Opinion: Keeping the Salton Sea from becoming a toxic dust bowl must be an environmental priority

San Diego Union-Tribune - 11/30/2022

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It's been seven years since the Little Hoover Commission — a state watchdog agency — warned of disaster ahead because of deteriorating conditions at the Salton Sea. This intensely salty 300-plus-square-mile lake in Imperial and Riverside counties was created by Colorado River flooding in 1905-1907, which filled up the below-sea-level Salton Trough.

Yet only now is the scope of the problem and the need to act crystallizing for federal officials.

The 2015 report came during the 16th year of a megadrought in the Southwest. With that megadrought now in its 23rd year, the problems have only grown worse. There is a profound risk of a huge spike in respiratory diseases in neighboring areas — including San Diego County — because of windstorms spreading exposed lakebed dust, which can be inhaled into the lungs, resulting in asthma, bronchitis and cardiovascular illnesses. The report also warned of a heavy toll on fish and migratory birds, which are dependent on the shrinking lake's collapsing ecosystem. The state government responded to this and previous warnings by approving $583 million in projects with the main goals of controlling hazardous dust and stopping the lake's ecological decline.

This week, the federal government finally began taking this problem seriously, with the Biden administration unveiling a $250 million plan to speed up work on the projects around the sea. The deal resulted from a larger agreement recently reached by the federal government, the Imperial Irrigation District, the California Natural Resources Agency and the Coachella Valley Water District to reduce water diversions from the Colorado River, which itself is at risk of ecological collapse. That, of course, would be a catastrophic event, since California, six other states and part of Mexico depend on the river to supply about 40 million people with water. On Tuesday, a divided Imperial Irrigation District board voted 3-2 to accept the deal, with two members feeling the federal effort didn't go far enough to save the Salton Sea. In the compact, the Imperial Irrigation District agreed to take the biggest portion of California's cuts in Colorado River supplies.

Given that the district is the biggest source of water for the San Diego County Water Authority — supplying 43 percent of the water it distributes — the agreement would seem to have major implications for the agency and the region. But Water Authority spokesperson Mike Lee said the deal would have no effect on the supplies coming to the authority based on the complex agreement it reached in 2003 with the Imperial Irrigation District, the Coachella Valley Water District, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the state of California and the U.S. Department of the Interior.

This amounts to one more testament to how effectively the agency has done its job since making the momentous decision to aggressively pursue new suppliers after being squeezed by the Metropolitan Water District, then its only supplier of significance, during the state's 1987-1992 drought. Given Gov. Gavin Newsom's persistent and stark demands over the course of his first term for Californians to conserve water, it was striking to see authority leaders say last year they had secured enough supplies to meet the region's needs through 2045.

Such assurances ultimately will depend on factors beyond the agency's control. Along with waves of deadly wildfires in recent years; cliff erosion that impacts homes, beach access and public transportation; and rising sea levels that threaten urban living along the coast, the megadrought in the Southwest is one of the climate emergency's single harshest consequences yet in the United States. The toll it is taking on the Colorado River is difficult to exaggerate. In 2000, the nation's two largest reservoirs — Lake Mead and Lake Powell, both next to the river in areas east of California — were about 95 percent full. By the end of this year, they're projected to be about 25 percent full, and they've been drying up at an even faster rate since 2020.

The Nature Climate Change journal published a study earlier this year by UCLA researchers that concluded the Southwest is facing the worst drought that the world has seen over the last 1,200 years. This means the next squeeze regional water users will face will come from Mother Nature, not MWD — and the options to acquire new supplies that were available in the early 1990s won't exist.

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.