Salton Sea: Is it drying up? - The once-thriving sea in southeastern California that was a resort mecca is in danger of becoming an environmental disaster. Interest in the water body, along with a BBC report, caused searches on "Salton Sea" to surge on the Web.
The inland sea, close to Coachella, which may have caught the eye of festival attendees, stretches a massive 360 square miles, and is getting smaller—and saltier.
The sea has a long history in the area: Once part of the Colorado River Delta, the water body holds the dirt that was left when the Grand Canyon was carved out. A mile deep, it is, as Michael Cohen, a senior researcher for the Pacific Institute, told Yahoo News, "the anti-Grand Canyon."
But when the river shifted, the land become a desert. Around 1905 the area flooded, and the Salton Sea was born. The glorious weather coupled with the smooth sea became a mecca for vacationers and sport fisherman—and a refuge for millions of migrating birds.
Today, even though the vacationers have stopped coming and the fish have died from the sea's high salt level, local residents benefit from cleaner air: the pesticide soup from agricultural runoff stays in the water and out of the air.
The sea needs runoff from the farming community—it is the only water that feeds it—but a deal to divert water that would have gone into the sea now goes to San Diego County instead.
The problem has been studied, but the state is broke, and money, along with the lake, has dried up. The Salton Sea State Recreation Area, a place where people still come to fish tilapia and camp, is scheduled to clode on July 1 due to budget cuts.
If the sea went dry, the chemicals from the agriculture runoff would become dust, and the toxic air could blow toward neighboring Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, Imperial County and the Mexican border.
Cohen, who has studied the issue, says the Salton Sea is looking at a death sentence in just five-and-a-half years, when the little amount of water it gets from agriculture runoff, goes dry. That would leave some 400 species of migrating birds with no place to go, and a scary cloud of dust that would threaten the air quality.
Cohen is pretty sure that the state of California will put off making a decision on the sea's future—which will come with a multibillion-dollar price tag—as long as possible: "By the time the news cameras descend on the Sea in 2018 to broadcast images of dust storms blotting out the sky and thousands of dead birds and fish along its shores, it will be far too late." ( The Upshot )
The inland sea, close to Coachella, which may have caught the eye of festival attendees, stretches a massive 360 square miles, and is getting smaller—and saltier.
The sea has a long history in the area: Once part of the Colorado River Delta, the water body holds the dirt that was left when the Grand Canyon was carved out. A mile deep, it is, as Michael Cohen, a senior researcher for the Pacific Institute, told Yahoo News, "the anti-Grand Canyon."
But when the river shifted, the land become a desert. Around 1905 the area flooded, and the Salton Sea was born. The glorious weather coupled with the smooth sea became a mecca for vacationers and sport fisherman—and a refuge for millions of migrating birds.
Today, even though the vacationers have stopped coming and the fish have died from the sea's high salt level, local residents benefit from cleaner air: the pesticide soup from agricultural runoff stays in the water and out of the air.
The sea needs runoff from the farming community—it is the only water that feeds it—but a deal to divert water that would have gone into the sea now goes to San Diego County instead.
The problem has been studied, but the state is broke, and money, along with the lake, has dried up. The Salton Sea State Recreation Area, a place where people still come to fish tilapia and camp, is scheduled to clode on July 1 due to budget cuts.
If the sea went dry, the chemicals from the agriculture runoff would become dust, and the toxic air could blow toward neighboring Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, Imperial County and the Mexican border.
Cohen, who has studied the issue, says the Salton Sea is looking at a death sentence in just five-and-a-half years, when the little amount of water it gets from agriculture runoff, goes dry. That would leave some 400 species of migrating birds with no place to go, and a scary cloud of dust that would threaten the air quality.
Cohen is pretty sure that the state of California will put off making a decision on the sea's future—which will come with a multibillion-dollar price tag—as long as possible: "By the time the news cameras descend on the Sea in 2018 to broadcast images of dust storms blotting out the sky and thousands of dead birds and fish along its shores, it will be far too late." ( The Upshot )
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