Imperial Irrigation District officials have figured out how to surmount a key hurdle to complete a Colorado River conservation deal worth nearly $800 million: pushing to have California legislators quickly pass a bill that would immediately give them the power to kill endangered fish and birds. District staff, the bill’s sponsor and environmentalists say that likely wouldn’t occur, thanks to funding to create habitat elsewhere, and due to backstop federal species protections that are actually stronger than the state’s. But it is a counter-intuitive piece of lawmaking that has upset one longtime critic. What’s driving the legislation are a tiny desert pupfish and two types of birds, all nearing extinction, which have found unlikely refuge in the Imperial Valley’s concrete drainage channels and marshy areas by the fast-drying Salton Sea.

Related Salton Sea and endangered species articles: 

• KUER – Salt Lake City: When the Salton Sea shrank, it took Bombay Beach with it. Utah should heed the warning
• Los Angeles Times: An endangered songbird reclaims the L.A. River: ‘It’s a survivor’