Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Tom Kirk (760) 564-4888
or Bill Gay (760) 337-1700

May 14, 2002

The Salton Sea Authority has told state water officials it is strongly opposed to water transfer projects that would significantly lower the level of the Salton Sea.

In testimony submitted to the California State Water Resources Control Board Monday, Authority Executive Director Tom Kirk also explained that the future of the Salton Sea must be factored in to any decision regarding any transfers.

He added the Authority is not opposed to the Quantification Settlement Agreement nor, necessarily, to the transfer of water from the Imperial Irrigation District to San Diego and the Coachella Valley.

“The Authority understands the need and generally supports implementation of the California 4.4 Plan,” Kirk said. “However, the Authority is deeply concerned about how water will be transferred and the environmental effects of the water transfer.”

Noting, “The Salton Sea is one of the most important ecological places in the United States,” Kirk said that as proposed, water transfers could make restoration of the Salton Sea infeasible.”

The proposed project as presented by the IID suggests that water conservation will occur through reducing or eliminating tail water and improving delivery systems in the Imperial Valley.

Under efficiency improvements, virtually all the water generated for the transfer is generated from reductions of inflow to the Sea, and none from crop evapotranspiration reductions that would be a result of fallowing land. Generally, water “conserved” through reducing crop evapotranspiration, would limit damage to downstream uses, like the Salton Sea.

The Sea is now 25 percent saltier than the ocean and if levels are allowed to increase, its fish and wildlife will be threatened. The current salinity trend shows that without intervention, the fishery could collapse anywhere up to the year 2060.

Scientists and engineers have been aggressively pursuing ways of removing salt from the Sea. The most pragmatic approach is the extraction of salt from the lake and a number of pilot projects to achieve this are now underway.

With the present inflows, 4 million tons of salt must be removed each year from the lake. That would require 30 square miles of land and about  $250 million in present value costs. 

These costs would balloon to well over $1.7 billion under reduced inflows.

“That difference, between restoring the Sea under current inflows and restoring the Sea under reduced inflows is staggering,” Kirk said. 

“Even if all of the political and financial support were available within a few years, it is unlikely that restoration could occur in time to preserve a fishery at the Sea and the values that the fishery supports,” he said.

Kirk also criticized the reasoning of those who say that the Sea is going to die anyway and the transfer is just speeding up the inevitable.

“This is the ‘you are going to die anyway in fifty years, mind if I shoot and kill you today argument.’” 

 

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