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As the Salton Sea Faces Ecological Collapse, Radical Plan to Save it With Ocean Water Dies

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James

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.

By moving desalinated seawater across the desert, they say, California could stop its largest lake from shrinking and growing saltier and could restore its once-thriving ecosystem. Without more water, they argue, the lake will continue to decline, and its retreating shorelines will expose growing stretches of dry lake bed that spew hazardous dust and greenhouse gases.

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How California’s Salton Sea Went From Vacation Destination to Toxic Nightmare

/in , /by /Gristby Zoya Teirstein

In the spring of 1905, the Colorado River, bursting with seasonal rain, topped an irrigation canal and flooded the site of a dried lake bed in Southern California. The flooding, which continued for two years before engineers sealed up the busted channel, created an unexpected gem in the middle of the arid California landscape: the Salton Sea. In the decades that followed, vacationers, water skiers, and speed boat enthusiasts flocked to the body of water. The Beach Boys and the Marx Brothers docked their boats at the North Shore Beach and Yacht Club, which opened in 1959. At the time, it seemed like the Salton Sea, and the vibrant communities that had sprung up around it, would be there for centuries to come.

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California Spends $12.8M More on the Salton Sea, Finally Appoints Analyst to Study Seawater Importation

/in , , /by /Palm Springs Desert Sunby Mark Olalde

California remains far behind its targets for addressing exposed playa around the Salton Sea, according to data released in the 2021 Salton Sea Management Program annual report. But state officials expressed optimism in a public workshop that they are finally beginning to catch up to those goals.

The state was supposed to implement dust suppression projects or build wetlands habitat across 3,500 acres of exposed playa by the end of 2020 to tamp down dust that’s imbued with a century’s worth of salts, pesticides and other agricultural runoff. Only 755 acres around the mouth of the New River had been completed in that timeframe, although 2020 represented the first year that any state-led dust mitigation projects was finished at the lake.

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State Launches Salton Sea Restoration Effort

/in , , /by /KPBSby Erik Anderson

California is poised to begin the first major restoration project at the Salton Sea. The state is investing more than $200 million in a project that will create flooded ponds and other habitats on the exposed lakebed at the southern edge of the lake. “We’ll complete the work over the next two-and-a-half years, I believe completing the project in 2023,” said Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency. The Salton Sea has been shrinking rapidly and exposing a dusty lakebed since the Imperial Irrigation District stopped feeding the state’s largest lake mitigation water in 2018.

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Elkhorn Slough: Why Restoring Hester Marsh is Important

/in , /by /Monterey Heraldby Nikk Ogasa

Just a short paddle up the Elkhorn Slough, kayakers can spot Hester Marsh. Degraded by decades of diking and draining, and threatened by rising sea levels, the marsh is now being lifted out of the muck.

Labeled the Tidal Marsh Restoration Project, the restoration will ensure Hester Marsh outlasts the drowning of most other Elkhorn salt marshes, projected to occur within 50 years.

These marshes provide vital natural habitat and play a critical role in fighting climate change, experts say, through their ability to capture and store large amounts of atmospheric carbon.

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Over $10 Million Granted to Preserve Salmon in California

/in , , /by /NBC Bay Area

Over $10 million in grants was awarded to 27 projects dedicated to benefiting the state’s salmon habitats, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced this week. The grants, amounting to $10.7 million, were awarded through the agency’s Fisheries Restoration Grant Program for the restoration, enhancement and protection of anadromous salmonid habitats, and to reverse the declines of Pacific salmon and steelhead throughout California and surrounding states.

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Special Report: Restoration Projects at the Salton Sea

/in , , /by /KYMA Imperial Countyby Alexandra Rangel

Nearly $47 million dollars have been secured in California’s state budget for the next year to begin mitigation efforts at the Salton Sea and the New River.

It’s a major win for a decades-long problem that has contributed to the environmental and health impacts in Imperial County.

Although, millions of dollars are being poured into helping improve the environmental health crisis Imperial County is facing, will it be enough and will residents see a change in their lifetime?

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Executive Order Aims to Conserve Land, Biodiversity

/in , /by /AgAlertby Kevin Hecteman

A new California Biodiversity Collaborative will help determine how to carry out an executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom aimed at conserving 30% of California’s land and marine areas by 2030—and agricultural organizations said they would participate to assure the collaborative recognizes stewardship efforts carried out on the state’s farms and ranches.

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California Still Hasn’t Found Analyst to Study Salton Sea Water Import Proposals It Asked For

/in , , /by /Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Mark Olalde

Long-term fixes for the ever-shrinking Salton Sea remain stalled as California Natural Resources Agency officials on Wednesday revealed they have been unable to find an analyst to study proposed solutions to a nearly two decades-old problem.

Eleven different plans, submitted in 2018, suggested methods of importing water from the Sea of Cortez or the Pacific Ocean to decrease salinity and reverse water losses at the Salton Sea, which have exposed a toxic playa laced with pesticides and other pollutants. Although some researchers who study the lake write off the plans as financial and logistical pipe dreams, CNRA still needs to study them as part of the process to determine a long-term solution.

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Opinion: Spend Scarce Funds to Restore Mission Bay Wetlands, Not Golf Clubhouse

/in , /by /Times of San Diegoby Chuck Dunning

In golf, I’m what you call a “hacker,” in that I’m a golfer with a handicap north of 30. Despite this, I like to get out with friends to chase the ball around and share the grief, and we enjoy playing at Mission Bay Golf Course four to five times a year. It’s a nice course, well-kept, and suitable for our level of play. In fact, I got my first and only hole-in-one on the 14th hole at Mission Bay.

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