2017 Salton Sea: A year of progress
ALTON SEA — At the end of 2017 the mitigation water deliveries mandated by the 2003 water transfer will end. Meanwhile, the Salton Sea is expected to start receding at a much faster pace, leaving thousands of acres of emissive playa exposed.
With a looming deadline and a governor who was closing in on the final stretch of his term, it was imperative to make substantial progress and set the foundation for 2018. In essence, this year was the final opportunity for local and state agencies to come together and lay out a plan for the Salton Sea.
At the start of the year, there was no plan, funding for that non-existing plan was a mystery and it seemed as different agencies had different priorities, however, as the year took its course some of the most important pieces began to fall in place.
In March, the California Natural Resources Agency, which has been tasked with carrying out the habitat and dust suppression projects, released its 10-year plan as part of the Salton Sea Management Program that set a roadmap for the state to build dust suppression projects to cover nearly 30,000 acres of exposed lakebed by 2028.
“This allowed us to set the first series of steps under the SSMP — we’re looking at these as the proof of concept and in addition to those projects we’ll continue to carry out our dust suppression projects around the sea,” said Bruce Wilcox, CNRA’s assistant secretary for Salton Sea policy.
Although the plan was criticized by some in the community for either the size of the target or due to the time it takes, it gave the state and local partners a target to shoot for. The next important question became how the state would pay for the $383 million plan.
Later in the year two bills provided a possible answer: a $4 billion park bond introduced by Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia in the Assembly along with its Senate companion introduced by Senate leader Kevin De Leon that initially included up to $280 million for the Salton Sea, but through negotiations was later reduced to $190 million.
Prior to the passage of the bill, local and regional officials met with Gov. Brown in Sacramento in August to urge him to support the bill to ensure the Salton Sea Management Program was funded during the foreseeable future.
The bill narrowly passed both legislative houses with no votes to spare in the final day of session in September and was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown a month later. The bond will now go to the voters on the June ballot to approve the full $4.1 billion that will cover most of the monies needed under the 10-year plan.
But perhaps the most significant action pertaining to the Salton Sea was the approval of the Stipulated Order.
The order is an amendment to the water order the California State Water Resources Control Board issued on Oct. 28, 2002, which approved the long-term transfer of water from the Imperial Irrigation District to San Diego County Water Authority, Coachella Valley Water District and Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
The overarching goal was for the state of California to commit to a series of annual milestones regarding the number of exposed acres that must be covered under the Salton Sea Management Program and give the water board jurisdiction to hold the state accountable if the goals aren’t met.
“Our entire initiative it was using Dec. 31, 2017, as our end date, we knew what our deadline was,” said IID Governmental Affairs Officer Antonio Ortega. “If we would’ve not taken action, we would have lost the only leverage that we had. If we would’ve let it go past this month’s end, we would’ve had a hard time convincing people that we mattered at all and that the Salton Sea was a critical issue.”
The draft stipulated order set the same 29,800 acres of exposed lakebed to be covered by 2029, but it also sets yearly objectives starting with 500 acres by Jan. 1, 2019, and rises incrementally to 4,000 acres or more to be covered in the final three years.
Another important commitment in the order includes a requirement for the state to develop a phase II plan at the Salton Sea that will outline the next 10 years of activities and projects to be undertaken. That plan should be finalized no later than by the end of 2022.
For Wilcox, who is overseeing the projects, 2017 was important in order to get the legwork done prior to 2018 when progress has to be reflected in the projects that get built.
“The biggest action was getting all the major stakeholders on board,” Wilcox said. “The stipulated order has targets for us to reach and solidifies what we’re doing and helps us understand the metrics that will be used to monitor our progress.”
He also noted it was important for all of the stakeholders to get to understand what the CNRA is doing and what they have in the works in order to be able to carry out the necessary work needed on the ground without constantly reaching out to every agency to update them on their latest activities.
Although the plan doesn’t have the full funding allocated, that shouldn’t get in the way of the projects slated for 2018: Red Hill Bay, Species Conservation habitat and others in the southern portion of the lake, which are funded through other means in addition to the CNRA having $60 million still unspent from the funds allocated by Gov. Brown in 2016.
With a governor election looming in 2018, it was imperative to get something done under the current administration instead of having to reset and start all over once a new governor was elected.
“Under Gov. Brown is when we have seen the biggest interest regarding the Salton Sea,” Ortega said. “We were racing against that clock.”
Despite all the small steps that have been taken up to this point, what lies ahead is the real work that matters as the state races to try to catch up with the receding playa.