing. Read more.
Photo by Range of Light Group

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Radius Gold has withdrawn their application for exploratory drilling at Bald Peak/Beauty Peak in Bodie Hills...for now. They have withdrawn their request to drill for gold on both the CA and NV sides of Beauty Peak. However, since the ancient hot spring they wanted to explore is part of the rock formation, Radius Gold, or another gold exploration company will be back one day. Read more about various mining interests in the Eastern Sierra.
Photo by Range of Light Group

Another citizen science opportunity for birders is to go birding at the LADWP ponds. The ponds are a mitigation to offset the damage from decades of excessive groundwater pumping in the 1970s and 1980s before they were stopped with a lawsuit. That lawsuit became the Inyo-LADWP Long Term Water Agreement. However, most people don’t know about the ponds. They are to support migratory birds.  We need eBird data to see how effective the ponds are 30 years later—are birds using them?  Read more and see locations.
Photo by Range of Light Group

Look for the protect Conglomerate Mesa billboard when driving north on Highway 395 into Lone Pine. "Protect Conglomerate Mesa. Don't Mine Death Valley's Doorstep. Protectconglomeratemesa.com." Friends of the Inyo was provided a grant to cover the cost.

Rep. Jay Obernolte visited Mono Lake to meet with leaders of the Kutzadika’a Paiute tribe.  He delivered the welcome news that he is introducing H.R. 3649 asking Congress to extend long over due federal recognition to the tribe.  Range of Light Group supports the Kutzadika’a Tribes quest for long overdue recognition.

At 3pm on the 22nd of May (Saturday), the Sierra Club Board of Directors voted unanimously to adopt a new policy on wild horses and burros.  The new policy was introduced by Ross Macfarlane, the Club’s Vice President for Conservation.  He explained that this policy was one of the more difficult policies that absorbed more time for the Club’s Conservation Policy Committee than any other policy in his memory. Read more.
Photo by Janet Barth, article by Jim Catlin

A new Tesla Supercharger is up and running in Bishop, CA.

Other good news, free Caltrans Superchargers were recently installed for non-Tesla electric vehicles at rest stops along Highway 395: Division Creek (under repair at the moment), Coso Junction, and Boron. Caltrans has one at their Bishop Office for public use as well. The Caltrans chargers have Chademo and CCS connectors.

Electrify America installed superchargers at the Von's in Bishop and the Chevron station in Bridgeport in 2019. The coverage here is getting better all the time. Now we just need more level 2, J1772 universal chargers in at hotels! You can help.
Photos by Range of Light Group