how to fix the salton sea

More "Salton" Than Sea. Why Don't Californians Care About Saving The Salton Sea? Skinny cats and off-road enthusiasts have replaced Bombay Beach’s water-skiers and beachgoers. It started forming in 1905 when floods breached a levee on the Colorado River, sending a massive flow roaring downhill into a natural bowl, the Salton Sink, some 230 feet below sea level. In the Sea to Sea plan, seawater from the Sea of Cortez -- also called the Gulf of California -- would be moved via a canal and pumps to the Laguna Salada, a dry lake in Mexico west of Mexicali and just south of the US border. “The challenges are daunting, but there hasn’t been a better time to make real progress than right now.” With the sea facing major water cutbacks starting in 2018, Audubon California is working closely with the state and other stakeholders on a restoration plan to avoid massive habitat loss and the ensuing public health crisis that would result from huge dust storms fed by exposed lakebed. So the agreement called for “mitigation water” from fallowed farmland to be added to the lake—with farmers receiving compensation for unplanted acres—through 2017. Even as the lake shrinks and grows saltier, it supports millions of birds representing hundreds of species. “That’s the first of the season.” It’s September, and Miller, a self-proclaimed redneck tree hugger and former truck driver who hosts regular birding trips around the lake, is driving past bubbling mud pits and hills of obsidian. In Salton City, across the lake, a grid of streets with hopelessly romantic names like Honolulu and Sea Mist is fitted with electricity and plumbing but remains mostly undeveloped. But as momentum builds to force the state to fix the sea, it turns out the state's preferred plan might not survive the next big quake. Sarah. Already, Kevin Kelley, general manager of the irrigation district, has gone so far as to intimate that if the state doesn’t develop a long-term plan by the deadline, the IID might cut off water deliveries to San Diego entirely. So far the sea has persisted, sustained—and poisoned—by irrigation water from booming farms in the surrounding Imperial Valley, where today 500,000 acres of fields provide America with fruits, nuts, hay, and two-thirds of its winter vegetables. El Dorado County. “The birds know the sea is in trouble,” Leipzig says as he wipes sweat from his forehead and scans the horizon for the last of the lake’s flamingos, introduced decades ago by the owners of a now-shuttered lakeside dance club called Hell’s Kitchen. The plan was drafted assuming that the Colorado River could provide 717,000 acre-feet of water to the project per year from 2018 until 2078. Approval for the necessary infrastructure is far from a slam dunk. Earthen structures are particularly vulnerable to damage in large quakes, especially when -- as would be the case in a redesigned Salton Sea -- those structures are built atop waterlogged sediments, which can liquefy in a strong temblor. This story was originally published by High Country News and the Desert Sun is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk … He, too, frets over what will become of the birds if the lake is allowed to collapse. Water Board Skewered For Failing to Fix Salton Sea November 16, 2016 May 22, 2018 MATTHEW RENDA. Are you concerned the state is far behind on implementing solutions? Tune in Wednesday, Dec. 10 at 8 p.m. Geothermal energy would be used to desalinate the ocean water at Laguna Salada, then the resulting freshwater would be pumped over the slight rise between the Laguna Salada basin and the Salton Basin. grist.org - Mark Olalde. As water evaporates and more is added, the total salt concentration in the habitat areas would climb. Already the children in the region suffer some of the highest asthma rates in the state. Further, the plan's design relies on berms to keep the marine and saline habitats separated from the dried-out playa. Riverside County has a new plan to fix the Salton Sea — or at least a part of it Dead trees, debris and dead fish dot the shoreline of the Salton Sea in 2015. Of course God gave me Revelation of how to fix the Salton Sea. … Cascade Falls; Lower Eagle … In addition, President Obama’s 2017 budget, announced in February, included $3 million to build wetland habitat along the Alamo River, which drains into the lake’s southern end. Now government agencies and local stakeholders, including Audubon California, are racing to devise a plan that will stave off a full-out environmental catastrophe. But the Salton Sea doesn't command notice among environmentally minded Californians the way those other bodies of water do. “We should be above that kind of thing, frankly.”. We've painted ourselves, ecologically speaking, into a corner. Once it's there, that water replenishes the Sea without adding extra salts, so that the need to extract brine from the Sea would be lessened. Photo: Howard Arndt/Audubon Photography Awards, Great Egret. In other words, the area is quake-prone. “There isn’t one. The Salton Sea was created by accident in 1905, when water from the Colorado river spilled out of a poorly-constructed California Development Company irrigation system. Right: A half-century ago the Salton Sea was a popular destination for speedboat racing, sport fishing, and sunbathing. Solo la mitad de los casos civiles y penales se resolvieron el verano pasado en comparación con las cifras anteriores a la pandemia. Even as the lake shrinks and grows saltier, it supports millions of birds representing hundreds of species. Farmer Al Kalin, whose family has grown alfalfa and sugar beets in the valley for three generations, worked on the marsh and has long believed that it’s these relatively small, inexpensive plots—rather than large-scale projects that would cost exponentially more—that will best cover exposed lakebed. Then there are the periodic outbreaks of avian botulism, a bacterial disease that can kill birds in close quarters by the thousands. The area is divided into “cells” of varying sizes, some up to tens of acres, where grebes and coots paddle along, frequently diving in the four-foot-deep water to snatch up the abundant crawfish. 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The plan Wilcox puts forth will likely draw largely from the Salton Sea Restoration and Renewable Energy Initiative, a $3.15 billion proposal released by the IID in 2015 that would kick-start shovel-ready pilot projects and new geothermal energy development along the lake’s shores. Over time, the salinity will match that of the … Now a new study has demonstrated a cost-effective method for using manmade wetlands to clean contaminants out of the freshwater rivers that flow into the sea, which is overly salty from evaporation and polluted with selenium, fertilizer nutrients and other chemicals from … Full view. The dry lake would be diked down the middle, and the ocean water stored in a reservoir on the west side. Audubon California is providing the state with detailed habitat mapping, and raising awareness about the millions of birds that depend on the sea, including sandpipers migrating between Alaska and South America and threatened Snowy Plovers. “Where would the cormorants go? All of this is contributing to the poor air quality. Grander schemes include a $9 billion restoration project the state proposed in 2007, as well as a perennial pitch to pump water from the Pacific Ocean or the Sea of Cortez, which would also cost billions. He is under no illusions that the sea will be anything like the body of water it was when he was growing up in the town of Brawley, south of the lake. Search. Left: The Salton Sea has shrunk by about 10 percent in the past 15 years, to roughly 350 square miles, and could contract by 60 percent by 2030. Today, salt and nutrients from agricultural fields have created a toxic brew in a lagoon that once housed the Salton Sea Beach Marina. For all its relative simplicity, the Sea to Sea plan would still be daunting. There was the mysterious die-off of 150,000 Eared Grebes in 1992. “Well, I’ll be dipped in hooey!” he exclaims as he spots a small Rock Wren alighting on nearby scrub brush. And, Krantz points out, the new desal plants could offer an additional source of drinking water to Mexicali's million or so thirsty residents, along with a new body of water on Laguna Salada offering potential for resort development. Contact. In the center of the sea, surrounded by the marine sea in the north and the saline habitat in the south, somewhere around 106,000 acres of the Sea -- 166 square miles -- would be allowed to dry up. In October, Governor Jerry Brown signed a law that mandates the restoration of up to 12,000 acres of habitat by 2020. If you go to the Salton Sea Recreation Area ($5) you’ll see a nice-looking beach*, with beautiful picnic tables and a visitor center. Justice has slowed down,” according to an attorneys’ group. Wilcox says the paralysis that gripped bureaucracies for so long could be blamed in part on the “silver bullet syndrome.” A lot of years were spent trying to find the perfect solution, he says. The Salton Sea, California's largest lake, will die unless the state throws a staggering amount of resources at it in the next decade or so. Whatever framework is approved promises to stand as one of the most significant restoration projects in the country, says U.S. The Salton Sea shoreline slowly recedes away from the small community of Bombay Beach near Highway 86 on the sea's eastern shore in this aerial photograph, October 19, 2019. Type in your search and hit Enter on desktop or hit Go on mobile device. “IID’s position is that you can’t just continue to transfer water and leave a giant question mark at the Salton Sea. Satan’s Castle. “Our engagement now will help ensure this is done right—that critical bird habitat is protected, and the toxic dust no longer threatens local communities.”. By this time, a 400-square-mile body of water had formed on the Salton basin in southern California. Or Colorado River could provide 717,000 acre-feet of water that has a concentration! 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