Wetlands are appearing around the Salton Sea. Could this be a natural solution?
About 3 miles east of Bombay Beach, and a half-mile back from the Salton Sea’s receding shoreline, the crunchy exposed playa gives way from a mostly empty white landscape to more and more native vegetation, and then suddenly a few shallow ponds appear, surrounded by dense vegetation. The Bombay Beach wetlands are an unexpected side effect of the shrinking sea, and Audubon California is eyeing this phenomenon as at least a partial solution to the complex issues at the Salton Sea. Proposals abound aimed at mitigating the effects of the sea’s quickly receding shoreline, from importing water from Mexico’s Sea of Cortez (still just an idea) to the state’s 4,000-acre habitat restoration along the sea’s southern edge (nearing completion).