Are we safe?
Public expresses concerns at Salton Sea workshop
E
L CENTRO — Attendees at a public workshop here Thursday had a chance to voice their concerns as to whether enough is being done to protect them from potential environmental and health impacts of receding water levels in the state’s largest lake.
Most questions put before the panel of speakers in the Imperial Irrigation District’s board room centered on whether enough progress is being made to address the impending environmental impacts of the receding Salton Sea and emissive dust.
Tom Sephton asked the panel of speakers at the workshop how the state planned to mitigate the potential public-health issues with less funding than what Los Angeles Department of Water and Power invested at Owen’s Lake.
Assistant Secretary for Salton Sea Policy Bruce Wilcox said the $400 million in funding that could become available this year for the Salton Sea through two different bond measures will be used to get caught up with the covering of the emissive playa.
He acknowledged that funding will be sufficient for the state’s 10-year plan but not enough to fully resolve the problem.
A couple of members of the audience asked whether any water importation project was being considered. Wilcox responded that as of now the state has not committed to any. However, the state of California did send a request for information for such proposal in the fall with the deadline for submission being March 7.
IID General Manager Kevin Kelley said that although the agency is not opposed to water importation over the long term, negotiating that solution with Mexico may well time the Salton Sea doesn’t have.
“In the next 10 years, if we don’t fully fund a phase one plan for a small and sustainable sea, we won’t have to worry about the next 50 years, because everything will go,” Kelley said.
To open the session, Kelley spoke briefly about the challenge IID and the County of Imperial faced to ensure terms of a 2003 water transfer agreement, which included goals and milestones for the state to abide by in its mitigation efforts, were honored.
“For IID and County the real challenge was to make people care about the Salton Sea problem,” Kelley said. “Salton Sea problem is a result of these water transfers. … The lake is going to become smaller, and the sustainable part refers to how you keep it from affecting public health by covering that lakebed. For the first time there is a plan to do that.”
The other speakers at the workshop included San Diego County Water Authority Assistant General Manager Dan Denham, who spoke about the quantification settlement agreement; IID Water Manager Tina Shields, who discussed the effects of transfers at the sea and current mitigation efforts; County Deputy CEO Andy Horne talked about local impacts, and Wilcox closed the presentation with an overview of the California Salton Sea Management Program.
The main update on Wilcox’s presentation was the inclusion of a community-led effort to restore the Desert Shores keys, which are no longer connected to the lake.
During her presentation, Shields talked about the areas that are the main sources of the emissive dust around the Salton Sea. She also elaborated on IID’s current projects aimed at suppressing the dust in the exposed playa. Using mainly surface roughening and vegetation, IID has covered nearly 1,200 acres around the lake. She said it expects to double that by the end of the year.
“There are areas that have a high wind potential, and we need to get something on it, be it a dust-control project or be some wetlands mitigation that has some water covering it up,” Shields said.
The presentations made at the workshops are now available at IID’s website. A second workshop is scheduled to take place on March 7 in Coachella.