Great Sierra River Cleanup
Saturday, September 17
8:30 - 11:30am
Meet where East Line Street-Poleta Rd in Bishop crosses the Owens River. MAP
Join the Range of Light Group and the Eastern Sierra Land Trust (ESLT) in cleaning up one of our waterways. ESLT will provide plastic gloves and trash bags. Please wear long pants and sturdy footwear, bring a water bottle, wear sun protection, and bring a trash grabber if you have one. RSVP at claire@eslt.org.
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 Support No Hot Creek Mine Campaign
Trout Trot
5K/10K run/walk
Saturday, October 8, 2022
9:00 am start at the Owens River Rd. (map)
Signup to run here. Volunteers are most welcome. Contact mattypbs@gmail.com.
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 Got Questions about Electric Cars?
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Come visit with owners showing their electric vehicles at the Tesla Charging Station on West Line St. and Warren Ave, Bishop, CA. Saturday, October 1st
9:00 am - 12:00 noon
EV line up. Photo credit: Sharon Geiken
National Drive Electric Week: September 23 - October 2
Sponsored by the Electric Vehicle Association, Sierra Club, and Plug Share
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 Range of Light Group
Highway Cleanup
Saturday October 15, 8:00 - 11:00 am
Please join us for our 30th highway cleanup season. The Range of Light Group has a 2-mile section of Highway 395 north of Mammoth Lakes, CA. Meet at the Crestview Rest Area, 5 miles north of Mammoth lakes. It works best if we have at least 8 volunteers. Wear closed shoes, hat, and dress in layers. A mask is briefly required in the car when you are shuttled to your starting location. Snacks provided and there is a prize for the most unusual roadside find. No dogs while picking up trash, please. Help keep the tradition going. Sign up on MeetUp or meet us there. Thank you! Photo credit: J. Hihn
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Eastern Sierra Exploratory Drilling Projects
Where do they stand?
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 Long Valley outside of Mammoth Lakes-- We are waiting for the judge's decision whether the Inyo National Forest should require an environmental assessment or not. KORE Mining will give the court two-weeks notice before starting. No word so far. They told the judge they might start before the decision is made in order to finish before winter sets in. We might see heavy equipment and drill rigs across from the Hot Creek Fly Fishing Ranch this fall.This is Bi-state Sage Grouse territory.
 Conglomerate Mesa, Inyo Mountains-- K2 Gold is deciding this week whether or not to pay for an environmental impact study. If they do decide to go forward with the project, then a scoping notice for the project could be released as early as October for public comment. The project would involve drilling at 30 locations and reopening old road scars to get to the locations. The mesa is covered in healthy Joshua trees, tells a unique geologic story, and has historic and pre-historic cultural resources.
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 Bald Peak, Nevada — A decision memo is expected in October. This project will be a categorical exclusion under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This in a remote part of the Bodie Hills and will be accessed solely by helicopter. Paramount Gold will use drilling platforms to avoid surface disturbances. However, it is in Bi-state Sage Grouse territory and on a pronghorn migration route. The helicopter noise and activity will impact them.
 Sawtooth Ridge at Aurora, Nevada—A decision memo is expected in October. This project will be a categorical exclusion under NEPA. Sawtooth Ridge is behind the historic Aurora Cemetery and is covered in mature, large pinyon pine trees. It was explored about 30 years ago and the scars are still visible. However, after this project, the hillside will become bare as hundreds of trees will be removed. Klondex will be doing the drilling for Hecla Nevada.
 Spring Peak/Aurora Peak, Nevada—Headwater Gold will continue drilling this fall under a categorical exclusion. They will be clearing more drill pads and roads to them. Spring Peak is behind Cedar Hill on the north end of Alkali Valley. Pronghorn and Bi-state Sage Grouse are in the area. Headwater Gold's website says they "found significant gold values" in 4 of the 5 drill holes they drilled last summer.
There will be many more exploration projects. The exploration companies are building a map of the gold deposits underground. Each time they drill, they add to the map. Eventually, the map will be complete and then the mining proposals will follow. It may be years of drilling projects, but there's a good chance they will lead to mining operations and then become superfund sites. That is why we need to change the 1872 General Mining Act, now.
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Coyote Tobacco Flowers: a Bug Condominium!
By Lynn Boulton
Last week was Biodiversity Week and the great CA State Parks staff set up a Mono Basin Bioblitz to collect information about what lives in the Mono Basin and for us to explore the wonders of nature. A Bioblitz is a way for citizens to take photos of various forms of life i.e. nature, and enter them in the iNaturalist app. I love doing that so I spent some mornings taking photos of plants and animals in the Mono Basin when I discovered an interesting bug I had never seen before. I was taking photos of a flowering Coyote Tobacco plant when I noticed the dead flowers were covered in these tiny, black bugs. They were crawling head-first into the empty calyxes that once had flowers, where the seeds were developing. You could look into the calyxes and see their rears sticking out. Some were enjoying the sun on the outside.
 Coyote Tobacco
adult Ebony bug nymphs
After hours of searching the internet to figure out what bug they were, I narrowed it down to Ebony Bugs, the Genus of Corimelaena. They have a protective shield that covers most of their abdomen and wings. I was fooled by the nymphs for awhile. They had white markings on them that the adults didn't have. So did they recently hatch and were transforming into their final form? I went back and found them on other Coyote Tobacco plants, but only on that type of plant. Not sure how they found those plants or where they go next, but they sure were neat and fun to discover! Come out next year with us!
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Subscribe to Every Last Drop
Stay Informed About LADWP Impacts on the Eastern Sierra
 New editions of Every Last Drop are out. Have you been keeping up? This is a great way to find out about LADWP's impact on the Owens Valley!
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If you would like to help us protect the environment, contact us. We'd love to have your help and input! Thank you!
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Serving Inyo and Mono Counties
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