  We present new ground-based data following up on the HST discovery of
low-redshift Lya absorption in the sight-line to the quasar 3C273. Narrow-band
filter observations show that there are no H II regions within a 12 kpc radius
of the line-of-sight to the quasar, at the velocities of three of the
absorbers. Broad-band imaging shows that there are no dwarf galaxies at Virgo
distances with absolute magnitude above MB~-13.5 and within a radius of 40 kpc.
We present fiber spectroscopy of galaxies within a radius of 1 deg, down to an
apparent magnitude of B~19. We show that the absorbers are definitely not
distributed at random with respect to the galaxies, but also that the
absorber-galaxy correlation function is not as strong as the galaxy-galaxy
correlation function on large scales. Our data are consistent with the
hypothesis that all galaxies more luminous than 1/10 L* have effective
cross-sections (for association with absorbers with Log(NH)>13.0), of between
0.5 and 1 Mpc. We also show a clear case of a Lya absorber which has no galaxy
brighter than MB=-18 within a projected distance of 4.8 Mpc, and discuss the
possibility that Lya absorbers are destroyed in a rich galaxy environment.
