Kore Mining drill sites on the east side of the Resurgent Dome. View from Hot Creek Ranch.

The US Forest Service approved the Long Valley Exploratory Drilling Project on September 27. In response, the Sierra Club along with three other conservation organizations, CBD, FOI, and Western Watersheds Project, filed a NEPA complaint against the US Forest Service for approving the Long Valley Exploratory Drilling Project as a Categorical Exclusion. Under a "Cat Ex" the Forest Service reviews Kore Mining's Plan of Operations and supporting documents, negotiates changes, then gives the green light to proceed. A "Cat Ex" bypasses the environmental review step that allows the public to comment. This is in Bi-state Sage Grouse territory. The Forest Service should and could do more to protect them. Read on...

Thank you all who helped us pick up trash at our Adopt-A-Highway section of Highway 395 by the Crestview Rest Stop on Saturday, September 25. We needed eight people at least to make it work and eight people came. Whew! 

The winner of the Best Find this time was a rock painted to look like a tennis shoe with a message on the back. Some sort of geocache game for painted rocks, it seems. Great runners up: a new pair of men's tennis shoes, a little chipmunk toy, and a red and a black pair of men's underwear in good condition! It is always a surprise what we find from $20 bills to a hundred Apples-to-Apples cards strewn about. 

Best of all! There was a pan of water at the rest stop set out for doggies needing a drink that attracted birds, chipmunks, and wasps. We were entertained by a pair of white-headed woodpeckers, several white-breasted nuthatches, a black-throated grey warbler, and I think a few red-breasted Nuthatches that all flocked to a pan of water. The snacks were great too!  Thank you, Dick and Joanne. It was a fun morning.

A “pre-construction evaluation” report to replace Well 247 in the Laws area to the west of Highway 6 was on the agenda of the October 18th Technical Group meeting. LADWP plans to file a Notice of Exemption where the project would be exempt from an environmental review under CEQA. The Inyo County Water Department supported the proposal. The public attending, who spoke, did not. Why? Read more...

To understand the real impact of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s (LADWP’s) activities in the Eastern Sierra, sign up for the Keep Long Valley Green’s new newsletter, Every Last Drop. The newsletter will spotlight LADWP actions, past and current, and tell the inconvenient truth that LADWP won’t tell. The articles are short, but concise. Subscribe now to Every Last Drop and catch up by reading the first 5 editions of the newsletter.

On 9/23/21, after 17 years of comments, litigation, competing projects, environmental analysis and more, a 40-year license was issued to Pine Creek Mine, LLC for the Pine Creek Mine Hydroelectric Project (P-12532-006) by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), but with many requirements and stipulations…. The project creatively converts the closed Union Carbide Tungsten Mine into a source of renewable energy that can produce 1.5 MW of electricity with the water that naturally flows through the mine shafts. Read more...