As California officials fill a bunch of shallow ponds near the southern shore of the Salton Sea to create wetlands that can provide habitat for fish and birds and help control dust around the lungs, water starts from the pipeline to hundreds of acres of dry sunny lake beds.
The project represents the state’s biggest effort to date to address the environmental problems plaguing the Salton Sea, which has been steadily retreating and leaving more and more dusty lakes exposed to desert winds at the bottom.
California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot celebrated what he called the main milestone as water was stacked into newly built basins and spread in broken soil Thursday, one of the first parts of a long-propaganda project that was postponed for years due to challenges like inadequate staff and required negotiation of land use agreements.
“This project, this water will suppress harmful dust as the Salton Sea retreats. It will also provide thousands of acres of habitat for wildlife, for birds that use it as a rest stop on the Pacific Flying Trail,” Crowfoot said.
“It proves that hard things, tough projects are possible,” he said. “I am proud that our progress has stabilized the progress of the community and nature and have done more work in the future.”
The habitat area of Imperial County is filled with water, and the area received its first water in April. In the coming weeks, state officials said flooding in those parts would achieve the first 2,000 acres of the species’ habitat conservation project, a core effort California plans to improve conditions in the state’s largest lake.
The $200 million project was originally envisioned to cover 4,100 acres of land, with most of the buildings already completed. However, the state's latest plan calls for an expansion of the project to over 9,000 acres and use another $245 million Federal Funding The state received guarantees in 2022.
The Salton Sea covers 300 square miles of Empire and Riverside County. It is located about 242 feet below sea level in the Salton Trough, and for thousands of years it cycles between adding the Colorado River water and drying.
Since 1905-07, Colorado has flooded the region with the so-called Salton Sea. The lake has since been discharged from farms in the Empire Valley, but it has been shrinking since the early 2000s, when the Imperial Irrigation District began selling a portion of the Colorado River water to an agreement with agents in San Diego County to grow urban areas.
The level of the lake About 13 feet Since 2003. Its water is now about twice as much as the ocean Sharp decline In fish and bird populations.
Along the dry coastline, dust helps Hazardous air pollution In low-income, mostly Latino communities, people suffer from asthma and other respiratory diseases at a high rate.
10-year plan for Salton Sea, California was released in 2017, requiring Built nearly 30,000 acres By 2028, dust control projects and wetland habitats around the lake are far behind these goals.
Eric Montoya Reyes, executive director of the nonprofit Los Amigos de la Comunidad, said the newly formed wetland project has been in operation for more than a decade and it has been long over.
“We acknowledge that all the hard work and obstacles have exceeded many important milestone projects that need to be important,” Montoya Reyes said.
Montoya Reyes said he would like to see the state progress in the rest of the project and other planned projects accelerate to curb dust around the Salton Sea. He said that given the high rates of respiratory illness in the region, these efforts should be prioritized, in part by Toxic lake bed dust Linked to pesticides and other pollutants accumulated over decades.
“We have a lot of work to affect the environment and human health,” he said.
Environmental advocates say the expanding wetlands can help bird populations rebound.
“It’s a big achievement and we’re really happy to see progress,” said Michael Cohen, a senior fellow at the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit think tank focused on water.
State officials’ commitment to addressing the impact of the decline of the Salton Sea dates back more than two decades. As part of the 2003 deal, the deal moved some Imperial Valley water to the city, California officials Imperial County Commitment Leader The state will be responsible for dealing with environmental issues in the Salton Sea, which will be caused by the Water Transfer Agreement.
For years, officials of the Empire have urged the state to speed up delayed projects to build wetlands along the retreating coast. In 2017, the state water regulator adopted a protocol that sets targets for state agencies to build thousands of acres of ponds, wetlands and other dust control projects near the Salton Sea.
Cohen said the progress of the habitat project is a “huge signal that the state has begun to fulfill its obligations.”
“And I think we're going to see a lot of birds and probably a lot of fish in this project over the next few weeks and months,” he said.
In recent years, with evaporation causing huge losses to the Salton Sea, its water has become increasingly salty – in fact, it is too salty for fish such as Tilapia, a species that previously provided a rich source of food for migrating birds. and once singular bird populations, such as American white pelicans, double-breasted cormorant and ear grebes It has dropped.
Although the state touts the project in a “recovery” way of habitat, Cohen said he believes the more precise description is “remediation.”
“The Salton Sea is changing constantly, and we want to recover something, which means you're going to bring it back to a specific point in time,” Cohen said.
The Wetland Project aims to create low-content habitats where fish and birds can thrive. Mixed salt water from freshwater from lakes and new rivers – absorbing agricultural runoff from wastewater from the Imperial Valley and Mexico – is pumping wetlands that have built ponds, islands, islands and water tanks.
Create shallow water habitats with these lower salt levels, similar to those provided by lakes over 30 years ago, aiming to help birds migrate along Pacific flight paths Suffering from decline In recent decades.
Gov. Gavin Newsom Filling called wetlands “A major step in California’s environmental leadership – breathing life into critical ecosystems while creating cleaner air for communities around the Salton Sea.”
E. Joaquin Esquivel, chairman of the board of directors of the State Water Control Commission, said improving conditions in the Salton Sea is crucial to public health and the economy of the Empire and Coachella Valley.
Esqueville said the Salton Sea had long been “seemed as a responsibility of misfortune, when it was actually one of California’s greatest assets.” The ongoing project “is turning the page of that narrative,” he said.
Another smaller effort is planned on the east shore of the lake district near the Mumbai Beach community. Audubon, California, announced it will receive a $5.2 million grant from the California Wildlife Conservation Commission to support the 564-acre wetland habitat project on the lakeshore.
Andrea Jones, director of the group’s Bird Conservation Bureau and interim executive director, said the project “will ensure that these wetlands continue to provide shelter to species facing habitat loss and climate change challenges.”
