[4] From fishing derbies to boat races, water skiing to an annual Loon Festival, the lake was a key part of Mineral County and Walker River Paiute communities.

Through the Walker Basin Restoration Program, former irrigation rights are being acquired and protected in instream for environmental benefit.

These efforts have established the public trust doctrine in Nevada, though the lawsuit has yet to improve flows to the lake.

Since before European colonization, the lake has been home to annual festivals celebrating the harvests of pine nuts and, historically, fish.

A measurement of the volume of the river about 3 miles (4.8 km) from its mouth, June 4, 1881, gave 400 cubic feet (11 m3) per second as the rate of flow.

This decrease during the dry season is due in a great measure to the extensive use of its waters for irrigation in Mason Valley".

In approximately the first decade of the program, more than 100 peer-reviewed academic journal articles, presentations, posters, and research projects were made possible through federal funding.

[12] Early research-informed conservation goals suggest a TDS level of 12,000 mg/L would support native fish life and allow migratory birds to flourish.

The program has completed more than 20 transactions and donated land to the Mason Valley Wildlife Management Area and Nevada State Parks.

[16] In 1994, Mineral County intervened in ongoing litigation over the Decree to claim that flows to Walker Lake were in the public interest and to re-open the decree to grant Mineral County rights to minimum flows of 127,000 acre-feet (157,000,000 m3) per year into Walker Lake.

[17] The Nevada Supreme Court ruled that the state does have a public trust responsibility and has no statutory authority to re-balance water rights in the system.

This has been construed as both a victory for environmentalists in the recognition of the public trust doctrine for Nevada's waters and a major setback to increasing the flows to Walker Lake.

[18][19] The lakebed is a remnant of prehistoric Lake Lahontan that covered much of northwestern Nevada during the ice age.