Support for Salton Sea Is Drying Up

Efforts to save the Salton Sea, one of the most important but endangered habitats in North America, are in jeopardy as California races a federal deadline to reduce its use of Colorado River water and lawmakers worry that the cost may be too high.

Warnings about the sea’s demise are nothing new, but its supporters increasingly are striking a downbeat note about the prospects of restoring the state’s largest inland body of water.

“I don’t know where we’re going to get the water” to save the sea, said Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs), who is continuing restoration efforts begun by her late husband and congressional predecessor, Sonny Bono. “I think this year is really crunch time . . . and it’s time for people to work harder than they ever worked on the sea.”

The sea, not quite a fifth the size of the Great Salt Lake and 25% saltier than the Pacific Ocean, is a hugely productive fishery and one of the most crucial stops for migratory birds in North America. If it were allowed to shrivel, scientists are concerned that wind storms laden with its exposed soil could create a pungent health threat.

Efforts to save it, however, are caught in the middle of California’s rough-and-tumble water politics, competing against urban, agricultural and environmental water needs.

Much of the water that feeds the sea, formed by a canal breach in 1905, is bound for urban areas to help end the state’s overindulgence at the Colorado River trough. It is sustained primarily by farm runoff, but that’s not enough to prevent the sea’s salinity from rising.

Many scientists contend that the salinity levels will kill off fish in a few decades or sooner. For now, the sea is still brimming with fish, mostly corvina, croaker and tilapia, although periodic algal blooms and fish kills have raised concerns about the sea’s health.

The fish and other marine creatures have made the sea “virtually an international airport for migratory birds,” said Tim Krantz, a University of Redlands environmental studies professor.

More than 400 bird species have been seen around the sea, which sometimes attracts millions of individual birds a day. It has hosted an estimated 90% of the world’s population of eared grebes at once and more than half of its American white pelicans.

The sea is a major stopover along the Pacific flyway, a path for migratory birds extending from Alaska to the tropics. Records from banded birds found that avian visitors to the sea have ended up not only all over North America, but also in South America, Russia and Hawaii.

Wildlife is particularly dependent on the sea because development has destroyed roughly 95% of California’s wetlands--a higher percentage than any other state.

The U. S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Salton Sea Authority, an entity formed by local governments in 1993, have long studied ways to control salinity.

Pilot projects are using solar evaporation ponds and modified snow-making equipment to pull salt out of the sea, and officials are studying the idea of desalinating sea water using waste energy from the area’s geothermal plants.

Those efforts would need to be greatly expanded if Imperial Valley farmers start reusing more of their water to allow the Imperial Irrigation District to sell up to 300,000 acre-feet a year to water agencies in San Diego and the Coachella Valley, which includes Palm Springs.

An acre-foot of water is about 326,000 gallons, or enough to supply eight people for a year.

The proposed transfers would cause the sea’s elevation to plummet 23 feet--close to half of its 51-foot current maximum depth. That would shrink bird habitat, cause the sea’s salinity to rise more quickly and expose thousands of acres of shoreline.

Those losses will merely hasten the inevitable, said Jim Taylor, assistant general counsel for the San Diego County Water Authority.

“The sea is a hard question,” he said. “We have a site that is already declining. The sea will be too salty for fish in the next 20 years or so.”

The transfers are needed to diversify San Diego’s water supply and meet the terms of a seven-state agreement meant to end decades of disputes over Colorado River water.

The other Colorado River states have agreed to give California 15 years to reduce its use of river water from about 5.2 million acre-feet per year to its legally allotted 4.4 million acre-feet.

But if California fails to put adequate conservation measures in place by year’s end, the deal could evaporate and California might be forced to quickly slash its water use.

Tom Kirk, executive director of the Salton Sea Authority, said the proposal to recycle farm water isn’t conservation at all.

“We haven’t really conserved water that had been used by crops; we’re conserving water that had been used by the Salton Sea,” Kirk said. “What you’re actually saying is that water going to the sea is a waste.”

The transfers could take place without affecting runoff to the sea if the irrigation district reduced water use by fallowing about 15% of the valley’s farmland.

If the irrigation district decides to recycle farm water, Kirk estimates that the water loss would more than double the cost of controlling salinity with evaporation ponds to as much as $1.6 billion.

Several federal and state officials, including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), have said there is no prospect for spending so much on the sea.

The irrigation district’s environmental documents propose spending significantly less on fish ponds intended to replace bird habitat lost because of the water transfer.

“There may have to be some trade-offs with regard to some environmental issues,” said Andy Horne, a member of the district’s board of directors.