| Much has been reported in various news media in recent months on
the condition of the Salton Sea, especially in relation to the
plight of the birds and the fish that inhabit that body of water.
An effort has gotten underway to "SAVE THE SALTON SEA." Congress has
recently allocated 5 million dollars to study what is causing the
problems with the Salton Sea and to determine if any measures can be
taken to mitigate its deterioration. If this effort goes forward it
will cost taxpayers a staggering amount of money. Because of
projected high costs involved in saving the Salton Sea, I have
undertaken an unfunded study designed to determine if the Salton Sea
can be or should be saved for other than an agricultural waste water
disposal site. I presented the preliminary results of this study as
an invited paper at the symposium: "New River and Salton Sea" in
February, 1999, sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program of
Imperial Valley College, California. In addition, I presented a
revised version of these data as an invited paper to the symposium:
"Water in the Desert, Past, Present, and Future" at the Spring,
1999, meeting of the Southern California Academy of Sciences at
California State University, Dominguez Hills, California. The
abstract of this paper, which follows below, was published in,
"Program and Abstracts," page 34, prepared for the annual meeting of
the Southern California Academy of Sciences, April 30-May 1, 1999,
California State University, Dominguez Hills, California. |
| "Over 1 million acre-feet per year of runoff water from the
Imperial Valley and Coachella Valley agricultural fields annually
enter the Salton Sea with no appreciable change in the Sea's level.
This indicates that over 1 million acre-feet of water are annually
being evaporated from the Sea. The agricultural runoff water with a
salinity of 3.34 PPT(parts per thousand) is today carrying 4.5
million tons of salt into the Sea annually. This process has changed
the Sea from a body of water with an initial total dissolved
solids(TDS) count of 0.8 PPT in 1905 to one today of 44 PPT.
Assuming steady state and projecting ahead 10 years, it is expected
that 45 million additional tons of salt will have been added to the
Sea, bringing its TDS to 50.4 PPT by the year 2009. If, however, the
Imperial Valley and Coachella Valley Water Districts go ahead with
their plan to sell 300,000 acre-feet per year of their unused
Colorado River water allotment to San Diego, there will be a 30 %
reduction in runoff water and salt input to the Sea. By the year
2009 such a reduction will have caused a volume shrinkage of the Sea
from 169 billion cubic feet to 38 billion cubic feet (78 percent
reduction) and produced an increase in TDS to 221 PPT. Besides the
increased salinity, the reduction in volume will drastically reduce
the water depth of an already shallow water body and significantly
shift the shoreline toward the center of the Salton Sink. The
shallowing will produce a rise in temperature of the Sea and this
will facilitate the dissolving of a greater mass of salt and, at the
same time, produce an accelerated rate of evaporation. The projected
hypersalinization of the Salton Sea presents a daunting challenge to
those who hope to "save" the Salton Sea in its present extent and
form as a fishery and bird habitat."
From the data in this abstract it should be clear that there are
natural forces - climatic, hydrologic, and geologic- as well as
man-made forces operating in the Salton Trough which are so intense
and of such great magnitude that any man-made effort to overcome
them will require unimaginably huge expenditures of public funds for
engineering and environmental procedures in order to overcome their
adverse effect on the Salton Sea. The projected increase in the
salinity of the Sea in the next decade means the fish-eating birds
will be gone because no fish will be able to tolerate such high
salinities. These birds will go elsewhere to natural environments
more suitable to their needs.
Earlier studies, funded by public monies, have been carried out
on the Salton Sea in an effort to see if a retardation of its
progressive deterioration could be devised. Apparently these studies
could not identify any engineering and/or environmental procedures
that would be cost-effective in mitigating the natural and man-made
processes that are causing the Sea to deteriorate.
Any public funds that can be generated for the purpose of
salvaging wetlands habitat should be applied to localities elsewhere
in Southern California where wetland mitigation will yield more
cost-effective and environmentally beneficial results than can be
achieved at the Salton Sea. For instance, there are 14 estuaries on
the San Diego County coast alone, all of which need serious
mitigation work to improve and protect their waters, habitat, etc.
Batiquitos Lagoon, one of the San Diego County estuaries, already
has absorbed over 50 million dollars in mitigation money obtained
from the recent dredging of Los Angeles Harbor. Even this large
amount of money has not provided for all the work needed to properly
restore and preserve the habitat of this lagoon.
Even if a staggering amount of public funds are spent in an
attempt to restore the Salton Sea to a more environmental acceptable
level, it is my contention that the data shows it problematic that
the deterioration of the Salton Sea can be reversed. I do not
believe the general public, which will have to fund any effort to
save the Salton Sea, has been made sufficiently aware of the dubious
nature of such an enterprise.
I plan to continue to expand this web site in the future with
more information to explain how nature's forces and man's operations
have sealed the fate of the Salton Sea and to also present viable
alternatives to saving the Salton Sea.
I am available to give illustrated talks on the future of the
Salton Sea to any public interest group that may desire to hear me
expand on, " The Salton Sea: A Geologist's Perspective On Its
Future. "
You may contact Dr. Colburn by mail care of Department of
Geological Sciences, California State University, Los Angeles, Los
Angeles, CA., 90032; by phone: 323-343-2413; by FAX 323-343-2435; or
by e-mail: icolbur@calstatela.edu.
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