Its been a while since I visited the Salton sea and boy, was I surprised by what I saw. All of my favorite shoreline areas could no longer be considered shoreline for the sea has receded drastically. At one place, the former yacht club in Salton city the sea used to lap around the rocks as seen in the middle of the above photograph. Now in the next photograph, the view is from the top of those rocks to where the current shoreline exists probably at least an eighth of a mile. Apparently the State of California is deciding to neglect their obligation of restoring the Salton sea which probably is currently beyond their control with the ongoing drought limiting their options. I am beginning to understand what many scientists are saying about the lethal dust issue from exposed sea bed. The water level is dropping incredibly fast and its expected to get even faster after 2017 when the full impact of the Quantitive Settlement Agreement (QSA) takes full effect.
The QSA is a water deal among five states that use Colorado river water and Imperial county here in California which from what I read has water rights to about Three quarters of California's river water allotment. With populations increasing in the other four states, they're crying fowl with California taking far more of its allotment of water, hence the QSA which Imperial county would sell more of its water to urban areas in California, and in exchange for the deal, California would restore the Salton sea. The QSA was signed back in 2003 and left California about fourteen years to come up with a plan and restore the Salton sea. Everything was fine until it was realized that California had no intention of restoring the sea as promised.
Another area hit hard by the lower elevation of the Salton Sea is the area known as the Riviera Keys. They'll probably have to rename the area the "Riviera Trenches" since nearly all the water in the canals is now gone as seen in these lower photo. As you can see the sea portion of water no longer connects to the canal portion and once those canals run dry, they'll become trenches. If I lived here I'd be fuming mad at the State for permitting this. This however will be to no avail, since money and resources are lacking.
However some promising news is coming out of the California Governor's office which may have a slight chance to reverse the dying trends at the Salton sea. It appointed an individual to investigate the best possible way to restore wetlands for migrating birds. This news is still fairly new and I'll have to update readers of this blog in my next posting.
