Posts

OPINION: East Coachella Valley Residents Speak Out For A Healthier Environment

/in , , /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Lesly Figueroa and Rebecca Zaragoza

The eastern Coachella Valley stands to benefit from a pair of Sacramento decisions. Now the state needs to hear from local residents.

In April, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Executive Order N-10-10. It directs the California Natural Resources Agency, the California Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Food and Agriculture to recommend actions to help create climate-resilient water systems and healthy waterways as part of California’s Water Resilience Portfolio Initiative. This is a major step toward sustainable and equitable access to this precious resource during this climate crisis.

Full Story

Bill To Help Eagle Mountain Hydroelectric Storage Project Outside Joshua Tree Derailed

/in , /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Evan Wyloge

Despite the efforts of a handful of Riverside County lawmakers, a controversial bill that would pave the way for a massive hydroelectric energy storage project on the edge of Joshua Tree National Park has been shelved for now, leaving the Eagle Mountain project still without a clear path forward.  The project would use abandoned iron mining pits to store billions of gallons of groundwater, pumped from the Chuckwalla Valley aquifer. Once operational, the facility would use abundant daytime solar power to pump water from a lower retention area to a higher elevation.

Full Story

Siren Songs Of The Salton Sea: Ideas Abound To Fix State’s Largest Lake. But some say It’s Too Late

/in , /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Janet Wilson

Wade Crowfoot, California’s new secretary of Natural Resources, remembers the first time he saw the Salton Sea. He was in his early 30s, headed south to visit his cousin in El Centro, when he saw “this huge body of water next to this stunning, stark landscape, with great mountains to the west. It captivated me.” Jeff Geraci’s impressions of California’s largest inland water body are quite different. For 14 years, as the Regional Water Quality Control Board’s senior environmental scientist, he’s coordinated Salton Sea inspections. “The sea is a repository for sewage, industrial and slaughterhouse discharges and agricultural wastewater,” he wrote in an email, describing wading through rotting fish and partially dissolved bird carcasses, all while pesticide-tainted water still pours in.

Full Story

Lawmakers Advance Bill To Increase Oversight On Cadiz’s Mojave Desert Water Project

/in , /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Sam Metz

A bill that could block a Los Angeles-based water supply company from pumping water out of a Mojave Desert aquifer passed through the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, extending the yearslong fight over whether the environmental impact of groundwater extraction merits additional scrutiny. The entire State Senate will vote on S.B. 307 later in the legislative session and, if it passes, it will need to also be approved by the State Assembly and signed by the governor. The bill would impose additional environmental review requirements on Cadiz Inc.’s water project, which would pump 16.3 billion gallons of groundwater out of an aquifer and transport it across public lands to the Colorado River Aqueduct. Cadiz projects the project could make them $2.4 billion.

Full Story

Finally, California And IID Reach Agreement On Salton Sea Access And Liability

/in , /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Janet Wilson

The Imperial Irrigation District board of directors voted Tuesday to allow access across its lands for critically needed state wetlands projects at the Salton Sea, designed to tamp down dangerous dust storms and give threatened wildlife a boost. In exchange, California will shoulder the maintenance and operations of the projects, and the state’s taxpayers will cover the costs of any lawsuits or regulatory penalties if the work goes awry. Tuesday’s vote clears a key hurdle to constructing 3,700 acres around the heavily polluted New River at the south end of the lake, implementing what’s known as the Species Conservation Habitat plan.

Full Story

Imperial Irrigation District Board Calls For Plan To Pull Out Of Coachella Valley

/in , /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Sam Metz

Imperial Irrigation District Board President Erik Ortega proposed withdrawing electricity services from the Coachella Valley at a Tuesday board meeting following debates over how the region’s ratepayers are represented on the district’s board. The proposal could potentially force residents of La Quinta, Indio, Coachella and the unincorporated eastern Coachella Valley to seek coverage from Southern California Edison. IID charges its ratepayers a base rate of 11.69 cents per kilowatt-hour, while Southern California

Full Story

Salton Sea Wetland Projects Access Agreement Afoot

/in , , /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Janet Wilson

With the clock ticking, a major hurdle to restoring the southern edge of the fast-drying Salton Sea may finally be overcome. Imperial Irrigation District general manager Henry Martinez told the Desert Sun that he and California Natural Resources Secretary Wade  Crowfoot have reached an agreement in principle that the state — not the water district — will be responsible for construction and maintenance of more than 3,700 acres of wetlands aimed at controlling toxic dust and restoring wildlife habitat. In exchange, the water district will sign easements for access onto lands it owns that border California’s largest lake. The agreement could break a years-long impasse and find ways to get restoration projects moving.

Full Story

IID Sues To Halt Colorado River Drought Plan Signed By Trump, Says Officials Ignored Salton Sea

/in , /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Janet Wilson

It’s not over yet. The Imperial Irrigation District has sued to halt a sweeping Colorado River drought plan that was signed in to law by President Trump on Tuesday. Officials with the sprawling, sparsely populated rural water district in southeastern California say the Salton Sea was wrongly left out of the plan. IID holds among the oldest and largest rights to water from the river.  The petition, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges violations of the California Environmental Quality Act by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. It asks the court to suspend the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan until a thorough environmental analysis has been completed.

Full Story

OPINION: Salton Sea 10-year ‘Rescue’ Plan Flawed, But Letting Lake Revert To Desert Would Be Folly

/in , , /by /The Desert Sunby Bob Terry,

Geraci proposes we forget about the birds and salinity of the Salton Sea and concentrate “limited resources” on human-related mitigation to the sea’s decline. He finds much fault with the state’s 10-year Plan commitment to 50 percent of the acreage mitigated being aquatic, which he contends is 20 times as expensive as playa mitigation accomplished done by planting. Perhaps it was a mistake to fund the sea’s restoration under the Fish and Game Department, but that is the vehicle.

 

Full Story

OPINION: Garbage In, Garbage Out: Sacramento’s Salton Sea Restoration Plan In A Nutshell

/in , /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Jeff Geraci

Throwing away millions of taxpayer dollars to re-purpose contaminated waste for creating toxic retention ponds disguised as “habitat,” in the middle of a desert waste sump, is not good logic. At its core, the ill-advised attempt to “restore” the Salton Sea is nothing short of environmental malpractice. It will inevitably fail at a very high cost to both wildlife and taxpayers, succeeding only in perpetuating a hazardous condition. Activists have been peddling the backward notion that Salton Sea is polluted and therefore needs to be “saved,” in large part because birds are threatened. The reality: Birds are in peril because the Salton Sea exists.

Full Story