Banning, Beaumont Assemblyman Wants Salton Sea Restored

"There was a time when the Salton Sea attracted more visitors per year than Yosemite," Nestande said. "I want to empower the Salton Sea Authority so they can return the area to the recreation and destination site it once was."

North Shore Yacht Club, Salton Sea. (Photo: Renee Schiavone)

By Renee Schiavone
Banning-Beaumont Patch

Palm Desert's assemblyman has proposed legislation this week to spur action on restoring the shrinking Salton Sea by allocating $50 million for projects overseen by the Salton Sea Authority.

Assemblyman Brian Nestande, R-Palm Desert, introduced Assembly Bill 709 ahead of a hearing Friday in Mecca, during which representatives from government and private organizations will address the sea's needs.

"The issues surrounding the restoration of the Salton Sea have been going on for far too long," Nestande said. "State and federal inaction has stymied restoration progress. We need to return control to the Salton Sea Authority as the lead agency so they can move forward."

AB 709 would require that $50 million in Proposition 84 bond revenue be earmarked for sea improvements and would direct the California Wildlife Conservation Board to apply for matching federal funds in support of restoration.

The Salton Sea Authority would take charge of all projects under Nestande's bill. Currently, the SSA -- composed of officials from Riverside and Imperial counties -- acts primarily in an advisory capacity.

"There was a time when the Salton Sea attracted more visitors per year than Yosemite," Nestande said. "I want to empower the Salton Sea Authority so they can return the area to the recreation and destination site it once was."

According to the assemblyman, the SSA would have to develop a concrete restoration plan that passes muster with the state Legislative Analyst's Office, after which funds would be made available.

Nestande's bill follows several proposals introduced last month by Assemblyman Manuel Perez, D-Coachella, that address funding for a restoration feasibility study and mitigation measures necessary to prevent environmental damage that might result from changes to the sea.

The 365-square-mile body of water -- the largest part of which lies in Imperial County, with the north portion stretching to within a few miles of Thermal -- has been plagued with increasing salinity over the last 40 years, to the point that some of the sea's deeper places are saltier than the ocean.

According to studies, nutrient compounds from agricultural runoff have created a "eutrophic" condition where high levels of hydrogen sulfide and ammonia kill fish and produce gagging odors.

Water reclamation plans by local agencies and Mexico, as well as a reduction of Colorado River supplies, will shrink the sea in the coming years, according to the Salton Sea Authority.

Assemblyman Nestande serves the communities of Banning, Beaumont, Cabazon, Calimesa, Cherry Valley, Hemet, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, San Jacinto, White Water, 29 Palms, Joshua Tree, Landers, Morongo Valley, Pioneer Town, Yucaipa, and Yucca Valley.

Finding a fix for dying Salton Sea

After years of inaction by state, lawmaker wants to put regional group at helm

Pelicans fly to Mullet Island, one of the four Salton Buttes, small volcanoes on the southern San Andreas Fault, after sunset on July 2 near Calipatria. Scientists say Mullet Island, the only place for many thousands of island-nesting birds to breed at the Salton Sea, will become vulnerable to attacks by predators such as raccoons and coyotes if the water level drops just a couple more feet. (David McNew/Getty Images)

Marcel Honoré
The Desert Sun

NORTH SHORE — As state lawmakers held their first summit in more than four years on the looming death of the Salton Sea, Sonia Herbert gazed out the window at the North Shore Beach & Yacht Club marina, where squawking seabirds swooped across the glassy sea surface, fishing for tilapia.

Like most of the 60 people who attended Monday's hearing, Herbert, who has lived in Bombay Beach since the 1970s, fears the worst: that time is running out on efforts to repair the sea and sustain its wildlife, and that overwhelming public health and economic crises will follow.

“All we've seen is studies, studies, studies and nothing has been done,” a visibly frustrated Herbert told Assemblyman V. Manuel Pérez and two Assembly budget committee members. “What's going to happen if we don't do something?”

The state remains broke, and its preferred $9 billion sea restoration plan has languished since 2007.

Sticker shock over the restoration cost has led to political paralysis, but Pérez, a Coachella Democrat whose district includes the sea, has called its restoration his top priority for the rest of his legislative tenure.

At the hearing, which Pérez's office organized, he listened to county supervisors, residents and environmental advocates call for the state to relinquish control and to let locals settle on the best plan to restore the sea and the best way to pay for it.

“The sea needs help and it needs it now. The answer isn't big brother riding to the rescue, because he's not coming. There is no rescue,” Imperial County Supervisor Gary Wyatt told Pérez and two other Assembly members, Republican Brian Jones of Santee and Democrat Richard Gordon of Menlo Park.

“We need to drive this train,” said Wyatt, quoting longtime Riverside County Supervisor Roy Wilson, who died in 2009.

Wyatt and others pushed public-private partnerships on new geothermal and solar energy projects at the sea as a realistic way to tap dollars for Salton Sea restoration.

Wyatt proposed taking a 7,000-acre former military test site at the sea's south shore, now controlled by the federal Bureau of Land Management, and converting it into a renewable energy depot that he said could provide 700 megawatts of power and produce at least $40 million a year in restoration funds.

Unlike redevelopment funds, that money would be exempt from state seizure, Wyatt said after the meeting.

“The interest is here, not there,” Riverside County Supervisor John Benoit said, referring to Sacramento. “What we need is the authority. If we fix this sea… the economic advantages to this area (are) nearly unlimited.”

Pérez said he hoped the hearing would help drum up support in the Legislature for his AB 939 bill, a proposal to switch the authority from the state's Salton Sea Restoration Council — a body that has never met — and place it in the hands of the local Salton Sea Authority, a joint-powers authority of the local counties and local water districts, along with some state presence.

“I'm optimistic that we can find a way if we work together and there's a political will from all levels of government including grassroots,” Pérez said. “Part of the reason why we have not been able to move forward is we're all moving in so many different directions. We need to find consensus to what the issues of the Salton Sea are.”

As runoff from irrigation and other water transfers evaporate, the Salton Sea's salinity has risen while its mass has shrunk. By the end of this decade, its retreat will be even more dramatic.

Created by flooding in 1905 and without a new source of water to replenish it, California's largest lake will grow uninhabitable to fish and the thousands of migratory birds that feed on them.

The exposed lakebed and the dust it generates could be disastrous in an area that already has one of the nation's highest rates for youth asthma, officials say. It also would damage agriculture and tourism.

State budget analysts at the hearing Monday reported that tens of millions of dollars in state bond funds from Propositions 50 and 84 have been spent on proposals for the sea's multi-billion-dollar fix, though exactly where the money went wasn't made clear.

“We've spent more than half our bond money … We don't have much to show for it, frankly,” said Kimberley Delfino, California program director of the national nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife.

“This is shameful and frightening,” Delfino said. “When you've lost 95 to 98 percent of the wetlands in California, the birds don't have any other place to go. The situation at the Salton Sea is grim and the stakes are high. We need a new governance structure, now. There isn't a lot of time left.”

As for the immediate next step, Pérez said he hopes for a meeting between Defenders of Wildlife, the Salton Sea Authority, the state's Legislative Analyst's Office, and other stakeholders.

“The sea still has its strong supporters, fighters and believers,” Wyatt said. “There are ways to make the revenues happen.”

Part of Salton Sea's desolate shore made into a lush oasis

CALIFORNIA DESERT

One woman created a wetlands Eden with more than 135 bird species. Officials hope it's a microcosm of what will happen when state's restoration plan gets off the drawing board.

Birds take flight at a lush complex of seven ponds and artificial islands created at the Salton Sea on the Torres Martinez Indian Reservation. (Don Bartlettei / Los Angeles Times)

By David Kelly
Los Angeles Times

THERMAL, CALIFORNIA -- A few careless words, the snap of a branch and a scene of bucolic splendor became utter chaos. Clouds of great blue herons exploded from trees and swaying cattails. Egrets erupted from watery redoubts. Ducks quacked furiously overhead.

Debi Livesay observed the frenzy from a windy bank.

"Wait a moment; they'll settle down," she said. "It's hard to sneak up on them."

Finally, the birds swung around in a tight circle and made splash landings in this patchwork of wetlands stretching out to the Salton Sea.

Livesay, 59, seemed pleased by the performance, as if she'd choreographed the whole thing.

And in a way she had -- or at least helped set the stage. For decades this 85-acre stretch of the Torres Martinez Indian Reservation lay beneath the Salton Sea. As the lake receded, it left behind a salt-encrusted wasteland worthy of Death Valley. Dead trees jutted like bleached skeletons from petrified mud. Even hardy creosote struggled to survive.

Now, thanks to Livesay's seven-year effort to bring back water, it's a lush Eden of wetlands, plants, fish and more than 135 species of birds.

And state officials -- who have their own $8.9-billion, 75-year plan to rescue the dying sea and restore bird habitats -- are eagerly watching what happens.

The Salton Sea, California's biggest lake, is saltier than the ocean and getting saltier all the time. Water agreements reached in 2003 mean Imperial Valley farmers will stop sending their runoff into the sea, causing it to shrink further and grow ever more saline. Scientists predict that, without drastic action, by 2015 the last of the sport fish will have died off. The 400 species of birds that nest there, including endangered species such as the Reservation California least tern and Yuma clapper rail, will leave soon after.

But while the state's plan is still on the drawing board, Livesay's is up and running.

"This is the first microcosm of what all of the rest of the plans call for around the sea," said Dan Parks, coordinator for the Salton Sea Authority. "Scientists have an idea of what they need, but there is a lot of stuff they can't get out of a textbook so you need to get in there and experiment."

Livesay is no scientist. She's a former journalist with a gift for big ideas, a talent for securing grants and total self confidence.

As the Salton Sea dwindles, pesticide-laced sediments have blown over the reservation, exposing thousands of tribal members and other nearby residents to toxic chemicals. In 2001, Livesay, the tribe's head of water resources, was charged with finding a solution.

"We can't afford to have the Salton Sea dry out or people couldn't live here anymore," she said. "It would be 200 times bigger than Owens Lake. All you need is an inch of water to keep the dust settled. So I said, 'Let's make a wetland.' "

Working mostly on her own out of a converted trailer, Livesay won $2.3 million from state and federal agencies and began excavating seven ponds ranging from a few inches to 6 feet deep, and up to 20 acres wide.

Contractors built artificial islands and barriers between pools. Using a complex system of pipes and valves, they diverted water from the Whitewater River, filling and emptying the ponds each day for two years to leach out salt.

Then, in 2005, the valves opened wide and water gushed into the ponds for good. Livesay released young tilapia, mosquito fish and mollies to control insects. She planted native palms.

Nature did the rest.

Willows and cottonwoods began to spring up. Herons nested on the islands. A bald eagle took up residence alongside numerous ospreys. Biologists say they wouldn't be surprised to find a California condor soon. They spotted one in nearby Anza-Borrego Desert State Park last year.

Livesay expects to open her creation to the public in November under the name "California's Everglades." And she hopes to create 10,000 more acres of wetlands across vast swaths of desiccated lake bed.

Tribal Chairman Ray Torres recently described the restored wetlands as a "magnificent sight." The tribe is building a cultural center and an amphitheater near the project's entrance on South Lincoln Avenue.

"The state's Salton Sea restoration plan is very ambitious, but there is degradation going on right now," said Monica Swartz, a biologist with the Coachella Valley Water District who advises Livesay. "The Torres Martinez are the only group taking responsibility for it. Everyone else is talking about it, but they are the only ones doing anything about it."

She called Livesay a "force of nature," adding, "Debi is a remarkable person who doesn't understand what impossible is. She saw what the tribe needed and she made it happen."

Livesay, who is not Native American, worked at the Whittier Daily News and the North County Times before quitting journalism because she said it was too difficult to be married, be a reporter and raise four children at the same time.

She picked up part-time jobs, working as a bartender, running construction crews and building houses.

"I can do anything I want to," she said matter-of-factly. "I can teach myself anything."

As her children got older Livesay began looking for a full-time career, something that satisfied her interest in science and the environment.

She took courses on water management, worked with wildlife biologists and landed a job with the Torres Martinez tribe in Thermal.

"This is where I am supposed to be," she said.

She often spends seven days a week at the remote wetlands site, and sometimes gets in dangerous standoffs with hunters.

Friendly but tough, Livesay fiercely guards the place.

She calls it "my baby" or "this puppy" and describes it as an egg she has "hatched."

At times she lapses into jargon about particulate matter and water chemistry that can baffle the uninitiated. Yet her overall message never changes.

"This is the future of the Salton Sea," she said, looking over the shimmering water. "Right here." Still, potential problems abound.

For one thing, selenium, endemic in Salton Sea sediment, could find its way into the ponds. The mineral is thought to cause genetic mutations in birds.

If the wetlands water gets too salty the fish could die off. And hunters are a constant threat, illegally shooting anything that flies, including, on one occasion, a black swan.

Hunting is forbidden on the reservation and Livesay routinely confronts violators. She recently found six hunting platforms on the edge of the wetlands. Thousands of pelicans, ibises, herons, ducks and grebes floated within easy range of the platforms, which were camouflaged in palm fronds.

"One day I came out here and the whole berm was covered in dead coots. The hunters just wanted to kill them and then left them there," Livesay said, clearly angry. "These guys show up in their cammies, with their dogs and trucks, and think they can't be arrested on tribal land -- but now they are learning otherwise. I got three arrested."

Richard Gamez, who works at the site, has found 15 birds at a time killed by hunters. The lock on the gate has been broken four times.

"When I stop them, they tell me they have hunted here for years," he said. "There are signs up everywhere that say `No Hunting.' They tell me the game warden said they could hunt here."

Harry Morse, a spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game, said enforcing hunting regulations on tribal land is a "jurisdictional nightmare."

"We can't go on the land and make an arrest because we have no authority," he said. "But when they step off the reservation, we can do something."

So far, Livesay said, they haven't done much. She depends on local sheriff's deputies to go after violators.

"I want to open this place up to ecotourism, and you can't do that with firearms going off everywhere," she said.

The creation of the wetlands is significant for the Torres Martinez, a poor tribe whose 25,000-acre reservation includes 10,000 under the Salton Sea.

The reservation is one of the most polluted in the West, largely because of illegal dumping. But recent efforts by the tribe and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have made a difference.

Twenty of the 27 illegal dumps have been cleaned up, and fires at dump sites have been reduced 75% in the last year, said Clancy Tenley, head of tribal programs for the EPA.

"We have developed a strong partnership with the tribe on environmental issues," he said. "Now they have the first wetlands reclamation program on the Salton Sea."

The project stuns some tribal members.

"The first day I worked out here I was amazed," said Joe Tortes, who helps regulate pond levels. "It really took me by surprise. I had no idea this place was here."

Last week, Livesay boarded her "mule," an all-terrain vehicle, and motored down a dirt path along the water. It was cold and blustery. Snow squalls enveloped the San Jacinto Mountains behind her. As she entered an overgrown glade by the gurgling Whitewater River, dozens of black ibises shot up from the tall grass. Ospreys wheeled overhead.

She cut the engine.

"Wait until you go around the corner," she said. "You have never seen anything like it."

A few feet away, birds were thick as mosquitoes. They floated in dark, choppy water and buzzed about like feathery missiles.

"You have birds here that shouldn't be here, birds from Canada all the way down to Central America," she said. "People come from all over the world to see this sight. There is no other place like it. And that's why we have to preserve it."