This presentation on the Salton Sea presented by Michael Cohen at the 2019 GWC Summer Conference covers progress at the sea, the Colorado River and the sea, new bargains, and potential solutions.
California’s Salton Sea is an ecosystem facing large systemic changes in the near future.
California’s Salton Sea threatens to impose massive public health and environmental costs if no action is taken to alter its decline.
Water is scarce in the Colorado River Basin, and the effects of climate change are straining the overspent water supply.
Since 2005, the surface elevation of the Sea has fallen by about a half foot per year, exposing thousands of acres of former lakebed to the desert’s blowing winds. Salinity at the Sea now exceeds 50 g/L – a third saltier than the ocean. And salinity continues to rise. Legislation enabling the 2003 water transfer agreement required the state to develop a restoration plan.
On behalf of the following undersigned organizations representing environmental, hunting and fishing interests, we write to respectfully urge you to sign SB 51.
The Legislature and much of California remain locked in a fight over the future of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Not so long ago, there was a similar fight over California's other major water source, the Colorado River...
This op-ed essay was written by Michael Cohen of the Pacific Institute for the Riverside Press-Enterprise to address the public health and ecological crisis developing around California's Salton Sea.
Right in the middle of one of the driest deserts in North America lies California’s largest lake, the little-known and oft-maligned Salton Sea. The Sea and its environs are one of the most important spots on the map for birds, with more than 400 species of birds – often numbering in the millions of individual birds – visiting the Sea every year.
