Southern California’s Salton Sea—approximately 232 feet (70 m)
below sea level— is one of the world’s largest inland seas. It
has 130 miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe.
The sea was created in 1905 when the Colorado River broke through
a series of dikes, flooding a salty basin known as the Salton
Sink in the Imperial Valley. The sea is an important stopping
point for 1 million migratory waterfowl, and serves as critical
habitat for birds moving south to Mexico and Central America.
Overall, the Salton Sea harbors more than 270 species of birds
including ducks, geese, cormorants and pelicans.
As the temperature on an early April afternoon crept
above 80 degrees, Cruz Marquez, a member of the Salton Sea
Community Science Program, stood at a folding table under a
blue tent, scrubbing a small glass vial with the cloth of his
T-shirt. … Over the last 25 years, the Salton Sea has lost a
third of its water due to an over-allocated Colorado River. As
it shrinks, the sea’s salts plus pollutants from agricultural
runoff reach higher concentrations. All those extra nutrients
fuel algae blooms that then decay in the sulfate-rich sea,
resulting in a rotten-egg smell that can extend for miles. As
temperatures rise and the water retreats further, locals
suspect that the contaminated sediments in the exposed lakebed
are worsening air quality; the area’s childhood asthma rate is
one of the highest in the state.
For most of the year, California’s quest to rid itself of
fossil fuels seems on track: Electric cars populate highways
while energy from wind, solar and water provides much of the
power for homes and businesses. Then it gets hot, and everyone
in the nation’s most populous state turns on their air
conditioners at the same time. That’s when California has come
close to running out of power in recent years, especially in
the early evenings when electricity from solar is not as
abundant. … Another area ripe for new energy development
is the Salton Sea, a large saltwater lake in Southern
California that has been slowly drying up. Beneath the
surface of the lakebed, heat from the Earth warms underground
water. Geothermal power plants use steam from this water to
spin turbines that generate electricity.
The Biden Administration is finalizing agreements to pay an
estimated $1.2 billion in taxpayer dollars to prop up the
Colorado River system that provides 40 million people with
water. California desert water districts who are entitled to
the most river water are vying for nearly $900 million of those
funds, according to interviews with key negotiators and funding
announcements to date. In exchange, they would leave nearly 1.4
million acre-feet of water in Lake Mead, one of two massive
reservoirs along the river. That’s almost half of the nearly
trillion gallons that California, Nevada and Arizona officials
on Monday told federal authorities they could collectively
conserve through 2026. That proposal and related
environmental reviews must still be approved by federal
officials.
For months, California officials led by Gov. Gavin Newsom felt
like they were at the bottom of a multistate dogpile in the
closely-watched staredown over water rights across the American
West. … That all changed in a dramatic way on Monday,
when California went from the main villain over dwindling
Colorado River supplies to something of a surprise beneficiary.
The joint plan presented alongside Arizona and Nevada and
roundly viewed as a victory by California officials — as well
as environmentalists and business leaders alike. … It’s a
remarkable turnaround when many were expecting only the Biden
administration — and then, likely, the courts — to be able to
break the stalemate and enforce a lasting solution.
Just after midnight on April 30, residents near the Salton Sea
were jolted awake by a magnitude 4.3 earthquake. … Anytime
there’s a swarm of earthquakes in their community locals can’t
help but think about the steam billowing from a dozen
geothermal power plants that have sprung up along the Salton
Sea’s southeastern shore over the past four decades. They
wonder, could decades of drilling thousands of feet into the
Earth’s crust and pumping out boiling brine to make renewable
energy be causing some of these quakes? And could drilling and
testing in the area by companies rushing to extract lithium
needed for electric vehicle batteries be increasing the
risk?
More than half of the world’s largest lakes and reservoirs have
lost significant amounts of water over the last three decades,
according to a new study, which pins the blame largely on
climate change and excessive water use. Roughly one-quarter of
the world’s population lives in the basin of a drying lake,
according to the study by a team of international scientists,
published Thursday in the journal Science. While lakes cover
only around 3% of the planet, they hold nearly 90% of its
liquid surface freshwater and are essential sources of drinking
water … The Colorado River’s Lake Mead in Southwest US has
receded dramatically amid a megadrought and decades of overuse.
The Caspian Sea, between Asia and Europe – the world’s largest
inland body of water – has long been declining due to climate
change and water use.
The Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors appointed
Assistant General Manager Sergio Quiroz to serve as Interim
General Manager effective June 3. The Board’s decision was made
following closed session discussions during the May 16 meeting,
with directors present voting unanimously in support of the
appointment. As Interim General Manager, Quiroz will replace
General Manager Henry Martinez, who will be retiring on June 2.
Martinez announced his intent to retire in January, following
45 years of service in the energy and water industries, serving
the last five years with IID.
The Imperial Valley has been a senior water rights holder on
the Colorado River for more than 100 years. Since our founding,
our farmers, and the local Imperial Irrigation District, have
long viewed our water seniority as both a property right and a
responsibility. As much as we believe in upholding the rule of
law, we are equally committed to being responsible water users
and doing our part to keep the river healthy enough to meet the
needs of all seven states. Imperial Valley farms and regional
water agencies have implemented a host of conservation measures
throughout the past twenty years, allowing farmers to conserve
large amounts of water while still producing the food our
country depends on. -Written by Stephen Benson, a farmer in
California’s Imperial Valley.
The latest update from the official U.S. Drought Monitor shows
that more areas of the Golden State are no longer in a drought,
including all of Los Angeles County. Drought conditions have
continued to retreat across the state after the winter season
brought heavy rain and historic snowfall. The data, released on
April 27, shows that more than 60% of California is free from
any drought classification, a percentage that has continued to
increase since March when researchers found that more than 50%
of the state was out of a drought, which was the first time
that happened in three years.
The law of the River– the Colorado River, that is – says the
farmers come first. That’s how they see it in California, in
the Imperial Valley, where farming is big business. Take Andrew
Leimgruber of Holtville, Calif. … a fourth-generation
farmer who believes the water rights bestowed unto the farmers
in the 1922 accord between California, and the other six states
– including Nevada – that rely on Colorado River water to live.
That water right established a system putting the farmers at
the top of the list. … Since the 1922 agreement expired
earlier this year, California has refused to sign an agreement
with the six other so-called “basin states.” In fact, the
Bureau of Reclamation has proposed an emergency plan for
dividing Colorado River water unless the states are able to ink
a new deal with each other.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
For more than 20 years, Tanya
Trujillo has been immersed in the many challenges of the Colorado
River, the drought-stressed lifeline for 40 million people from
Denver to Los Angeles and the source of irrigation water for more
than 5 million acres of winter lettuce, supermarket melons and
other crops.
Trujillo has experience working in both the Upper and Lower
Basins of the Colorado River, basins that split the river’s water
evenly but are sometimes at odds with each other. She was a
lawyer for the state of New Mexico, one of four states in the
Upper Colorado River Basin, when key operating guidelines for
sharing shortages on the river were negotiated in 2007. She later
worked as executive director for the Colorado River Board of
California, exposing her to the different perspectives and
challenges facing California and the other states in the river’s
Lower Basin.
State work to improve wildlife habitat and tamp down dust at California’s ailing Salton Sea is finally moving forward. Now the sea may be on the verge of getting the vital ingredient needed to supercharge those restoration efforts – money.
The shrinking desert lake has long been a trouble spot beset by rising salinity and unhealthy, lung-irritating dust blowing from its increasingly exposed bed. It shadows discussions of how to address the Colorado River’s two-decade-long drought because of its connection to the system. The lake is a festering health hazard to nearby residents, many of them impoverished, who struggle with elevated asthma risk as dust rises from the sea’s receding shoreline.
Out of sight and out of mind to most
people, the Salton Sea in California’s far southeast corner has
challenged policymakers and local agencies alike to save the
desert lake from becoming a fetid, hyper-saline water body
inhospitable to wildlife and surrounded by clouds of choking
dust.
The sea’s problems stretch beyond its boundaries in Imperial and
Riverside counties and threaten to undermine multistate
management of the Colorado River. A 2019 Drought Contingency Plan for the
Lower Colorado River Basin was briefly stalled when the Imperial
Irrigation District, holding the river’s largest water
allocation, balked at participating in the plan because, the
district said, it ignored the problems of the Salton Sea.
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Even as stakeholders in the Colorado River Basin celebrate the recent completion of an unprecedented drought plan intended to stave off a crashing Lake Mead, there is little time to rest. An even larger hurdle lies ahead as they prepare to hammer out the next set of rules that could vastly reshape the river’s future.
Set to expire in 2026, the current guidelines for water deliveries and shortage sharing, launched in 2007 amid a multiyear drought, were designed to prevent disputes that could provoke conflict.
One of California Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s first actions after taking office was to appoint Wade
Crowfoot as Natural Resources Agency secretary. Then, within
weeks, the governor laid out an ambitious water agenda that
Crowfoot, 45, is now charged with executing.
That agenda includes the governor’s desire for a “fresh approach”
on water, scaling back the conveyance plan in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and calling for more water recycling, expanded
floodplains in the Central Valley and more groundwater recharge.
For the bulk of her career, Jayne
Harkins has devoted her energy to issues associated with the
management of the Colorado River, both with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and with the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
Now her career is taking a different direction. Harkins, 58, was
appointed by President Trump last August to take the helm of the
United States section of the U.S.-Mexico agency that oversees
myriad water matters between the two countries as they seek to
sustainably manage the supply and water quality of the Colorado
River, including its once-thriving Delta in Mexico, and other
rivers the two countries share. She is the first woman to be
named the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and
Water Commission for either the United States or Mexico in the
commission’s 129-year history.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
California voters may experience a sense of déjà vu this year when they are asked twice in the same year to consider water bonds — one in June, the other headed to the November ballot.
Both tackle a variety of water issues, from helping disadvantaged communities get clean drinking water to making flood management improvements. But they avoid more controversial proposals, such as new surface storage, and they propose to do some very different things to appeal to different constituencies.
Tickets are now on sale for the Water Education Foundation’s April 11-13 tour of the Lower Colorado River.
Don’t miss this opportunity to visit key sites along one of the nation’s most famous rivers, including a private tour of Hoover Dam, Central Arizona Project’s Mark Wilmer pumping plant and the Havasu National Wildlife Refuge. The tour also visits the Salton Sea, Slab City, the All-American Canal and farming regions in the Imperial and Coachella valleys.
This issue of Western Water discusses the challenges
facing the Colorado River Basin resulting from persistent
drought, climate change and an overallocated river, and how water
managers and others are trying to face the future.
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
Scientifically and legislatively, lakes are indistinguishable
from
ponds, but lakes generally are considered to be longer and
deeper lentic, or still, waters. In the 18th and
19th centuries, scientists attempted to distinguish
the two more formally, stating that ponds were shallow enough to
allow sunlight to penetrate to the bottom, but this exists
today as an unofficial point.
Fearing an imminent public health threat, the director of the
University of California, Irvine’s Salton Sea Initiative said the
State Water Resources Control Board should step in and regulate
the rate of water transferred from the Imperial Valley to coastal
California as part of the Quantification Settlement Agreement.
The shallow, briny inland lake at the southeastern edge of
California is slowly evaporating and becoming more saline –
threatening the habitat for fish and birds and worsening air
quality as dust from the dry lakebed is whipped by the constant
winds.
(Read this excerpt from the May/June 2015 issue along with
the editor’s note. Click here to
subscribe to Western Water and get full access.)
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people and 4
million acres of farmland in a region encompassing some 246,000
square miles in the southwestern United States. The 32-page
Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River covers the history of the
river’s development; negotiations over division of its water; the
items that comprise the Law of the River; and a chronology of
significant Colorado River events.
A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect
gift for the water wonk in your life.
Our 24×36 inch California Water Map is widely known for being the
definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the
state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s
natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts
– including federally, state and locally funded
projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and
natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of
California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects,
wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the
text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water
projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado
River.
As part of the historic Colorado
River Delta, the Salton Sea regularly filled and dried for
thousands of years due to its elevation of 237 feet below
sea level.
The Pacific Flyway is one of four
major North American migration routes for birds, especially
waterfowl, and extends from Alaska and Canada, through
California, to Mexico and South America. Each year, birds follow
ancestral patterns as they travel the flyway on their annual
north-south migration. Along the way, they need stopover sites
such as wetlands with suitable habitat and food supplies. In
California, 90 percent of historic wetlands have been lost.
Southern California’s Imperial Valley is home to California’s
earliest agricultural
drainage success story, one that converted a desert landscape
to an agricultural one, but at the same time created far reaching
consequences.
Water from the Colorado River transformed the sagebrush and
desert sands of the Imperial, Coachella and Palo Verde valleys
into lush, green agricultural fields. The growing season is
year-round, the water plentiful and the local economies are based
almost entirely on farming. As the waters of the Colorado River
allowed the deserts to bloom, they allowed southern California
cities like Los Angeles and San Diego to boom. Suburbs, jobs and
people followed, and the population within the six counties
served by Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
(MWD) grew from 2.8 million in 1930 to more than 17 million
today.
