Agency winnows Salton Sea proposals down to three
And then there were three. Three multi-billion-dollar proposals and presentations to import water from the Gulf of California to the Salton Sea, that is.
The presentations were part of a callout from the California Natural Resources Agency in March 2017 for proposals to find long-term restoration solutions to mitigating the health and environmental impacts of the receding shoreline and exposed seabed, or playa, at the Salton Sea.
Three project development groups with more than a few familiar faces to the Imperial Valley came before the public Thursday night to present their proposals during a Natural Resources Agency workshop held in the Imperial County Board of Supervisors chambers in El Centro.
Just where the proposals go from here is anyone’s guess, however. Bruce Wilcox, the state’s assistant secretary in charge of Salton Sea policy, said the next step would be for his office to meet with “a couple members of the Legislature to try to talk about what we’re going to do next,” he said Thursday.
At present, the Natural Resources Agency, led by Wilcox, is working on its 10-year phase 1 portion of the Salton Sea management program. It has $200 million from a water bond passed by voters in 2017 and another $200 million could come if a water bond in November is passed.
By the end of the year, the state could have $400 million to fund the initial 10 years of its phased approach to Salton Sea restoration.
Meanwhile, under public pressure to get something done longterm, the state is looking at water importation to the sea as a potential restoration program. The three proposals that went before the public were winnowed down from an original 11 proposals presented locally at a workshop in May.
“What happened was, we ended up with three proposals we deemed complete, or closest to complete,” Wilcox said.
Making the cut were three projects that ranged in cost from $3 billion to $8 billion: a proposal from GEI Consultants Inc. and Michael Clinton Consulting LLC; a proposal from Cordoba Corp.; and one from The Binational Water Group LLC.
GEI/Clinton’s plan, presented by Clinton, a former Imperial Irrigation District general manager, involves pumping gulf water underneath the international boundary with Mexico before conveying it through a series of gravity-fed canals comparable in size to the recently lined All-American Canal near Drop 2. Desalination technology will be employed as part of the project.
Cordoba Corp.’s plan calls for establishing a 300-yard or so fresh water ring around the Salton Sea, covering the shoreline. A berm of native materials will be submerged to act as a barrier against the center — and largest part — of the Salton Sea, creating a hypersaline brine pond.
The Binational Water Group’s plan, presented by Rodney T. Smith and Larry Fanning, involves drawing Gulf of California water from deep wells below the gulf’s surface, pumping to the Salton Sea and then returning a hypersaline brine to the Pacific Ocean.
Although the three projects have moved forward, the state has never made any assurances that the water importation concept will become reality, citing high costs and the need for international treaties and agreements with Mexico. No funding has been set aside for construction of any project.
The IID Board of Directors has seemingly placed its focus on the more immediate needs of the sea and advancing the initial 10 years of the Salton Sea Management program, which calls for the creation of habitat and air-quality projects, with the goal of addressing 30,000 acres of exposed sea bed.
Members of the Imperial County Board of Supervisors — namely John Renison and Michael Kelley — have shown more support for water importation. Renison and Michael Kelley have said before they believe it is the only true way to restore the sea both in terms of public health and advance the economic potential of the sea.