Salton Sea Spectacular, part 1

Here’s the first post in a series of three posts today regarding the Salton Sea. First, from MyDesert.com, some good news that the tilapia count in the Salton Sea is at it’s highest in five years:

More tilapia means more pelicans. State officials recorded 6,000 brown pelicans at the sea this year, the most since 2000. And 14,000 American white pelicans spent time at the sea, the most since 2001.

But the good news is only temporary, as the sea’s steady deterioration continues. “The sea is going to die here in the next decade – that’s a given if nothing is done,” said Dale Hoffman-Floerke, head of the state Department of Water Resources’ Colorado River and Salton Sea office.

The sea’s steady drop in elevation has produced one of its first major impacts – there’s no longer an adequate boat-launching facility to get out on the lake, Nicol said. It’s a bitter reality for a sea that in the 1950s abounded with marinas, boating and fishing.

A thriving sport fishery that once included corvina, sargo and croaker is also a thing of the past, Nicol said. “The marine sport fishery has been undetectable since 2003,” she said. “That means in our gill nets we haven’t found any, and no anglers have reported any. So for all intents and purposes, it no longer exists.”

California’s largest lake, the Salton Sea has been slowly dying for decades as water salinity increases. The sea is expected to shrink significantly by 2018, when water transfers will reduce agricultural runoff, its primary source of water. Fish and bird habitats could be severely impacted, and an exposed dry lake bed could spew dust into the air for miles into the Coachella Valley.

The sea’s salinity rose this year to 50 parts per thousand, Nicol said. That’s more than the ocean but far less than that of Utah’s Salt Lake and Israel’s Dead Sea.

When the full impact of a 2003 water transfer agreement comes in 2017, the Salton Sea’s salinity is expected to rise above 60 parts per thousand, when biologists believe tilapia will no longer be able to reproduce, she said. Once the fishery is gone, the birds – more than 400 species that travel along the Pacific Flyway and visit the sea – will go with them. “Other factors could come into play to make that happen sooner,” Nicol said.

To read the rest of this story from MyDesert.com, click here.

The current restoration plan would cost $8.9 billion over 75 years. A bill to provide funding to get started was stalled in the legislature last year, and so far just $23 million has been earmarked to begin the process. The ambitious plans call for over 50 miles of dikes and a much smaller sea area, maintaining only a recreational lake and bird habitat, and applying dust control measures to the rest of the dried lake bed. This option has not been popular with many residents, and even some state officials remain skeptical.

The idea of sustaining the Salton Sea by bringing in water from the Gulf of California remains popular among locals. So, today, let’s take a look at the pipeline concept in this multi-post Aquafornia discussion of the Salton Sea.

Comments

Admin

• Log in

Credits

Powered by Vertigo & WordPress
WordPress Themes by Brian Gardner