Effort to restore lake get boost from climate bond
By Deborah Brennan | CalMatters
Published March 12, 2025 2:00 PM
Heavy machinery is used to create the West Pond, a habitat pond at the Species Conservation Habitat Project, part of dust-remission efforts at the Salton Sea.
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Jay Calderon
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The Desert Sun via Reuters
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Topline:
The newly created Salton Sea Conservancy will have nearly half a billion dollars to revive the deteriorating Salton Sea.
The context: The Salton Sea faces pollution, water quality issues, and dust problems affecting residents.Elevated asthma rates plague nearby residents. It's also a thriving hotspot for birds — a record 250,000 shorebirds were sighted in one day in 2023.
Where will the money come from? The California climate bond that voters passed in November dedicates $170 million toward Salton Sea restoration, including $10 million to establish the conservancy. The state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund also dedicates $60 million, and the federal Bureau of Reclamation is contributing another $250 million.
The work ahead: The new conservancy will manage land and water rights and oversee restoration work spelled out in the 2018 Salton Sea Management Program, a 10-year blueprint for building 30,000 acres of wildlife habitat and dust-suppression projects.
Read on ... for details about the projects.
Haze hung over the Salton Sea on a recent winter day, while black-necked stilts and kildeer waded in the shallows, pecking at crustaceans.
Something else emerged a few steps closer to the lakeshore: a briny, rotten egg stench wafting from the water.
The Salton Sea is nearly twice as salty as the ocean, laden with agricultural runoff and susceptible to algal blooms that spew hydrogen sulfide, a noxious gas. It’s also a haven to more than 400 bird species and a key stop on the Pacific Flyway, one of North America’s main bird migration routes.
State officials have wrestled with the sea’s deteriorating condition as its water becomes fouler and its footprint shrinks, exposing toxic dust that wafts through the region.
This year, the state took a step toward a solution, creating a new Salton Sea Conservancy and earmarking nearly half a billion dollars to revive the deteriorating water body. While the funds will help restore native vegetation and improve water quality, some community organizers think it will ultimately take tens of billions of dollars to save the sea. And the conservancy alone can’t address the impact its pollution has on human health, including the elevated asthma rates among nearby residents.
“The Salton Sea is one of the most pressing environmental health crises in the state of California,” said state Sen. Steve Padilla, the Chula Vista Democrat who authored the bill to create the conservancy last year. “It’s a public health and ecological disaster. ... The Salton Sea Conservancy will provide permanency in our investments for cleanup and restoration.”
The California climate bond that voters passed in November dedicates $170 million toward Salton Sea restoration, including $10 million to establish the conservancy. The state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund also dedicates $60 million and the federal Bureau of Reclamation is contributing another $250 million, Padilla said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Legislature, local water districts, tribal governments and nonprofits are expected to appoint 15 members to the conservancy by Jan. 1.
The new conservancy will manage land and water rights and oversee restoration work spelled out in the 2018 Salton Sea Management Program, a 10-year blueprint for building 30,000 acres of wildlife habitat and dust-suppression projects.
“The conservancy is needed to make sure that it is completed, but also to permanently maintain and manage that restoration,” Padilla said. “This is not the kind of thing where you check a box, one and done.”
At 35 miles long and 15 miles wide, the Salton Sea is California’s largest lake. Its most recent incarnation formed in 1905, when the Colorado River breached an irrigation canal and millions of gallons of freshwater flooded the basin, creating an inland lake that spans Coachella and Imperial valleys.
Pelicans take flight at the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge in Calipatria.
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Marcio Jose Sanchez
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Associated Press
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But that wasn’t really its beginning. Although the Salton Sea holds a reputation as an agricultural accident, it has filled and drained naturally over the past few millennia.
Ancient versions of what was called Lake Cahuilla have appeared every few hundred years since prehistoric times. In its older, larger configurations, Native Americans set fish traps along the shoreline. It filled as recently as 1731, a hydrology study by San Diego State University found. That natural history demonstrates its value to the region, proponents say.
“We need to treat the Salton Sea as an important ecosystem for our environment that we live in,” said Luis Olmedo, executive director of Comite Civico del Valle, a Brawley-based community organization.
During its heyday in the 1960s, the salty lake was an aquatic playground for Rat Pack celebrities, including Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. By the end of the last century, its salinity increased and water quality plunged, leading to mass die-offs of fish and birds, including endangered brown pelicans.
Area residents suffer from breathing problems, as dust from the exposed lakebed swirls through neighboring communities. Last year a study by the University of Southern California found nearly a quarter of children living near the Salton Sea experience asthma, about three to five times the national average.
A thriving hotspot for birds
Despite its contamination, the sea still provides key wildlife habitat. An Audubon bird count in August 2023 yielded a record 250,000 shorebirds sighted in one day, said Camila Bautista, Salton Sea and desert program manager with Audubon California. Even as the sea’s polluted water and dying fishery make it less hospitable to fish-eating birds such as pelicans, ground-nesting birds such as snowy plovers proliferate on the expanding shoreline.
“The Salton Sea is still a thriving hotspot for birds, and these restoration projects are important to make sure that’s still the case,” Bautista said.
The California Salton Sea Management Program lists 18 restoration projects, including some key efforts already underway. Those include massive aquatic restoration projects as well as revegetation efforts, said Natural Resources Agency Deputy Secretary Samantha Arthur, who oversees the management program.
At the south end of the sea, the state’s species conservation habitat project has added nearly 5,000 acres of ponds, basins and other water features, according to the management program’s project tracker. Images of the site look like a sci-fi waterworld, where earth-moving equipment reshapes the shoreline into a network of 10-foot-deep pools.
Workers will mix highly saline water from the sea with freshwater from its main tributary, the New River, to reach a target salinity of 20 to 40 parts per thousand, Arthur said. At that level, the water can support native desert pupfish, along with tilapia, an imported fish that’s adapted to brackish water and once thrived throughout the sea.
“We’re designing a target salinity to sustain the fish and then to attract the birds,” she said.
Covering exposed soil with water should also improve air quality by suppressing dust, Arthur said. That project started in 2020 and is slated for completion this year.
An expansion to the species conservation habitat would add another 14,900 acres of aquatic habitat for fish-eating birds, with “nesting and loafing islands” and ponds of varied depths. It’s expected to be finished in 2027.
The management plan also includes planting native vegetation around the shoreline or encouraging plants that are already there.
“We see 8,000 acres of wetlands that have naturally sprung up along the edge of the sea,” Arthur said. “The thing that’s great about that is it provides ongoing habitat for bird species.”
The state is helping that along by planting native vegetation on the west side of the sea, to create habitat and cut dust.
Bombay Beach is known for its pop-up art and bohemian gatherings.
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Ariana Drehsler
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CalMatters
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The vistas at Bombay Beach are impressive. The visitors are eclectic.
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Ariana Drehsler
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CalMatters
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Creating nature-based solutions
Bombay Beach is an artisan hamlet on the east side of the Salton Sea, dotted with rusted trailers, abandoned cars and pop-up art.
It’s also the site of a restoration project spearheaded by Audubon California, which will add 564 acres of wetland by 2028. It will create shoreline berms to enable water to pool naturally, forming shallow ponds that draw waterfowl and shorebirds, Bautista said.
“The message of this project is to make this as self-sustaining as we can, and to work with nature-based solutions to make it not super engineered,” Bautista said.
Those projects form the first phases of a bigger restoration effort, Arthur said.
As state officials and nonprofit partners are shoring up wetlands and planting vegetation, the Army Corps of Engineers is studying long-term solutions for the Salton Sea.
Olmedo thinks the half billion dollars allocated now is just a small part of what’s ultimately needed to save the sea.
“Everything is costing more, and it’s not unreasonable to think that we have a $60 billion liability,” he said. “I want to see billions of dollars invested in infrastructure.”
Silvia Paz, executive director of the Coachella-based community group Alianza Coachella Valley, pointed out that the conservancy is primarily focused on restoring habitat, but human health risks from its pollution still needs attention. She wants to see more public health studies and services as part of long-term plans for the Salton Sea.
“That’s a big win that we have the conservancy established,” she said. “In terms of addressing the overall health, environmental and economic impacts, the conservancy was not designed for that, and we still have a way to go to figure out how to address that.”
Fresh Air film critic Justin Chang says most of his favorite films this year were made overseas, including his No. 1 pick, Sirāt.
The bad news: Anyone will tell you that these are tumultuous, borderline-apocalyptic times for the film industry. Box office is down. The threat of AI looms. Billionaires and tech giants are laying waste to what remains of the major Hollywood studios.
The good news: Chang says he saw more terrific new movies this year than any year since before the pandemic. True, most of those movies weren't from here, but all of them played in U.S. theaters in 2025, and all of them are well worth seeking out in the weeks and months to come.
Read on ... for the list and trailers.
Anyone will tell you that these are tumultuous, borderline-apocalyptic times for the film industry. Box office is down. The threat of AI looms. Billionaires and tech giants are laying waste to what remains of the major Hollywood studios. I'm not entirely sure how to square all this bad news with my own good news, which is that I saw more terrific new movies this year than I have any year since before the pandemic. True, most of those movies weren't from here, but all of them played in U.S. theaters in 2025, and all of them are well worth seeking out in the weeks and months to come.
The best new movie I saw this year is a breakthrough work from a gifted Spanish filmmaker named Oliver Laxe. It's a nail-biting survival thriller, set in the desert of southern Morocco during what feels like the end-times. It's a little Mad Max, a little Wages of Fear, and all in all, the most exhilarating and devastating two hours I experienced in a theater this year. Sirāt also features the year's best original score, composed by the electronic musician Kangding Ray.
Paul Thomas Anderson's much-loved, much-debated reimagining of Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland is an exuberant mash-up of action-thriller and political satire. One Battle After Another stars Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his best and funniest performances as an aging revolutionary drawn back into the field. He leads an ensemble that includes Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, Regina Hall and the terrific discovery, Chase Infiniti.
Caught by the Tides is an unclassifiable hybrid of fiction and nonfiction from the Chinese director Jia Zhangke. Drawn from a mix of archival footage and newly shot material, it's a one-of-a-kind portrait of the myriad transformations that China has gone through over the past two decades.
4. Resurrection
Resurrection, another structurally bold Chinese title, is a bit like an Avatar moviefor film buffs. Placing us in the head of a shapeshifting protagonist, the director, Bi Gan, takes us on a gorgeous, dreamlike odyssey through various cinema genres, from historical spy drama to vampire thriller.
My No. 5 movie is the year's best documentary: My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow, from the director Julia Loktev. It's a sprawling yet intimate portrait of several Russian independent journalists in the harrowing months leading up to President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As a portrait of anti-authoritarian resistance, it pairs nicely with my No. 6 movie.
The Secret Agent is an emotionally rich, sneakily funny and continually surprising drama from the director Kleber Mendonça Filho. Set in 1977, it lays bare the personal cost of dissidence during Brazil's military dictatorship.
7. Sound of Falling
Although not a horror film, exactly, this German drama qualifies as the best and spookiest haunted-house movie I've seen this year. Directed by Mascha Schilinski, Sound of Falling teases out the connections among four generations of girls and young women who have passed through the same remote farmhouse.
8. April
April, from the director Dea Kulumbegashvili, is a tough, bleak, but utterly hypnotic portrait of a skilled OB-GYN trying to provide health care for women in a conservative East Georgian village. It may be set far from the U.S., but the difficulties these women face would resonate in any setting.
Directed by Rungano Nyoni, this Zambian film is a subtly mesmerizing drama about a death that takes place in a middle-class household, setting off a chain of dark revelations that threaten to tear a family apart.
It Was Just an Accident, which won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, is a shattering moral thriller from the Iranian director Jafar Panahi. It centers on a group of former political prisoners who are given a rare chance at retribution. In the past, Panahi has been a prisoner in Iran himself, and earlier this month, the government sentenced the director in absentia to a year in prison. I hope that Panahi never sees the inside of a jail cell again, and that his movie is seen as far and wide as possible.
Copyright 2025 NPR
Robert Garrova
explores the weird and secret bits of SoCal that would excite even the most jaded Angelenos. He also covers mental health.
Published December 13, 2025 5:00 AM
Interior of Healing Force of the Universe records in Pasadena, where a benefit concert is held on Sunday to help fire survivors build back their record collections.
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Erin Grace Kim
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LAist
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Topline:
This Sunday, a special donation concert at Pasadena's Healing Force of the Universe record store helps fire survivors get their vinyl record collections back.
The backstory: The record donation effort is the brainchild of musician Brandon Jay, who founded the nonprofit Altadena Musicians after losing his home and almost all of his family’s musical instruments in the Eaton Fire. Now, he has turned his efforts on rebuilding people's lost record collections.
Read on ... to find details of the show happening Sunday.
In the wake of the Eaton Fire, Altadena and Pasadena’s music community have really shown up to support fire survivors, especially fellow musicians who lost instruments and record collections.
That effort continues this weekend with a special donation concert at a Pasadena record store, with the aim of getting vinyl records back in the hands of survivors who lost their collections.
“You know, our name is Healing Force of the Universe, and I think that gives me a pretty clear direction… especially after the fires,” said Austin Manuel, founder of Pasadena record store, where Sunday’s show will be held.
The record donation effort is the brainchild of musician Brandon Jay, who founded the nonprofit Altadena Musicians after losing his home and almost all of his family’s instruments in the Eaton Fire. Through Altadena Musicians’s donation and registry platform, Jay said he and his partners have helped some 1,200 fire survivors get their music instruments back.
Brandon Jay.
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Robert Garrova
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Now, that effort has fanned out to restoring vinyl record collections.
“All of that stuff evaporated for thousands of people,” Jay said. “Look at your own record collection and be like, ‘Wow, what if that whole thing disappeared?’”
You might know Jay from several bands over the years, including Lutefisk, a 1990s alt-rock band based in Los Angeles. He and his wife, Gwendolyn Sanford, composed music for TV shows, including Orange is the New Black and Weeds.
Jay plans to play some holiday tunes at Sunday's record donation show (which LAist is the media sponsor), along with fellow musician Daniel Brummel of Sanglorians. Brummel, who was also a founding member of Pasadena’s indie-rock sensation Ozma, said he was grateful to Jay for his fire recovery work and to Manuel for making Healing Force available for shows like this.
Brummel, who came close to losing his own home in the Eaton Fire, recalled a show he played at Healing Force back in March.
Ryen Slegr (left) and Daniel Brummel perform with their band, Ozma, on the 2014 Weezer Cruise.
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Even Keel Imagery
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“The trauma of the fires was still really fresh,” Brummel said. After playing a cover of Rufus Wainwright’s “Going to a Town,” that night — which includes the lyrics “I’m going to a town that has already been burnt down” — Brummel said his neighbors in the audience told him the rendition hit them hard. “It felt really powerful. And without that space, it just wouldn’t have occurred.”
Details
Healing Force of the Universe Record Donation Show Featuring: Quasar (aka Brandon Jay), Sanglorians (Daniel Brummel) and The Acrylic. Sunday, Dec. 14; 2 to 5 p.m. 1200 E. Walnut St., Pasadena Tickets are $15 or you can donate 5 or more records at the door. More info here.
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Fire department honored with 'Award of Excellence'
Makenna Sievertson
covers the daily drumbeat of Southern California — events, processes and nuances making it a unique place to call home.
Published December 12, 2025 4:30 PM
The "Award of Excellence Star" honoring the Los Angeles Fire Department on Friday.
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Matt Winkelmeyer
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Getty Images
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Topline:
The Hollywood Walk of Fame has a new neighbor — a star dedicated to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Why it matters: The Fire Department has been honored with an “Award of Excellence Star” for its public service during the Palisades and Sunset fires, which burned in the Pacific Palisades and Hollywood Hills neighborhoods of L.A. in January.
Why now: The star was unveiled on Hollywood Boulevard on Friday at a ceremony hosted by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and Hollywood Community Foundation.
Awards of Excellence celebrate organizations for their positive impacts on Hollywood and the entertainment industry, according to organizers. Fewer than 10 have been handed out so far, including to the LA Times, Dodgers and Disneyland.
The backstory: The idea of awarding a star to the Fire Department was prompted by an eighth-grade class essay from Eniola Taiwo, 14, from Connecticut. In an essay on personal heroes, Taiwo called for L.A. firefighters to be recognized. She sent the letter to the Chamber of Commerce.
“This star for first responders will reach the hearts of many first responders and let them know that what they do is recognized and appreciated,” Taiwo’s letter read. “It will also encourage young people like me to be a change in the world.”
LAFD Chief Jaime E. Moore, Eniola Taiwo and LAFD firefighters with the "Award of Excellence Star" Friday.
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Matt Winkelmeyer
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Getty Images North America
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The Award of Excellence Star is in front of the Ovation Entertainment Complex next to the Walk of Fame; however, it is separate from the official program.
What officials say: Steve Nissen, president and CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement Taiwo’s letter was the inspiration for a monument that will “forever shine in Hollywood.”
“This recognition is not only about honoring the bravery of the Los Angeles Fire Department but also about celebrating the vision of a young student whose words reminded us all of the importance of gratitude and civic pride,” said Nissen, who’s also president and CEO of the Hollywood Community Foundation.
L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto was accused of an ethics breach in a case the city settled for $18 million.
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Carlin Stiehl
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Topline:
Fallout from allegations of an ethics breach by Los Angeles’ elected city attorney has reached the City Council. Councilmember Ysabel Jurado introduced a motion Friday requesting a closed-session meeting about an allegation that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto improperly contacted a witness days before her office entered into one of the city’s biggest settlements in recent years. The motion came a day after LAist reported about the allegation.
The case: In September, the city settled a lawsuit brought forward by two brothers in their 70s who said they suffered serious injuries after an LAPD officer crashed into their car. Days before the $18 million settlement was reached, lawyers for the brothers said Feldstein Soto called an expert witness testifying for the plaintiffs and “attempted to ingratiate herself with him and asked him to make a contribution to her political campaign,” according to a sworn declaration to the court by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Robert Glassman.
The response: Feldstein Soto did not respond to an interview request. Her spokesperson said the settlement “had nothing to do” with the expert witness. Her campaign manager told LAist the city attorney had been making a routine fundraising call and did not know the person had a role in the case, nor that there were pending requests for her office to pay him fees.
What Jurado says: In a statement to LAist, Jurado said she wants to “make sure that the city’s legal leadership is guided by integrity and accountability, especially when their choices affect public trust, civic rights and the city’s limited resources."
What’s next: The motion needs to go through a few committees before reaching the full City Council. If it passes, the motion calls for the city attorney to “report to council in closed session within 45 days regarding the ethics breach violation and give updates to the City Council."
Topline:
Fallout from allegations of an ethics breach by Los Angeles’ elected city attorney has reached the City Council. Councilmember Ysabel Jurado introduced a motion Friday requesting a closed-session meeting about an allegation that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto improperly contacted a witness days before her office entered into one of the city’s biggest settlements in recent years. The motion came a day after LAist reported about the allegation.
The case: In September, the city settled a lawsuit brought forward by two brothers in their 70s who said they suffered serious injuries after an LAPD officer crashed into their car. Days before the $18 million settlement was reached, lawyers for the brothers said Feldstein Soto called an expert witness testifying for the plaintiffs and “attempted to ingratiate herself with him and asked him to make a contribution to her political campaign,” according to a sworn declaration to the court by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Robert Glassman.
The response: Feldstein Soto did not respond to an interview request. Her spokesperson said the settlement “had nothing to do” with the expert witness. Her campaign manager told LAist the city attorney had been making a routine fundraising call and did not know the person had a role in the case, nor that there were pending requests for her office to pay him fees.
What Jurado says: In a statement to LAist, Jurado said she wants to “make sure that the city’s legal leadership is guided by integrity and accountability, especially when their choices affect public trust, civic rights and the city’s limited resources."
What’s next: The motion needs to go through a few committees before reaching the full City Council. If it passes, the motion calls for the city attorney to “report to council in closed session within 45 days regarding the ethics breach violation and give updates to the City Council."
