Agreement Could Hold State Accountable For Completing Projects On Shrinking Salton Sea

This is KPBS Midday Edition . I am Maureen Cavanaugh. It is Thursday, September 7. The top story on the data should come earlier this year, the state released a plan to control dust and create wetlands at the site of this shrieking Salton Sea. The management plan, a $383 million proposal, it was welcome by the Imperial Valley officials but it was vague as to the timelines and procedures and accountability. Today, an agreement that would hold the state to a timeline the plan is being discussed at a meeting of the State water resources control Board. Try to me is Bruce Wilcox, the assistant secretary for the Salton Sea policy with the California natural resource agency. Bruce, welcome.Thank you.Can you give us a little background on this agreement? The Imperial Valley officials put pressure on the creation of the Salton Sea management plan because the issue of the Salton Sea evaporation becomes more acute at the end of this year. Can you remind us why that isThe qualifications settlement agreement has IAD delivering what we call mitigation water. It goes to the Salton Sea until the end of this year to make up the difference for the transfer. At the end of this year, the water stops. That means we could probably anticipate roughly a doubling of the amount of decline we see in the next few years. The settlement agreement is part of an agreement in 2003 to get California to live with its allocated amount off of the Colorado River.San Diego, they needed to have additional water. A transfer was made from IAD and they have a largest water rights on the river. As part of that transfer, we recognize the Salton Sea would be impacted. That is where the mitigation water comes from. It comes from those documents. That is where the Salton Sea and restoration comes from from the state of California. They passed legislation about restoration. That is what got us to this point now. I think the Salton Sea is a linchpin. This water transfer and probably in the future water transfers, you have to be able to show that we can do these things without significant impacts and there are impacts that we can deal with. The Salton Sea becomes, you know come up put aside the ecological values come in the Salton Sea becomes a very important linchpin or link in water management in the Southwest.The more expressed -- expose come the bigger the health risk for people in Imperial County and beyond. How does this plan proposed emojis -- manage this ?This is a plan that creates a smaller and sustainable Salton Sea. It builds habitat around the outside edges of the sea and areas where it applies those areas that expose in 10 year increments. We have a tenure plan as part of that plan and we will look at additional planning for the rest of the sea. One way or the other, it covers through water and it covers it up or we have a series of suppression methods that has been developed that we can use to manage and apply it to keep emissions down.The first project, the Red Hill Bay project is nearing completion. Can you remind us what that project does ?That is what we call a shallow water project. It is 1 to 3 feet. It covers up an area that is on the southeast corner of the Salton Sea. The salt forms on the surface and it is very emissive. It provides shallow waiting word habitat in that area. That project is underway. We expect completion soon. It is funded by the state of California, IAD and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife refuge and those are the other partners.You mentioned the letters IAD. That is the Imperial it -- irrigation District. The agreement discussed today proposes a definite timeline for the project. What is the penalty to the state for not meeting the timeline ?There is a clause in the stipulated order, it requires us, if we do not come within a certain percentage of what we were supposed to on that year, we have to develop a plan that shows how we will get caught up over the course over the next year. We have to address the water board with that issue. As for specific penalties, the water board would look at that and say, okay. The national resource agency, we once these milestones in your plan. If you do not need them, we need to know why they are not there.Some group say they would like to see the this agreement Titan the timelines and penalties. Could that still happen? Is this a working document ?It goes in front of the water board so yes, it is still a working document. I think tightening the deadlines is difficult. We tried to give reasonable deadlines for moving these projects forward. It takes time to get the environmental work done and to get the planning done. It would be difficult to shorten that timeframe. But who has to sign off on this agreement before it goes into effect ?The water board would approve the agreement and it would become part of the QSA water order.Then it is a done deal ?That is correct.Even with this agreement on a timeline for the Salton Sea management project, one day issue has not been solved. Where is the funding for the $380 million project coming from ?Binding is an issue for just about any project. That is more of an issue for this one because there is a lot of funding necessary. The legislature right now, they are working on additional bond funding and voters could vote on that in the next general election. That is not finalized as to how much money that would be but we think it would be a good chunk of what we need to do and we are looking at federal money and moving forward and my gut feel is that no matter what we do over the course of what management of the Salton Sea, which is the long-term course, we are going to constantly be looking for funding.If the agreement is approved today and let's say voters approve a bond measure to fund this management plan, from what I read, there is still work to be done to manage the Salton Sea. I believe you're working on a long-term strategy like for the next 10 years or 10 years after this agreement ?That is a group -- that is correct. They cannot take action today. They can take action at the next meeting. We are working what we call the Salton Sea management program. It is a tenure program. That document will be out after a couple of weeks. Then, we start working on the next 10-year plan or ideally a plan that is longer than that. The big concern for us is to kind of, put this out and get some habitat and get some air quality on the ground. The first part of the 2018, we will concentrate on design and getting the design build up there so we can start construction. Then, we will concentrate on the long range plan after we get that design done expect I have been speaking with Bruce Wilcox for the Salton Sea policy with the California natural resource agency. Thank you.Thank you.