Valley Voice: Importing water to save the Salton Sea can work. Let's prove and do it now
The Engagement Committee of the Salton Sea Management Plan (SSMP) met June 17 on Zoom, though participating community members were neither seen or heard; they could only write comments and questions.
About 90% of the meeting consisted of management reporting on small plans to control dust and build habitat that still require federal permits, which will delay construction for another year. Also, the SSMP has approved a $19 million dollar pilot project for the North Lake.
Projects to import ocean water to refill the drying Salton Sea in order to prevent wind spreading toxic dust were accepted by the SSMP in 2018. Our nine Coachella Valley City Councils and over 4,000 community members of the Coachella Valley supported this idea.
These state-accepted Water Import Proposals have been shelved because last November the SSMP decided that an independent feasibility study of ocean water import was needed. It was supposed to be ready by November 2020, but now will be delayed until late 2021.
History has proven that importing water is feasible. Water import projects started with the L.A. aqueduct from the Owens River, which was completed in 1913. As L.A. grew, more projects were engineered and built: the Hoover Dam in 1935, the Colorado River Aqueduct in 1941, and the State Water Project in 1973. These were costly. Compared to any one of these water projects, a Salton Sea Aqueduct to bring in ocean water would be relatively cheap and quite simple.
The estimated cost for a comparative engineering review of ocean water import is $1-2 million. If the SSMP can spend $19 million on the North Lake project, why not spend $1-2 million on engineering for the entire Salton Sea?
We need a comparative engineering review of the submitted proposals to look for the best concepts which can be merged into one project for the Salton Sea Aqueduct. Comparative engineering starts with the expectation that importing ocean water can work, whereas a feasibility study questions whether it can work at all. A comparative engineering review would take one to two years to complete. Thereafter, building the Salton Sea Aqueduct could begin immediately.
Building a Salton Sea Aqueduct can restore the drying Salton Sea that is classified as an agricultural sump, which imposes an immediate danger to the health of the less affluent people living in eastern Coachella and Imperial Valleys, including Mexicali, Mexico. It is also a threat to the health, prosperity and tourism of the entire Coachella Valley. We need to pressure our US EPA and California Region 7 Water Board to comply with the Clean Water Act and clean up the drains, rivers, and sea.
It is time for the SSMP to listen, and publicly invite the community to join the Engagement Committee: the City Council members and residents of the Imperial and Coachella Valleys, volunteering professional water engineers, the Salton Sea Coalition, the Salton City parents of sick children, and the residents of Desert Shores. Together we can clean the pollution, restore the environment, desalinate and create a source of fresh water.
Fund the Comparative Engineered Review NOW! Outlaw Geographical Discrimination NOW!
Chuck Parker (email@example.com) and Feliz Nunez (firstname.lastname@example.org) wrote this on behalf of the Salton Sea Coalition.