Time is running out to come up with a plan to save the Salton Sea. Water levels in California's largest lake continue to drop, subjecting nearby communities to harmful levels of toxic dust stirred up from the dry, exposed lakebed.
For more than a century, the shallow lake has been a beneficiary of the Colorado River water that feeds the nearby Imperial Valley farm fields. As water was sold off and diverted, more than 15,000 acres of lakebed containing years of fertilizer and pesticide runoff were exposed to the air and desert winds.
The dwindling water supply increases the lake's salinity, killing off fish, destroying once-lush migratory bird habitats and making children sick from the airborne toxins stirred up in the dust.
Kaylee Pineda, a child living in Westmorland, Calif. speaks about her experiences with asthma
Many of the players on Kaylee’s Little League team have asthma. The coach says he watches his asthmatic players and is prepared to respond if any of them start gasping for air.
The California Natural Resources Agency was tasked with coming up with a long-term fix by the end of 2022, and 11 plans on the table focus mainlyon one big idea: pulling in water across the U.S.-Mexican border from the Sea of Cortez north to the Salton Sea. Some proposals are more ambitious than others, envisioning tourism and shipping industries popping up along thedesert canal.
Though full costs are unknown, fixing the Salton Sea arguably would be the biggest North American water project since the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s.
What's happening to the lake?
The modern Salton Sea –which has filled several times before –formed in 1905, when floodwaters from the Colorado River to the east breached an irrigation canal and dumped into a low-lying area called the Salton Sink, adepression in the desert that formed thelower basin of the ancient prehistoric Lake Cahuilla.
In the hundred years since the lake formed, it's been sustained by agricultural runoff and became a rare stopover point for migratory birds traveling the Pacific Flyway.
As the Colorado River water has been transferred from the farms neighboring the lake to growing urban areas, the Salton Sea's footprint has shrunk.
The satellite images below show the impact:
Amodelreleased by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 2015shows what the lake footprint could be in 2035 with no remedial efforts to reverse the lake's fate.
Two major forces affecting the lake's health are its loss in water leveland the sharp increase in salinity, which is twice as high as the ocean. Since 2000, the Salton Sea's surface elevation has dropped more than 10 feet, and more than 15,000 net acres of dry lakebed, known as playa, have been exposed.
As the Salton Sea dries up, the health toll on humans is alarming. Imperial County more than doubles the rest of California in the rate of asthma-related emergency room visits among children ages 5-17.
Any successful plan to save the Salton Sea will need to reverse thesetrends while providing economic benefits to offset the huge costs.
Possible routes for a sea-to-sea fix
The most commonly discussed idea is to build a canal across the U.S.-Mexican border that connects to the Sea of Cortez, 125 miles to the south, and import water to the Salton Sea. By comparison (although much more narrow and shallow), a sea-to-sea canal would be more than twice as long as the Panama Canal.
Such a sea-to-sea route has been promoted by businessman Gary Jennings, a founding partner of the Sea to Sea Canal Co.
Another proposal submitted by Agess Inc. includes flooding 142,000 acres of a dry lakebed in Mexico called Laguna Salada and creatingeconomic development in Baja California.
Sending ocean water across the desert wouldn't be an easy fix, and any plan would need to negotiate agreements with a variety of stakeholders on both sides of the international border with Mexico. Even carefully laid routes would need to traverse private land, communal farmlandsand Cucapá territory. On top of the permitting and treaty hurdles, an exact dollar amount isn't known, but estimates have suggested costs for a canal project would range into the billions of dollars.
About an hour's drive from Bombay Beach, on the south side of the Salton Sea, work crews have been building up islands and digging deep ponds that will soon be filled with lake water. This will be a new habitat for wildlife. The project spans six-and-a-half square miles of exposed shoreline.
One solution to the Salton Sea crisis: Build an underground tunnel to the Pacific Ocean. Due to the western U.S. drought and increased water use, there is a declining amount of water available in the Colorado River to maintain agriculture, enable the lithium recovery industry, or to restore the Salton Sea.
Like the rest of the review panel, we believe the ecology of the sea can be restored. Its elevation can be stabilized with its salinity close to ocean salinity, and the playa's risk of dust pollution can be greatly reduced.
As Salton Sea faces ecological collapse, a plan to save it with ocean water is rejected. For as long as the Salton Sea has faced the threat of ecological collapse, some local residents and environmentalists have advocated a radical cure for the deteriorating lake: a large infusion of ocean water.
The Biden administration has announced a plan to provide $250 million to accelerate environmental projects around the shrinking Salton Sea, a major commitment intended to help revitalize the lake's ecosystems and control hazardous dust in a deal that clears the way for California to take less water from the drought- ...
To irrigate their fields, the valley's farmers rely completely on Colorado River water, which arrives by an 80-mile-long canal. And the Salton Sea, the state's largest lake, relies on water draining from those fields to stay full.
California is taking urgent action to protect communities from climate-driven extremes in weather and expand the state's capacity to capture storm runoff in wet years. Strategies to boost water supplies (this is a pdf file) include groundwater recharge, stormwater capture, reservoir storage and more.
Increase Desal Production Increase Conservation To offset increased evaporation tied to warmer average temperatures, California must capture, recycle, de-salt, and conserve more water. 2) Capture and save more stormwater, above ground and below ground. 3) Reduce use of water in cities and on farms.
New research has determined a decline in Colorado River flow is the reason for that shrinking. As the lake dries up, the concentration of salt and chemicals in the remaining water has increased dramatically, causing a mass die-off of fish and birds, including endangered species.
EnergySource is leading the lithium charge by the Salton Sea, but the company is not alone. Warren Buffett's BHE Renewables runs 10 geothermal energy plants in the region. There's another on the drawing board by an Australian company, Controlled Thermal Resources. Both ventures are part of the lithium rush.
The 10-year Phase I Plan will guide early investments at the Salton Sea to protect public health and ecosystem wealth as the Sea recedes and meet goals set forth by the Governor's Salton Sea Task Force and the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) executed on August 31, 2016, and amended on January 18, 2017 by the ...
Although desalination requires significant energy, California's current extended drought has revived interest in the technology. Experts are already experimenting with new concepts such as mobile desalination units and floating buoys, and at least four major plants will soon be operational along the state's coastline.
Desalinated water is way more expensive than the regular treated water most of us currently drink. For example, a desalination plant in Carlsbad, CA pumps out water that's 73% more expensive than San Diego County's current water supply.
But when the 1970s came along, the popularity of the Salton Sea suddenly dropped: With rising salinity, shoreline flooding, and fertilizers overflowing from nearby farms, this man-made lake became utter chaos. As environmental troubles started arising, fewer visitors set out to the lake, making it akin to a ghost town.
If it dries up, millions of birds could find themselves unable to make the migrations central to their lifecycles. Some of these birds are on the federal endangered species list, making it California's legal duty to preserve their habitats. The brown pelican, which uses the sea, has since been delisted.
As farmers become more efficient with the use of irrigation water, the return flows decreased as have inflows from Mexico. Current hydrologic projections suggest that after 2020, the lake will receive approximately 700,000 and 800,000 acre-feet of inflow annually.
Introduction: My name is Chrissy Homenick, I am a tender, funny, determined, tender, glorious, fancy, enthusiastic person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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