Category: Salton Sea

The Salton Sea spreads across a remote valley in California’s lower Colorado Desert, 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the Mexican border. For birds migrating along the Pacific coast, it’s an avian Grand Central Station. In midwinter tens of thousands of snow geese, ducks, pelicans, gulls and other species forage on and around the lake. Hundreds of other species nest there year-round or use it as a rest stop during spring and fall migration.

At the dawn of the 20th century, this massive oasis didn’t even exist. It was created in 1905 when Colorado River floodwaters breached an irrigation canal under construction in Southern California and flowed into a basin that had flooded in the past. In earlier years, the sea covered roughly 40 square miles more than its current size of 343 square miles (890 square kilometers).

Since then, agricultural runoff from newly formed nearby irrigation districts has sustained it. By midcentury, the sea was considered a regional amenity and stocked with popular sport fish.

Now, however, this resource is in trouble. Wasteful irrigation practices that maintained the sea have been reduced, and excess water is now being transferred to thirsty coastal cities instead. The sea’s volume has declined to roughly 4.6 million acre-feet, losing nearly 3 million acre-feet since the mid-2000s. (An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons – the amount of water required to cover an acre of land to a depth of one foot).

As water evaporates from its surface, its salinity has spiked: The sea is now almost twice as salty as the Pacific Ocean.

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Exposing the Desert Series – storymaps.arcgis.com/

The Salton Sea is ecologically a part of the Colorado River watershed which comprises parts of southwestern US and northern Mexico (Vélez-Ibáñez and Heyman 2017). In an effort to colonize the southwest in the 19th century, the US Bureau of Land Reclamation and private investors sought to control the Colorado River watershed (Reisner 1986). From 1905-1907 the Salton Sea was formed when flood waters broke an irrigation canal constructed by the California Development Company. After the flood waters were controlled, the Sea was kept in order to maintain farming in the area and is officially designated as a sump, a dump for agroindustrial pollutants (De Buys 1999; Rudy 2005; Cantor and Knuth 2019).

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Geologic Hazards and the Future of the Salton Sea

Geonarrative

Government will spend $250 million on cleanup, restoration at the drying lake. By Kathleen Ronayne

SACRAMENTO — The federal government said Monday it will spend $250 million over four years on environmental cleanup and restoration work around a drying Southern California lake that’s fed by the depleted Colorado River.

The future of the Salton Sea — and who is financially responsible for it — has been a key issue in discussions over how to stave off a crisis in the Colorado River. The lake was formed in 1905 when the river overflowed, creating a resort destination that slowly morphed into an environmental disaster as water levels receded, exposing residents to harmful dust and reducing wildlife habitat.

The lake is largely fed by runoff from farms in California’s Imperial Valley, who use Colorado River water to grow many of the nation’s winter vegetables as well as feed crops such as alfalfa. As the farmers reduce their water use, less flows into the lake. California said it would reduce its reliance on the over-tapped river only if the federal government put up money to mitigate the effects of less water flowing into the sea.

“It’s kind of a linchpin for the action we need to see on the Colorado River,” said Wade Crowfoot, California’s natural resources secretary. “Finally we are all in agreement that we can’t leave the Salton Sea on the cutting room floor; we can’t take these conservation actions — these extraordinary measures — at the expense of these residents.”

The deal announced Monday needs approval from the Imperial Irrigation District, the largest user of Colorado River water. The water entity’s board will take it up Tuesday.

Both the district’s general manager and board member JB Hamby applauded the deal Monday.

“The collaboration happening at the Salton Sea between water agencies and state, federal, and tribal governments is a blueprint for effective cooperation that the Colorado River Basin sorely needs,” Hamby said in a statement.

The $250 million will come out of the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, which set aside $4 billion to stave off the worst effects of drought across the U.S. West. Most of the money is contingent on the Imperial Irrigation District and the Coachella Valley Water District making good on their commitments to reduce their own use of river water. Both submitted proposals to cut back their use for payment as part of a new federal program.

The quarter-billion dollars will largely go to bolster and speed up existing state projects designed to lower the negative environmental impact of the drying lake bed.

The state has committed nearly $583 million to projects at the sea, including dust suppression and habitat restoration. One project aims to create wetlands and ponds that will limit dust from blowing into the air while creating safe spaces for fish and birds, according to the state.

The deal comes as the U.S. Interior Department and the seven states that rely on the river — California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming — scramble to stave off the worst effects of the ongoing drought and historic overuse of the river. Lakes Powell and Mead, the key reservoirs that store river water and provide hydropower across the West, are only about a quarter full.

After months of failed negotiations over a deal to drastically cut water use, the federal government in October said it would pay farmers and cities to cut back through activities such as leaving fields unplanted or lining canals to prevent water from seeping into the ground. Proposals were due this month. Meanwhile, the Interior Department has taken steps to unilaterally revise guidelines that govern when water shortages are declared, a move that could force states to further cut back.

The Salton Sea, meanwhile, became its own political flash point in October when Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, then up for reelection, urged the federal government to withhold any environmental cleanup money unless California agreed to give up more water. That prompted criticism he was using communities that already suffer from poor air quality as a bargaining chip.

The agreement marks a good step forward, but key details still need to be fleshed out, said Frank Ruiz, Salton Sea program director for Audubon California. He worries that $250 million is not enough to mitigate all of the damage already done at the sea.

“This is a great step, but I think we need a lot more,” he said. “We need to continue discussing water sustainability in the region.”

Broadly, he wants to see a more equitable distribution of the region’s water supplies and hopes the Salton Sea gets a guaranteed minimum amount of water even as overall use declines.

Ronayne writes for the Associated Press.

Source

On Sept. 30 the Independent Review Panel set up by California’s Salton Sea Management Program issued its final report. SSMP charged the panel with evaluating proposals to import water to the Salton Sea. In the end, the panel did not endorse any of the 18 proposals.

The panel found that the key issue is not the size of the sea, it’s the salinity, which is nearly twice that of the ocean and getting worse. A smaller sea can achieve the principal objectives of salinity reduction, environmental restoration and regional air quality improvement. First, the state should embark as soon as possible on designing and building a desalination plant at the sea. Second, the state should collaborate with the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) on a program to acquire water for dedication to the sea. Finally, the state needs to finance an aggressive program to manage playa dust, expanding on its initial programs.

IID’s farmers would be asked to provide replacement water for the salty brine removed while the sea is being desalinated. As the sea’s water quality improves, the amount of replacement water needed would decline. In the early years, roughly 140,000 acre-feet per year of applied water would be needed, less in rainy years, and declining over time.  Without this, the plan could proceed, but the sea would reach a smaller ultimate volume if the brine water isn’t replaced.

IID, Imperial County and its residents have much to gain from implementing the panel’s recommendations. The impacts of air pollution are a shared local burden. Recreational opportunities from a restored sea, from bird watching to fishing, would mostly benefit residents, although the local tourist economy would also grow.