Mono Lake Supporters Raise Wineglasses to Toast a Victory Over L. A. : Water: They celebrate judge’s order that DWP stop draining the lake to let it rise to maintain its ecosystem.

Over Chardonnay and Zinfandel, 200 or so people gathered for what many here view as that most perfect of reasons--a victory against Los Angeles in the never-ending warfare over water.

As for settings, it could not have been better--the St. Francis Yacht Club. A few feet beyond the club’s oversized windows, wind surfers skimmed the bay water, with the Golden Gate Bridge as a backdrop.

Specifically, the celebration Friday was about the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s latest court loss over Mono Lake. A judge in El Dorado County ruled last month that Los Angeles would have to stop draining the lake and let it rise to a level that would ensure the ecosystem’s survival.

“It’s not every day you beat Los Angeles,” Martha Davis, executive director of the Mono Lake Committee, told the crowd.

As if the issue and the setting were not enough, there was, in true San Francisco tradition, wine. For $50 donations, people could enter a raffle for one of three wine cellars, selected by connoisseurs.

“Everyone loves good wines,” said Grace DeLeat, of Sausalito, a Mono Lake Committee member who organized the event. “They know it’s for a good cause.”

Nowhere do people care more deeply about the cause of Mono Lake than in the Bay Area. And no issue brings out a Northern Californian’s hostility toward the south more than water.

There were sneering references to “lush lawns and shiny cars” of Los Angeles. A poster prepared for the event by an editorial cartoonist depicted Los Angeles water interests as a sleazy Hollywood type.

“There tends to be a better educated population on water issues in the north,” San Francisco attorney Sue Hestor said.

Bob Hattoy, Southern California regional director of the Sierra Club, in town for the weekend, put it more bluntly: “San Franciscans love to go to events that beat up on Los Angeles. There’s an air of superiority that goes with trashing L. A. at the St. Francis Yacht Club.”

Over the years, director Davis noted, the Mono Lake Committee’s membership in Los Angeles has grown. The committee’s main office is in Burbank, and a third of its 21,000 members are Southern Californians. The remainder are in the Bay Area and Central California.

But the committee got its start here in the 1970s. Many of its longest tenured members are here. “Save Mono Lake” bumper stickers are a common sight here.

Davis said that for years the DWP portrayed the fight as “win-lose”--”if Mono Lake won, L. A. would lose.” But that’s changing, Davis hopes. She is confident that a compromise can be struck that will ensure that Los Angeles gets the water it needs, while Mono Lake and its wildlife are allowed to thrive.

Faced with repeated losses in the courts, DWP Commission President Michael Gage last week announced his support of a plan to settle the fight by replacing lost Mono Lake water with San Joaquin Valley water.

After more than a decade of court fights, however, the developing trust is fragile. Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy, addressing the Mono Lake Committee on Friday, told the crowd that Gage has “good environmentalist credentials.” McCarthy praised Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) for taking a “broad view” on water issues.

But, he added, “I’ll have to wait for the full details to say that with an exclamation point.”