One acre-foot equals about 326,000 gallons, or enough water to serve one to two households per year.Īfter starting with 18 potential water importation concepts, the panel is ultimately recommending none of them, and instead recommends this combination of a large-scale desalination project, water from the voluntary transfer program in IID, dust suppression projects, and a salt disposal plan. The panel also recommends “kick-starting” the Salton Sea’s recovery with one-time flows of between 100,000 and 200,000 acre-feet of water per year to slow the sea’s growing salinity levels. The sea would lose 200,000 acre-feet of salty water a year, and then gain back 200,000 acre-feet of pure water per year. The remaining 100,000 of salty waste product would be sent to salt evaporation ponds, and the panel proposes making up this lost 100,000 acre-feet through the transfer program with IID. The concept is based on a compensated and voluntary fallowing program operated by IID from 2003 to 2017, and would involve offering Imperial County farmers the opportunity to fallow their fields in exchange for cash payments, producing "net additional imports" of 100,000 acre-feet per year, enough to offset the water lost from brine production at the desalination facility.īasically, the desalination plant would remove 200,000 acre-feet of salty water from the sea each year, desalinate it, and return 100,000 acre-feet of pure water to the sea. The panel is recommending this "Colorado River Voluntary Transfer Concept," which is one of the two late-stage submittals the panel analyzed. There would still be a need for water to replace the brine that is removed however, and the panel suggests using a transfer program with the Imperial Irrigation District to make up the difference.
Instead of importing water to bring the sea back to its former levels, the panel is instead proposing constructing a large desalination facility to remove 100,000 acre-feet per year of brine and return 100,000 acre-feet per year of pure water.
This conclusion led the Panel to reframe the role of imported water." A lower-volume sea can also achieve today’s environmental, air quality, and economic goals for the region. Second, that managing salt through desalination will be a central component of long-term management of the sea, and that the region's existing rail system can be used to dispose of salt removed from the sea.Īnd third, that "it is not necessary to refill the Salton Sea to its mid/late 20th-century volume. The panel ultimately arrived at three conclusions:įirst, that there are "workable approaches" to minimizing the dust stemming from the exposed playa, or shoreline, beyond just flooding the basin with additional water. The summary report states that the panel "identified two additional approaches to importation" during its process, and subjected them to the same feasibility analysis.
Thirteen water importation concepts passed an initial screening, and three passed a "fatal flaw" review in July - all of which involved importing water from the Sea of Cortez, which lies between Baja California and mainland Mexico.Īn agricultural inflow is absorbed by the dry playa before reaching the Salton Sea in this area where the sea has receded thousands of feet on the south end in 2009. The panel was specifically tasked with taking a “long-term” perspective for resolving longstanding public health issues caused by receding shorelines at California’s largest lake. The state-appointed Salton Sea Independent Review Panel was established in October 2021 to evaluate 18 water importation concepts submitted in response to two Requests for Information issued in 20. A stretch of exposed playa on the Salton Sea's west side in between the small communities of Desert Shores and Salton Sea Beach in 2021.Īn independent review panel convened to evaluate water importation concepts for the shrinking Salton Sea is advising against water importation plans, instead recommending a combination of desalination and water from the Imperial Irrigation District.
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