The Salton Basin , a below-sea-level depression which extends from Palm Springs , California, on the north to the Gulf of California , in the south, has undergone historic cycles of filling with water and later drying up. The most recent predecessor to the Sea, that being Lake Cahuilla , last filled this area between 300 to 500 years ago and at one time had a surface elevation above sea level. In 1905 the flooding of the Colorado River was accidentally diverted into the Salton though and thus the Salton Sea was born. When the Colorado River floods retreated in 1907, the surface elevation of the Salton Sea slowly began to drop until the 1930’s when the ‘A’ word , agricultural drainage from the Imperial and Coachella Valleys sustained its level. Soon after , this Sea was turned into a state recreation area, wildlife refuge and a sport fishery. To this day, agricultural drainage and run-off is the major source of water inflow to the Salton Sea, but we know what this means, disaster.
When the Sea was healthy it, drew recreationists from all around and was a popular sport fishing site. The high salinity made it a great place to race boats and allowed for the introduction of salt water marine life. With all this attention the north side shore line soon became the Salton Sea State Recreation Area . Not only was this area attractive to people , but it was soon populated by birds and turned into a critical link for flocks of migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway. As a result , the Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge was established on the south end of the Sea.
Today the Salton Sea contains 7.3 million acre-feet of water and has a water surface level of 227 feet below sea level. Its dimensions are 35 miles wide by 15 miles long , and has an average depth of 29.9 feet However , the condition of the Sea has drastically changed and so has the amount of healthy living multi-celled organisms in the Sea. By the 1980’s the water level rose greatly and gave way to abandoned businesses, deteriorating structures and empty beaches. This was due to the fact that evaporation is the only outlet to the Salton Sea , in fact 1.35 million acre feet of water is lost each year , thus increasing its salinity even more. The salinity of the Salton Sea has increased to 45,000 parts per million or 45 ppm; the Pacific Ocean is currently 35 ppm. Along with this devastation, the New River which is " the most polluted waterway in the nation " (due heavily to its raw swage content, agricultural drainage water and powerplant effluent ) flows from Mexico and dead ends (literally) into the Salton Sea. These two factors mentioned above are the main cause for the massive fish die offs , bird die offs, the speeding up process of eutropification, five forms of predominant bacteria and contamination from DDT , selenium, Botchism , New Castle disease, as well as algal blooms and horrific odors.
The Salton Sea is home to 4 million birds each day in the winter time , and is used more by them then any other resource in the nation. It is also a major National Wildlife Refuge to many animal species, such as the Raccoon , Jack rabbit , the Sidewinder , the Roadrunner, and many more. The Salton Sea provides habitat for 450,000 ducks , up to 30,000 Snow and Ross’s geese as well as numerous species of fish. More then 25 species of waterfowl have also been identified in this area. Fifty percent of the birds that fly along the Pacific Flyway stop at the Salton Sea yearly. There are a total of 384 different species identified at the Salton Sea . This is also the habitat for many endangered species such as the Desert pup fish which lives in the surrounding areas, the Peregrine falcon, the Clapper rail and many more.
In its hay day the Salton Sea was home to over 400,000 boats and 16 camp sites. People from all around came out to the Sea for various activities such as camping , water skiing , fishing, jet skiing , hiking, birdwatching, sailboarding and boating. In fact , the lake is known as the fastest boat racing lake in the nation because its salt content causes vessels to be much more buoyant. And at 227 feet below sea level, its high atmospheric density ( because of the low elevation ) causes engines to perform much more powerfully than on other lakes. (Salton Sea Authority and Bureau of Reclamation, 1997) Many people that I talked to spoke of a time when they were young and their families would go to the Salton Sea on the weekends. They remember that this was the place they learned how to water ski when they were children and a place of innocent fun and family togetherness. The Salton Sea was such a popular recreation site that in 1955 sealions were brought to the Salton Sea as it was being established as a State Park and Recreation Site. Bird watching revenues brought in 3.1 million dollars annually.
The Salton Sea is a sacred site to the local band of Indians called the Cahuilla Indian tribe. This land was once a place of holiness and of spirituality to these people who occupied this area long before the water was here. These people will also play an important role in the recovery of the Salton Sea. Art Lopez , chairman of the Torres-Martinez Band of Cahuilla Indians spoke and voiced his concern and the concern of others with regard to the Salton Sea and its desperately needed restoration.
Inflow the Salton Sea comes from four sources. The New River, a mixture of municipal, industrial, and agricultural flows from the City of Mexicali and agricultural drainage from the Imperial Valley; The Alamo River, predominantly agricultural drainage from the Imperial Valley; The Whitewater River, agricultural return flow from the Coachella Valley along with runoff from the local mountains;
San Felipe Creek, flow from the local mountains. There is no outlet to the Salton Sea.
The ecosystem in the area is gently deteriorating at a substantial rate. The quality of the water is so maleficent in some areas, that absolutely ‘nothing’ grows. One of the latest investigations of the Salton Sea reported a new die-off of more then one million Tilapia, the predominant fish species , in a three mile stretch of the north end of the Sea. Dr. Jan Landsberg , a research scientist in aquatic health at the Florida Department of Environmental protection examined gills form 23 fish collected at the Salton Sea and found 22 to be infested with moderate to high levels of a lethal parasite.
"Over the past five years , the Salton Sea has been the site of several major die offs . Disease problems in birds have included avian cholera , New Castle disease, avian botulism and undiagnosed mortality in eared grebes. Disease problems in fish have been less well defined , but infections with a type of bacteria known as Vibrio spp. have been identified as the potential cause of some of the massive fish moralities."(Dr. Friend , 1997)
In the summer and fall of 1996, more then 14,000fish-eating birds including 1,4000endangered California brown pelicans and 10%-12% of the west coast population of American white pelicans died due to avian botulism. In August of 1997 another outbreak of botulism occurred in fish – eating birds again. 605 dead innocent animals , including 243 gulls , 138 brown and white pelicans and 135 herons and egrets were picked up. The cause for most of this is from a parasite , a dinoflagellate, known as Amyloodinium ocellatum that impairs the respiratory function and suffocates the fish , when encountered in high levels. When a bird comes along and eats the fish , the bird too acquires this disease and suffocates also; the bird then dies , falls to the ground and is eaten by another animal and the cycle continues. There are 13 tons of nitrogen in addition to various pesticides and other organic phosphate pesticides found in the water of the Salton Sea.
Eutropification is another problem at the Salton Sea. Eutropification is a naturally occurring process , and it happens as lakes age and slowly gain more nutrients. This allows the food web to become larger and supplies more food for the fish and in turn changes the lake’s water from oligotrophic or clear, cold and clean conditions to warm, shallow and nutrient rich conditions . What we have done is called ‘Cultural eutropification ‘and it takes place when large amounts of plant nutrients are feed into the water usually from agriculture drainage and run off. Signs of ‘cultural eutropification’ are a quick increase of nutrient levels and supply, high food web production and low water transparency meaning a large amount of phytoplanton. We are destroying this beautiful region and exterminating its ecosystem. This is not only a waste of a natural resource , but a waste of our earth and a disgrace to all of man kind. What kind of good being can allow the death of an ecosystem and all of gods creatures in it?
Agricultural drainage from the Imperial Valley contains elevated levels of selenium and other salts. Birds feeding in the Salton Sea area are at risk of selenium contamination, as well as many other risks. Selenium contamination occurs as lower food chain organisms accumulate selenium and then fed on by higher food chain animals. At each higher level of the food chain , selenium concentration magnifies. Animals at greatest risk are the larger fish-eating birds such as the double-crested cormorant, great blue heron, and the cattle egret which have fairly long food chains. Other birds such as the black-necked stilt, American coot, eared grebe, northern shoveler, and the ruddy duck were also found to have high selenium concentrations in their tissues, livers, and/or eggs. (Salton Sea Study, www 1998) In many of the areas , no plants grow at all - like a dead world.
Not only does this area have viable uses as a great recreation , bird watching, hiking , habitat and stop off site for birds on the Pacific Flyway , but it is important place because of its intrinsic value. It was and could be a beautiful ecosystem again. Its values are more then what you can see at first glance. Because so many species reside here , it is a natural library of knowledge. There is so much biodiversity here that we know about already, yet very little research has been done on the Salton Sea so far. There is so much for us a species to learn about this domain. We need to save biodiversity and the habitat that it needed to survive in for the sake of all species now and beyond.
One hope for the survival of the these species is the current interest in cleaning up the Salton Sea and lowering the salinity levels. Because this parasite’s optimal environment is a place of high salinity and it does not live in freshwater or in low salinity . The improvements proposed will lower the salinity greatly and perhaps put an end to this terrible parasite. I have personally been to the Salton Sea and have seen first hand the horrific and immense environmental degradation of this area. There are dead and rotting fish all over the ground and in the water.
Several methods to restore the Salton Sea have been thought of and looked at , but we have not come upon a perfect one that satisfies all parties involved yet. There is an abundant number of people that are eager about seeing that the Salton Sea is restored . Such people are from different organizations , companies , political parties , tribes in addition to many local citizens of Imperial and Coachella Valley. Everyone must work together for an exemplary and sustainable solution, that incorporates ideas from biologist and ecologist , engineers, local indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) and the community. First lets address the three major problems. The first one is the high level of salinity, second the unstable surface elevation and third the mass contamination of the water and most of the species in and around it.
There have been numerous proposals in the past twenty-five years to clean and manage the Salton Sea. I will discuss the top five options that were most highly mentioned about at the Salton Sea Symposium last month in Palm Desert , California. These top five are: (1) pump-out options, (2) diked impoundment, (3) a combination of these two, (4) the removal of salt inflows and (5) water import option. Pumping out option involves the pumping out of water from the Sea to a receiving body of water like the Gulf of California, Laguna Salada in Mexico, the Pacific Ocean, or some other water sink , such as a deep ground aquifer. The Diked impoundment option would provide the Sea with an artificial outlet. The main body of the Sea would be separated from an evaporation section by an made a dike built of clay and creating an evaporation pond within the Sea. Eventually the impoundment would be full and the salt would need to be disposed of. A combination of the two would try to maximize the pros of each , while minimizing the cons. The combination would involve the following perhaps , a small area of the Sea being enclosed to produce some salt concentration , then the pump-out costs for salt removal from this area would be reduced because less liquid would have to be pumped to remove the same amount of salt. The Removal of salt inflows option would focus on removing salts from tributaries before they can enter the Sea. The Water import option would bring fresh water from other sources like the Colorado River and be put into the Salton Sea to dilute the salinity.
Evaluations of the proposals would be the next step here. First , criteria was established by the Salton Sea Authority , Bureau of Reclamation , the Stare of California and other interested parties. The four elimination criteria were the following ( note the absence of any environmental impact issues and ecological values and preservation) : target salinity, target elevation levels, does not involve unproven technology and operation and maintenance costs under $10 million per year. The results as stated by the committees indicates that creating an evaporation impoundment in the Sea is a promising method of salinity management. In addition other proposals might get more consideration such as creating an outlet for the Salton Sea. Before anything can be done , more biological research needs to be done on the Sea. Estimates for doing the research needed comes to about $30-$35 million dollars.
My conclution of this Salton Sea issue is a mixed one . Although there have been options made , I do not see any of them addressing the issues of contaminates in the water , the diseases afflicting the wildlife , stopping the agricultural drainage problem , the immense waste coming from the New River or ecological sustainability. This is absurd ! Perhaps during my year off from school , before I go on to get my graduate degree or Ph.D.; I will be able to get on a committee to make an influence to the restoration Salton Sea, and make them realize that without addressing the above mentioned issues , any proposal or option will fail disasterably and will waste time , money and the lives of all of gods creatures that call the Salton Sea their home. We need to think of all the players involved including the animals, and accomplish a solution that is environmentally safe and ecologically realistic to take care of the real problem.