Southern California’s Salton Sea—approximately 232 feet (70 m)
below sea level— is one of the world’s largest inland seas. It
has 130 miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe.
The sea was created in 1905 when the Colorado River broke through
a series of dikes, flooding a salty basin known as the Salton
Sink in the Imperial Valley. The sea is an important stopping
point for 1 million migratory waterfowl, and serves as critical
habitat for birds moving south to Mexico and Central America.
Overall, the Salton Sea harbors more than 270 species of birds
including ducks, geese, cormorants and pelicans.
There is not enough water. That is the blunt assessment from
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the feasibility of four
modest plans intended to address environmental and health
problems at the Salton Sea. The announcement came [April 30]
during a community informational meeting at the North Shore
Yacht Club in Mecca, one of a series of recent meetings the
Corps has held on the long-standing crisis. The four plans,
developed to ease the dust and air pollution created as the
Salton Sea shrinks and more lakebed is exposed, share one
critical flaw: none has the water needed to be viable. A
hydrology study presented at the meeting concluded
there is not enough water available to support even the
most modest restoration alternatives.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from the Los Angeles District
gave a presentation about the Salton Sea Aquatic Ecosystem
Restoration feasibility study during a community meeting on
Thursday, April 30. Miguel Hernandez, a public affairs
officer at the California Natural Resources Agency for the
Salton Sea Management Program, explained that the study “is
looking into future long-term restoration for the Salton
Sea.” He asked participants to take a survey ranking four
objectives in order of importance regarding the Salton Sea:
restoring habitat for birds and fish, creating jobs and
economic opportunities, improving recreational access and
reducing dust to improve air quality. Corrie Stetzel, the
planning lead from the Corps, explained that the state of
California has a 10-year plan to improve the Salton Sea.
On Tuesday, April 28, Congressman Dr. Raul Ruiz (CA-25) pressed
The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Administrator
Lee Zeldin at the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on
Environment hearing on the FY2027 EPA Budget, securing a
commitment from the administrator to visit the New River
region, engage with the binational water quality study, and
apply the same federal model used to address the Tijuana River
crisis to the New River in the Imperial Valley. … Ruiz
detailed the severe conditions facing communities along the New
River, which originates south of Mexicali carrying raw sewage,
industrial waste, pesticides, and heavy metals across the
border into Calexico before traveling sixty miles through
Imperial County and emptying into the Salton
Sea.
… As a biologist with Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources
[Kyle] Stone serves as the Project Leader for the Great Salt
Lake Ecosystem Program, which has been counting migratory birds
around the lake and its wetlands since 1997. “With these
low lake conditions, we’re seeing a lot of the birds that are
here are being artificially concentrated in the areas that are
left,” Stone said about the current spring migration. … As
other saline lakes decline, particularly in California, more of
the birds are being drawn to Great Salt Lake. “Used to be a lot
of those birds were going to the Salton Sea,”
Stone explained. “Now that the Salton Sea is mostly dry, that’s
no longer available to them.” Stone noted similar behaviors
happening with the decline of Mono Lake, just
east of Yosemite National Park.
Career Technical Education Community Health Worker students
from Southwest High School recently participated in an
immersive educational field experience at the Salton Sea
Management Area Restoration Site in collaboration with the
Imperial County Air Pollution Control District. The trip
aligned with the school’s Project ACE (Air Community Education)
initiative, giving students hands-on learning opportunities
focused on environmental health and the impacts of air quality
on community well-being. During the visit, guided by experts
from the Salton Sea Management Area Restoration Program,
students explored active restoration efforts designed to reduce
dust emissions, improve air quality, and restore natural
habitats around the Salton Sea.
Governor Gavin Newsom has announced the creation of the Salton
Sea Conservancy, which is meant to restore the habitat in the
area and improve air quality. It’s the state’s first
conservancy in 15 years. … Residents like Imari Kariotis
say they’ve developed chronic health issues from living in the
area. “I have breathing issues. So I am on this Nova disc in
the morning. I have a rescue inhaler,” Kariotis says. She’s
lived in the area for 30 years and says affordability is
what brings most people to the area. But she says the
government has neglected the region. … Joe Shea, who
works on Salton Sea policy with the California Natural
Resources Agency, says the conservancy will expand the state’s
capacity for projects at the Salton Sea.
After years of planning, permitting, and massive earth-moving
work, California’s landmark Species Conservation Habitat (SCH)
Project at the southwest end of the Salton Sea has begun
filling with water. … The 2026 Annual Report on the Salton
Sea Program, released by the California Natural Resources
Agency, highlights this achievement as a watershed
moment—literally and figuratively—for restoring
habitat, suppressing dust, and improving air quality around the
shrinking lake. … Salton Sea Management Program
(SSMP), now evolving under the newly established Salton Sea
Conservancy, continues its Phase I 10-Year Plan aimed at
constructing 30,000 acres of projects to combat exposed lakebed
dust and create vital habitat for fish and birds.
California has launched the Salton Sea
Conservancy, a new state agency to oversee restoration,
manage habitat and improve air quality at the deteriorating
inland lake. On Friday Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the
appointment of a 20-member conservancy board, with members from
state agencies, Riverside and Imperial County governments,
local water districts, tribal groups and public organizations.
The new conservancy is the first created in California in more
than 15 years, since the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
Conservancy was established in 2010. The new body will direct
state resources toward what has long been a local problem in
the Southern California desert, Newsom said in a statement.
Along the shores of the shrinking Salton Sea, desert winds
regularly kick up dust and send it drifting through nearby
neighborhoods. New research indicates that living there may
affect kids’ lungs. Scientists from the University of Southern
California tested the lung capacity of 369 children between the
ages of 10 and 12 for about two years and found that those who
live less than 6.8 miles from the Salton Sea have diminished
lung development compared with kids farther away. … The
saline lake has been shrinking rapidly since the early 2000s,
when the Imperial Irrigation District began selling some of its
Colorado River water to growing urban areas under an agreement
with agencies in San Diego County and the Coachella Valley.
Beneath California’s Salton Sea, there is so
much metal essential to rechargeable batteries that Gov. Gavin
Newsom calls the vast lake “the Saudi Arabia of lithium.” An
estimated $500 billion worth of lithium here could help power
our smartphones, electric cars and electricity grids. … But
not everyone is eagerly welcoming the lithium industry. The
Salton Sea is already an environmental disaster zone. It’s
shrinking, and as it does, it spews plumes of pesticide-laden
dust throughout Imperial County, home to 182,000 people.
Extracting lithium requires a steady supply of fresh
water, and locals worry the process will deplete the
region’s scarce water resources.
… It was only three years ago, at a press conference, that
state and federal lawmakers and business figures were touting
the [Salton Sea] area’s great promise for extracting lithium, a
mineral critical for batteries in electric cars, smartphones
and industrial power systems, from volcanic layers deep in the
ground. … But lithium demand alone cannot solve the
problem of harvesting it. BHE Renewables built a pilot plant in
Calipatria near the Salton Sea, only for dissolved solids in
the brine to gunk up the equipment meant to filter out the
lithium. … Most concerning for residents is that the
plan could result in dirtier air. Nearly a third of the water
for farms in the Lithium Valley region ends up as runoff for
the Salton Sea, so less agriculture would result in its
shrinking — exposing more dusty lake bed.
U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) announced Tuesday that more
than $6 million in federal funding has been earmarked for the
Imperial Valley, targeting a critical mix of environmental
restoration and municipal infrastructure in one of California’s
most climate-vulnerable regions. … The lion’s share of
the local funding—more than $4 million—is designated for the
Bombay Beach Wetlands Project. For decades,
the shrinking Salton Sea has exposed thousands
of acres of playa, sending clouds of pesticide-laced dust into
the air of a region that already suffers from some of the
highest childhood asthma rates in the country. The federal
infusion aims to stabilize and expand emerging wetlands, using
water to “cap” the dust while restoring vital habitats for
migratory birds.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
Learn the history and challenges facing the West’s most dramatic
and developed river.
The Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River Basin introduces the
1,450-mile river that sustains 40 million people and millions of
acres of farmland spanning seven states and parts of northern
Mexico.
The 28-page primer explains how the river’s water is shared and
managed as the Southwest transitions to a hotter and drier
climate.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
This special Foundation water tour journeyed along the Eastern Sierra from the Truckee River to Mono Lake, through the Owens Valley and into the Mojave Desert to explore a major source of water for Southern California, this year’s snowpack and challenges for towns, farms and the environment.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
For more than 20 years, Tanya
Trujillo has been immersed in the many challenges of the Colorado
River, the drought-stressed lifeline for 40 million people from
Denver to Los Angeles and the source of irrigation water for more
than 5 million acres of winter lettuce, supermarket melons and
other crops.
Trujillo has experience working in both the Upper and Lower
Basins of the Colorado River, basins that split the river’s water
evenly but are sometimes at odds with each other. She was a
lawyer for the state of New Mexico, one of four states in the
Upper Colorado River Basin, when key operating guidelines for
sharing shortages on the river were negotiated in 2007. She later
worked as executive director for the Colorado River Board of
California, exposing her to the different perspectives and
challenges facing California and the other states in the river’s
Lower Basin.
State work to improve wildlife habitat and tamp down dust at California’s ailing Salton Sea is finally moving forward. Now the sea may be on the verge of getting the vital ingredient needed to supercharge those restoration efforts – money.
The shrinking desert lake has long been a trouble spot beset by rising salinity and unhealthy, lung-irritating dust blowing from its increasingly exposed bed. It shadows discussions of how to address the Colorado River’s two-decade-long drought because of its connection to the system. The lake is a festering health hazard to nearby residents, many of them impoverished, who struggle with elevated asthma risk as dust rises from the sea’s receding shoreline.
Out of sight and out of mind to most
people, the Salton Sea in California’s far southeast corner has
challenged policymakers and local agencies alike to save the
desert lake from becoming a fetid, hyper-saline water body
inhospitable to wildlife and surrounded by clouds of choking
dust.
The sea’s problems stretch beyond its boundaries in Imperial and
Riverside counties and threaten to undermine multistate
management of the Colorado River. A 2019 Drought Contingency Plan for the
Lower Colorado River Basin was briefly stalled when the Imperial
Irrigation District, holding the river’s largest water
allocation, balked at participating in the plan because, the
district said, it ignored the problems of the Salton Sea.
Even as stakeholders in the Colorado River Basin celebrate the recent completion of an unprecedented drought plan intended to stave off a crashing Lake Mead, there is little time to rest. An even larger hurdle lies ahead as they prepare to hammer out the next set of rules that could vastly reshape the river’s future.
Set to expire in 2026, the current guidelines for water deliveries and shortage sharing, launched in 2007 amid a multiyear drought, were designed to prevent disputes that could provoke conflict.
One of California Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s first actions after taking office was to appoint Wade
Crowfoot as Natural Resources Agency secretary. Then, within
weeks, the governor laid out an ambitious water agenda that
Crowfoot, 45, is now charged with executing.
That agenda includes the governor’s desire for a “fresh approach”
on water, scaling back the conveyance plan in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and calling for more water recycling, expanded
floodplains in the Central Valley and more groundwater recharge.
For the bulk of her career, Jayne
Harkins has devoted her energy to issues associated with the
management of the Colorado River, both with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and with the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
Now her career is taking a different direction. Harkins, 58, was
appointed by President Trump last August to take the helm of the
United States section of the U.S.-Mexico agency that oversees
myriad water matters between the two countries as they seek to
sustainably manage the supply and water quality of the Colorado
River, including its once-thriving Delta in Mexico, and other
rivers the two countries share. She is the first woman to be
named the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and
Water Commission for either the United States or Mexico in the
commission’s 129-year history.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
California voters may experience a sense of déjà vu this year when they are asked twice in the same year to consider water bonds — one in June, the other headed to the November ballot.
Both tackle a variety of water issues, from helping disadvantaged communities get clean drinking water to making flood management improvements. But they avoid more controversial proposals, such as new surface storage, and they propose to do some very different things to appeal to different constituencies.
Tickets are now on sale for the Water Education Foundation’s April 11-13 tour of the Lower Colorado River.
Don’t miss this opportunity to visit key sites along one of the nation’s most famous rivers, including a private tour of Hoover Dam, Central Arizona Project’s Mark Wilmer pumping plant and the Havasu National Wildlife Refuge. The tour also visits the Salton Sea, Slab City, the All-American Canal and farming regions in the Imperial and Coachella valleys.
This issue of Western Water discusses the challenges
facing the Colorado River Basin resulting from persistent
drought, climate change and an overallocated river, and how water
managers and others are trying to face the future.
Scientifically and legislatively, lakes are indistinguishable
from ponds, but lakes generally are considered to be longer and
deeper lentic, or still, waters. In the 18th and
19th centuries, scientists attempted to distinguish
the two more formally, stating that ponds were shallow enough to
allow sunlight to penetrate to the bottom, but this exists
today as an unofficial point.
Fearing an imminent public health threat, the director of the
University of California, Irvine’s Salton Sea Initiative said the
State Water Resources Control Board should step in and regulate
the rate of water transferred from the Imperial Valley to coastal
California as part of the Quantification Settlement Agreement.
The shallow, briny inland lake at the southeastern edge of
California is slowly evaporating and becoming more saline –
threatening the habitat for fish and birds and worsening air
quality as dust from the dry lakebed is whipped by the constant
winds.
(Read this excerpt from the May/June 2015 issue along with
the editor’s note. Click here to
subscribe to Western Water and get full access.)
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect
gift for the water wonk in your life.
Our 24×36-inch California Water Map is widely known for being the
definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the
state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s
natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts
– including federally, state and locally funded
projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and
natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of
California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects,
wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the
text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water
projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado
River.
As part of the historic Colorado
River Delta, the Salton Sea regularly filled and dried for
thousands of years due to its elevation of 237 feet below
sea level.
The most recent version of the Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when
the Colorado River broke
through a series of dikes and flooded the seabed for two years,
creating California’s largest inland body of water. The
Salton Sea, which is saltier than the Pacific Ocean, includes 130
miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe.
The Pacific Flyway is one of four
major North American migration routes for birds, especially
waterbirds, and stretches from Alaska in the north
to Patagonia in South America.
Each year, birds follow ancestral patterns as they travel the
flyway on their annual north-south migration. Along the way, they
need stopover sites such as wetlands with suitable habitat and
food supplies. In California, 95 percent of historic
wetlands have been lost, yet the Central Valley hosts some of the
world’s largest populations of wintering birds.
The Imperial Valley in the
southeastern corner of California receives the Colorado River
Basin’s single-largest share of water to support much of the
nation’s fruit and vegetable supply and hay for the
cattle and dairy industries.
Water from the Colorado River transformed the sagebrush and
desert sands of the Imperial, Coachella and Palo Verde valleys
into lush, green agricultural fields. The growing season is
year-round, the water plentiful and the local economies are based
almost entirely on farming. As the waters of the Colorado River
allowed the deserts to bloom, they allowed southern California
cities like Los Angeles and San Diego to boom. Suburbs, jobs and
people followed, and the population within the six counties
served by Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
(MWD) grew from 2.8 million in 1930 to more than 17 million
today.
