The 3 million or so dead tilapia that ringed the northern shore of the Salton Sea last week offered a stark visual reminder that California’s largest inland body of water could easily become its biggest ecological nightmare. Not that anyone living in the Imperial or Coachella valleys needed to be reminded that the sea is caught in a vicious death spiral that, left unchecked, is as much of a health risk as it is an open-ended environmental liability.
That’s why it is so perplexing to learn that the state Department of Water Resources is thinking seriously about delaying the draft environmental review it was supposed to have already performed on the 10 restoration plans under consideration for the sea. DWR has been tasked with studying each of these proposals and identifying a preferred alternative for California Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman, who, in turn, has until the end of this year to forward his own recommendation to the Legislature.
But the DWR review has taken longer than expected, and those involved in the process believe it is more important to ensure that the EIR is done right than to meet the agency’s timeline for its completion. Due diligence, in other words, trumps the department’s own due date.
That would be fine if it were August 1956 instead of August 2006, but time isn’t on the Salton Sea’s side, and the report in question should have been done in June. We’re all for a comprehensive approach in evaluating the various restoration proposals, but we have to wonder, at this point, what’s left to study?
The state has spent at least $20 million in the last three years trying to figure out what to do with the sea, which isn’t getting any younger or healthier, and that should have been enough time and money to furnish something more concrete than a bureaucratic appeal to use up more of both.
It is our understanding that the EIR is all but finished and could be made available for public review by the end of this month. We would urge the department to move with all deliberate speed in completing its task and keeping the process on track for Chrisman to make a recommendation to the Legislature on Salton Sea restoration by Dec. 31.
We’re not even saying that the restoration alternative selected has to be the one being championed by the Salton Sea Authority, although it is the plan we support. What we are saying is that the time for study and deferral has long since past.
At this late date, only a definitive course of action will do. Without it, the fate of the tilapia will be a harbinger of what’s in store for the sea itself. And that can’t be good for the people living in the surrounding area, namely, the Imperial and Coachella valleys.
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