Calexico Chronicle: Salton Sea’s Species Conservation Habitat to Expand
By Eric Everwine
SALTON SEA — Shovels hit the ground as construction on an expansion of the state’s ongoing promise to save the Salton Sea commenced, backed by a $70 million grant made possible by the Biden-Harris administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Leaders from the California Natural Resources Agency, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and elected officials including U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, Congressman Dr. Raul Ruiz and state Sen. Steve Padilla gathered at the Salton Sea on Tuesday, Oct. 15, to break ground on a 750-acre addition to CNRA’s Species Conservation Habitat project aimed at curbing toxic dust and restoring critical wildlife habitat.
The SCH is the first large-scale initiative under California’s 10-year Salton Sea Management Program aimed at addressing the environmental and public health risks from the shrinking lake. The 750 acre expansion will add to the existing 4,100 acre restoration area, creating a network of ponds and wetlands to suppress toxic dust emissions from the exposed lakebed while providing vital habitat for fish and migratory birds. This near 5,000 acre area has the potential to expand up to 8,000 acres, and the $70 million used for this first expansion is only part of a promised $250 million in federal funding commitments.
Chairman Thomas Tortez of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians opened the groundbreaking ceremony with a land acknowledgement and prayer, and said of the conservation project, “It’s a snapshot of the beauty of paradise, and how everything can converge and work in unison with the environment and the people and the universe. You’ll see that this one little speck of land and conservation — it’s a success.” The Torres Martinez tribe has been an instrumental piece of the SSMP, providing guidance on land stewardship and habitat preservation.
The spirit of unison, collaboration and partnership was a prominent theme throughout the day, with each speaker highlighting the contributions made by their own organizations in conjunction with their colleagues from others. The SSMP brings together a coalition of various government and private agencies, each providing a different piece of the conservation puzzle.
Though some Valley residents remain skeptical of the methods employed by all of these collaborating agencies to save the Salton Sea, one thing is clear — solving the crisis is a top priority for officials.
“For too long, residents in this region have heard a lot of talk about what we need to do at the Salton Sea, certainly seen a lot of promises without projects, without actual work on the ground,” said Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency. “We know that stabilizing the Salton Sea is not an option … it’s an imperative.”
Federal support has been a game changer in pushing long-delayed efforts forward, officials said, with the newly released $70 million grant serving as a catalyst for expanded Salton Sea preservation efforts. Camille Calimlim Touton, Bureau of Reclamation commissioner, highlighted the collaborative nature of the project, noting that the Inflation Reduction Act funding represents one of the largest investments in the Salton Sea’s history. “We’re leading with the sea,” Touton said.
According to Touton, the restoration efforts at the SCH are interlinked with water conservation endeavors at the Colorado River and Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States. The IID’s conservation measures, as a result of the Lower Basin Plan to conserve 3 million acre-feet of Colorado River water, were a necessary component in securing the Inflation Reduction Act funding.
Due to this ongoing collaboration between the Bureau of Reclamation and the IID, water levels have remained steady at Lake Mead instead of declining by almost 20 feet as experts projected, Touton said. “It’s a proof of concept that when you have leaders leading, we can make a significant difference.”
“The single largest investment of money, the single largest project on the Salton Sea, and the single largest conservation deal ever done on the Colorado River, boosting the levels of our resources that we rely on by dozens of feet … That’s a big deal,” remarked IID Board of Directors Vice Chair JB Hamby. “And the way we got that done was through the power of partnerships.”
Officials are aware of the Salton Sea’s rapid recession and the need for more water inflows. More water conservation from the IID and the agricultural industry in Imperial County directly results in less runoff drainage to the Salton Sea, an issue that projects like the SCH are currently inadequate to solve.
“These are projects to stabilize the sea right now, but we also need a plan moving forward with Mother Nature,” said Crowfoot. “As more efficiencies are introduced and less water is used, more conservation happens, less inflow is coming to the sea. So this work is important, this progress is important to note, but we have a lot of work ahead of us.”
“This is a big day because it is a significant step forward in the fight to reverse the declining water levels in the sea,” Sen. Padilla, of California, said.
Padilla, along with the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, was part of a coalition of western senators who sent a letter to the United States Department of Agriculture urging it to use Inflation Reduction Act funds to address drought-related issues like the receding Salton Sea and the declining Colorado River. Feinstein and Padilla led the coalition.
“This is a public health issue. And that’s what really drove our commitment to fighting for not just the Inflation Reduction Act package as a whole, but the specific provisions to bring needed resources to the Salton Sea,” Padilla said. “Especially the recent water conservation agreements by federal and local partners that are part of us navigating the declining water levels of the Colorado River. We know that there are sort of downward spiral impacts of those reductions and we need to have plans for how to manage those in a healthy way.”
The state of California has not yet released a plan to bring more water into the Salton Sea, but officials see the SCH as a great first step in rebuilding wildlife habitat and reducing the spread of harmful particulate matter from the exposed Salton Sea lakebed. These emissions are one of the factors contributing to the asthma rates in Imperial County, among the highest in the state.
“We already have one of the highest pediatric asthma hospitalization rates in the state of California,” Congressman Ruiz said. “We have one of the highest cardiopulmonary disease chronic illness mortality (rates) in the state of California. That, combined with the level of poverty, combined with the level of reduced healthcare access, is a recipe for a catastrophe in public health as this dust becomes exposed.”
Ruiz noted that the negative impact of the drying Salton Sea can reach nearly $9 billion in economic costs if there are no mitigation efforts made, and that more funding will be necessary as drought reduction efforts continue. “In my book, the $250 million represents a floor, not a ceiling,” Ruiz said.
State Sen. Padilla (District 18) praised the SCH expansion and the newly released funds as forward-thinking, saying, “The largest federal investment in restoration — that is not just reactive, but proactive to mitigate the continuing exposure of playa and the aerosolization of toxins into the air, as poisoning our communities, and poisoning our children, and impacting their education, and impacting their public health.”
State Sen. Padilla stated that the efforts to restore the Salton Sea are about legacy, that there is still much work to be done for the future of our community, and that “we need an instrument that is going to carry the work on, dedicated only to the Salton Sea. To the exclusion of other distractions. To make it a No. 1 priority.”
Assembly member Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) also touched on the community’s reception of Salton Sea conservancy efforts, saying that the people of the Imperial Valley were tired of studies, tired of meetings and tired of hearings. He noted the groundbreaking of the SCH expansion and all the funding as important steps in showing the community that the state and federal government mean business.
“We can look straight in the eyes of the people who we represent and tell them that action has been taken,” Garcia said. “And there is much more for us to do together … No one does anything by themselves.”
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