Sand Tufa Mono Lake

This panorama of the Sand Tufa in Mono Lake by photographer Jeff Chen Kuo Chih, earned a Bronze prize at the 2013 Epson International Panorama Awards. These "sand Tufa" used to be underwater since the end of the last Ice Age, but in to the early 1900's, the The City of Los Angeles Department of Water (then privately owned), needing to reallocate most of their Colorado River water supplies for the expanse in housing developments in the San Fernando Valley, opted to avail themselves with salty water from Mono Lake, mostly for the orange groves which still left in the valley. This story was the basis for Roman Polanaski's masterpiece film, "Chinatown"(1974). The LA Department of Water has been under a Federal mandate to bring back the lake to its original levels, but at the rate they are pumping water back, it will take over 100 years.