The flip side to Colorado River conservation? A drying Salton Sea

Southern California farmers are conserving a lot more Colorado River water, but that’s also causing the Salton Sea to dry up faster.

That’s because the Salton Sea is filled primarily by agricultural runoff from farms in the Imperial Valley in far Southern California. Those farms have a single source of water: the Colorado River.

The Salton Sea is a landlocked, shallow lake in Riverside and Imperial counties. The lakebed has been contaminated for more than 100 years with pesticides and other chemicals that create dangerous air pollution for surrounding communities.

Balancing conservation with the impact on the Salton Sea is a long-running conundrum.

“It feels that we are responsible for conserving the Colorado River for the good of the many,” said Silvia Paz, director of grassroots group Alianza Coachella Valley, which is working to address the impacts of pollution from the Salton Sea.

“And on the flip side, I don't think it's fair that one particular community that's already an environmental justice community has to bear that responsibility — almost alone it feels like,” Paz said.

Conservation to save the Colorado River

Imperial Valley farmers in Southern California use more Colorado River water than anyone. They grow primarily hay as well as leafy greens and other produce that feeds much of the country and the world.

In August, the Imperial Irrigation District agreed to a major new deal with the federal government to cut its water use by an amount that’s more than double the amount the entire state of Nevada uses in a year. The cuts will happen through 2026.

A blanket of crops covers the floor of the Imperial Valley in Southern California, a patchwork of vibrant greens given life by the Colorado River.

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And they're needed: Two wet years have helped, but the risk of Lake Mead reaching deadpool — meaning the water level has dropped so low that it can no longer flow downstream — remains a looming possibility. That could cut off the main water supply for tens of millions of people and farms downstream.

The first phase of this new program started this summer, and included a program where participating forage crop growers didn’t water those crops for 49 days, during the hottest part of the year. The main crop grown in the Imperial Valley is alfalfa.

Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the nation, had shrunk so low in 2022 there were concerns it'd reach deadpool, cutting off hydropower and water to millions downstream.

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In return, the Imperial Irrigation District got $589 million from the feds to pay those farmers who can then invest in more water-efficient technologies, pay workers, or otherwise invest in their farms.

The program was a success, said Tina Shields, the Imperial Irrigation District’s water manager. She said the district cut water use by about 175,000 acre-feet this summer. For comparison, the entire city of L.A. uses about 500,000 acre-feet of water every year.

The short duration of the program had little impact on the economy. If anything, it helped farmers stay in business because hay markets are bad right now — that’s a reason why so many farmers participated this summer, Shields said.

Plus, water use in the area is down in general because October has been abnormally hot, so watering would just burn crops.

Trevor Tagg, 38, grows alfalfa and other hay crops in the Imperial Valley of Southern California. He participated in the Irrigation District's recent conservation program where he didn't water his crops during the hottest time of year. He said the program helped keep his business going during tough times, while saving water.

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The consequences of conservation

Since that program ended at the end of September, the surface elevation of the Salton Sea has dropped about 10 inches and the sea shrunk by some 3,500 acres, exposing more dust from the lakebed, said Paz, whose group along with researchers from UCLA and the Pacific Institute measured the decline.

“Our communities don't have the luxury to escape the dust that is blown into the air,” Paz said. “Siloing this issue as a water-only issue leads to all these other consequences.”

A study by UC Riverside found that the Salton Sea’s rotting odors have become a yearlong nuisance for people living near the lake due to shrinking levels.

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In its review, the federal government found the new agreement with the Imperial Irrigation District, or IID, would have no significant new environmental impacts to the Salton Sea and surrounding communities. But many people in the area disagree.

“The reality is that, for our communities, it's not a negligible impact,” Paz said. “This is a cumulative impact to the conditions that we're already suffering.”

Research has shown that asthma rates and other respiratory diseases are far higher than average among communities near the Salton Sea.

The Salton Sea at Bombay Beach last year.

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Who's responsible for the Salton Sea?

Those impacts are why the Sierra Club recently sued the IID about the conservation deal. The organization says the district did not do a proper environmental review of the impacts to the Salton Sea and nearby communities.

“We believe that they should be paying the bill for some of the impacts,” said Richard Miller, director of the Sierra Club’s San Diego chapter.

The IID argues it's already done it's part to address the issues caused by a drying Salton Sea. Shields said the district only agreed to this recent round of additional conservation efforts because they negotiated that $250 million in federal dollars would go towards accelerating the state’s Salton Sea efforts.

Water from the Colorado River flows through the All American Canal in the Imperial Valley.

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“That funding is conditioned on IID implementing these additional conservation efforts,” Shields said. “So we up front took care of the Salton Sea from our perspective.”

But it’s the state that is primarily responsible for addressing the pollution impacts of a shrinking Salton Sea. They are behind on their 10-year plan, which aims to restore nearly 30,000 acres by 2028 of exposed lakebed to native desert habitat and man-made ponds that support endangered fish, migratory birds and reducing pollution.

In recent years, restoration efforts have accelerated, in large part thanks to that $250 million in funding from the Biden-Harris Administration, said Miguel Hernandez, a spokesperson for the state’s Salton Sea Management project, in a statement to LAist.

He wrote that, so far, the state has completed more than 2,000 acres of habitat restoration and dust control, with some 6,500 acres currently under construction and major construction complete for a 4,100-acre conservation area — additional federal funding is helping to expand that project by 750 acres.

“IID is doing the right thing conserving water to stabilize the Colorado River, and our federal partners stepped up to provide funding for this water conservation and for California’s ongoing projects at the Sea to reduce dust emissions and restore habitat,” Hernandez wrote.

But Paz said the sea is shrinking faster than projects are being built to cover the exposed lakebed.

“We need to balance this out. They need to move a lot faster,” Paz said.

Dust from the exposed lakebed of the Salton Sea, farm fields and the open desert all contribute to particulate pollution in the community of North Shore, on July 17, 2024.

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What’s the solution?

Everyone agrees the ongoing restoration efforts are key to addressing the impacts of a shrinking Salton Sea. But balancing necessary conservation with the impacts of that conservation can seem like an impossible problem to solve.

“It’s the rock and a hard place,” said Shields. “As we get more efficient, the downside is the Salton Sea has less water. It's a tough thing with an inland body of water that has no outlet and the only inlet is receiving drainage water from the adjacent areas. So it's a balancing act to keep everybody happy.”

Shields continued: “But if the Colorado River crashes, that's not something you just fix the next year,” So we're going to do everything we can to ensure that our communities have a reliable and safe water supply. And it may be that there are impacts to the Salton Sea, but without the Colorado River, there would be no Salton Sea.”

Paz said she supports and understands the conservation needs, but that means that policymakers and water managers need to think more holistically about the mitigation efforts.

“If this is the only way, we need to broaden how we think about how we’re protecting and preparing our communities,” Paz said.

She said accelerating the state's restoration projects is essential, plus funding for air filters and weatherizing more homes, particularly mobile homes that house farmworkers, for which funding is lacking, she said.

A dirt road in the Shady Lane Estates mobile home park in unincorporated Thermal, a community within the Coachella Valley in Riverside County on March 23, 2023.

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But Paz said mitigation for conservation impacts to the Salton Sea could go beyond direct impacts, to improving general quality of life, especially as desert communities face some of the quickest accelerating impacts of the climate crisis.

One example? A new plan envisioned by the community and supported by local governments to build a commuter rail line connecting all the Coachella Valley communities, that will also add green space, shade and an emergency shelter to help communities ride out disasters and excessive heat.

“We’re talking about being very mindful of how our built environment is being developed to address the needs that we have, particularly when it comes to climate resilience,” Paz said.

She added that funding from Proposition 4, which is on the November ballot, would help speed up some existing efforts.

“We're very hopeful that Proposition 4 gets support statewide and that that funding will become available,” Paz said. (Update: Voters did indeed pass that proposition).

Cormorants in the Salton Sea.

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As for the state’s plan, it’s estimated it will cost more than a billion dollars to complete the necessary habitat restoration and dust mitigation efforts.

Among other things, a large chunk of the $250 million from the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act will go towards a more than 4,000-acre restoration area to plant habitat that supports migratory birds and reduces dust pollution, said Mike Lynes, public policy director for Audubon California. Other ongoing projects are showing preliminary promise.

“We cannot lose our hope,” said Paz. “Transforming our communities takes a lot of work, but at the end of it, this is a work of hope and that is what allows us to keep envisioning and to keep trying. Because I believe that a different future is possible.”