Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
April 24, 2007
1. Top Items
Sea restoration plan faces initial hearing; Senate committee to decide if funds should be set aside for detailed project - Desert Sun
IID, County mull Sea’s future - Imperial Valley Press
Sea restoration plan faces initial hearing; Senate committee to decide if funds should be set aside for detailed project
Desert Sun – 4/24/07
By Erica Solvig, staff writer
State lawmakers will test the waters today on how warm of a reception the
The Senate's natural resources and water committee will discuss a bill recognizing the importance of saving the dying lake and creating a fund for the project.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny, is essentially a shell and doesn't include many details yet.
Those will be added later, after Secretary of Resources Mike Chrisman presents his recommended plan on how the state should fix the lake.
The $6 billion plan - expected to be released within a week - will shrink the sea, create a wildlife habitat and develop a way to control the dust that will result from any dry lake bed.
As the restoration plan moves through the Legislature, funding will be one of the big issues to be addressed.
About $47 million from November's voter-approved water and parks proposition is available for the sea, but not all of it may be needed right away, said Ducheny, D-San Diego.
"We need that plan to see what the first round of funding looks like," said Ducheny, whose district includes parts of the Coachella and Imperial valleys.
It's not uncommon for the framework of a bill to move forward before working out details.
In this case, the bill is working against a Friday deadline. If the framework doesn't leave the policy committee by then, the revitalization could be complicated.
Between the bill's progression and Chrisman's expected announcement, Salton Sea Authority Executive Director Rick Daniels said "there will be a lot of activity on the
Getting the sea funded will require the backing of many state and federal lawmakers who don't have direct ties to the region.
If nothing is done, the sea will die and dry up, creating a dust bowl that could lead to severe air quality issues in the valley.
"It's an enormously complex situation, and the solution will require our state's best thinkers," said Daniel Dye of Indian Wells.
"The sad situation at the Salton Sea may well escalate into a horrendous mess of nightmarish proportions that will affect every single living creature that calls the
"It is up to every single one of us to help solve this problem," Dye said. #
http://www.desertsunonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070424/NEWS0701/704240314/1006/news01
IID, County mull Sea’s future
By Darren Simon, staff writer
The Imperial Valley’s two leading government entities agree the decisions they make on the future of the
The question is can the Imperial County Board of Supervisors and the Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors reach consensus on any plan to save the sea.
On Monday the two boards held a joint session to discuss the effort to restore the state’s largest inland lake — a body of water dying under its own high salt content and whose future has been thrown into question by shrinking water supplies.
While the boards did not reach any official consensus on a sea restoration plan, discussion Monday may have brought to the boards closer on the sea issue than they’ve ever been.
“The Salton Sea represents the greatest liability and the greatest opportunity for
IID President Stella Mendoza agreed, stating there is an opportunity now for the two boards to work together to restore the sea.
“I know we will because we serve the same people,”
THE MEETING
The two boards met Monday in response to the California Resources Agency releasing a proposed sea restoration plan that calls for using a dike that would give the northern shore of the sea a large marine lake and the southern shore a large saline habitat.
The county supervisors have been critical of that proposal because it does not include a recreational south lake.
On Monday the supervisors presented an alternative that calls for building a 10,000-acre lake to the south in the area of
Monday’s meeting also came a day before IID was to meet and discuss the future of the
The county supervisors have been much more vocal in their support of the SSA, which earlier proposed dividing the sea with a dike into two large lakes, one to the north and the other to the south. The plan included catching the sea’s high salt content in brine ponds on the south side of the dike.
IID has limited its support of any sea restoration plan, and one key reason has been concern about available water.
The plan the SSA, and now the county has touted, would require about 717,000 acre-feet per year from inflow waters from the New,
“IID can’t guarantee inflows into the sea,” district Director
“I understand,” Supervisor Victor Carrillo said. “It’s a good point to go back and be able to come up with a number that would alleviate your concerns.”
NOT LOOKING FOR PROMISE
Grogan said he is not looking for a specific promise of water, but just for the district to acknowledge that any available inflows will go to the sea.
Another area of discussion Monday dealt with the need to maintain local control over any sea restoration effort, in particular, as the state and federal governments could step in and lead the project.
Supervisor Gary Wyatt, who is also president of the SSA, said there is talk of changing the SSA into what he called a conservancy with as many as 18 members.
The SSA is now made up of two members from IID, two from the county supervisors, two from the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, two from the Coachella Valley Water District and two from the Torres-Martinez tribe.
Wyatt said another eight members could come from state and federal authorities, but he said it still would mean the local governments would retain control and the majority vote over the SSA and the sea’s future. #
http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2007/04/24/news/news03.txt
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