Home Care In Salton City, CA

The allocation will be known as the Cadiz Water Conservation & Storage Project.

City News Service, News Partner

SALTON CITY, CA — A natural resources investment company announced Thursday it intends to allocate up to 5,000 acre-feet of water annually to the Salton Sea and Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Tribe as part of a public-private partnership intended to help reinvigorate the dying Salton Sea and ensure reliable potable water for communities on tribal land.

Los Angeles-based Cadiz Inc. said that an agreement with the Salton Sea Authority, tribe and Coachella Valley Water District will be part of a wider water distribution enterprise known as the Cadiz Water Conservation & Storage Project, which originally focused on drawing water from the Colorado River and delivering it to Southern California metropolitan areas via a single pipeline.

The company has since expanded the project to include a 220-mile underground pipeline that will connect to the State Water Project, comprised of a network of aquifers, lakes and storage facilities, tied into the Sacramento- San Joaquin Delta.

The pipeline was acquired from El Paso Natural Gas and was originally constructed to transport oil and gas, but will be retrofitted for water conveyance, according to Cadiz.

A Supplemental Water Supply Agreement between the company, Salton Sea Authority, Torres Martinez tribe and CVWD establishes that 5,000 acre-feet of water will be delivered via the pipeline for 50 years.

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"The entirety of these actions in support of dedication will be at the sole cost and expense of Cadiz and at no cost to Torres Martinez and the Salton Sea Authority," according to the compact.

"As California's water crisis deepens, Cadiz is committed to ensuring that disadvantaged communities are not left behind," company Chairwoman Susan Kennedy said. "Cadiz's mission is to capture water that is currently lost to evaporation, store it in the desert and transport it through pipelines that once carried oil by retrofitting those pipelines to carry water."

In addition to the pipeline, Cadiz said that it is prepared to install water treatment devices on existing and new groundwater wells within tribal land, providing a means to filter out arsenic, nitrates and other contaminants. The issue of water-borne threats has caused significant habitation challenges on several of the Thermal-based tribe's properties in recent years, and is at the forefront of ongoing problems plaguing the Oasis Mobile Home Park.

"Water is life," Torres Martinez tribal Chairman Thomas Tortez said. "Conserving water that would otherwise be lost to hyper-salinity and evaporation and using it to protect life in and around the Salton Sea is the best use of this precious resource."

The agreement specified that about 1,500 acre-feet of piped water will be furnished to the tribe, while 3,500 acre-feet will go to the Salton Sea Authority. The latter will have discretion to determine how much of the stock will go into the receding sea and how much will be delivered to surrounding communities with limited access to safe drinking water.

Supplemental water deliveries, whenever available, will be provided to the CVWD for retail use, and Cadiz noted it will seek payments for the deliveries to at least cover its baseline distribution expenses.

The company did not disclose what it generally expects to net in investment returns under the project, and there was no timetable given for when the pipeline retrofit might be finished.

On Tuesday, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors approved a $4.12 million contract with an engineering firm to manage the Salton Sea North Lake Pilot Demonstration Project, considered the first major step forward in restoration of the Salton Sea.

The project will entail establishing 156 acres of shallow and deep marine habitat. About one mile of shallow water is slated to run along the sea's north shoreline.

The sea has been allowed to erode to the point of eutrophication, killing off animal and plant life because of extreme salinity. An east wind in September 2012 created conditions for a sulphuric stench that wafted across the county into the Los Angeles Basin. The overpowering odor lingered for hours.

Dust clouds kicked up on parts of dry lake bed have raised other health concerns.

Water reclamation by local agencies and Mexico, plus the loss of Colorado River supplies that originally fed the Salton Sea, have caused water levels to drop and salinity to spike.

The Salton Sea came to be in 1905, when springtime flooding on the Colorado River rushed into Southern California’s developing Imperial Valley. For more than a year, the entire volume of the Colorado River rushed downward into the Salton Trough. By the time the water was stopped in 1907, the Salton Sea had been born. At 45 miles long and 20 miles wide, the freshwater lake equaled about 130 miles of shoreline. For the most part unbeknownst to the people of this time, the creation of the Salton Sea wasn’t a mere aberration. It was part of a 400-500 year cycle. The Colorado River has periodically flowed in and out of the Imperial Valley for thousands of years. This ebb and flow creates first a lake of fresh water, which becomes increasingly salinized as its source runs dry (it also has no drainage source), resulting in a desert basin when the lake inevitably dries out.

In the 1950s and 60s, any worries of the Salton Sea drying out were eclipsed by the booming tourism economy the lakefront was enjoying. Suddenly people in the nearby desert counties could experience sailing, fishing, and other lake activities they never dreamed would be so accessible to their community. Crowds in surrounding cities like Los Angeles heard of this “miracle in the desert” and had to see for themselves what all the excitement was about. Soon the area was one of California’s top tourist destinations. An environmental and economic oasis, the Salton Sea was a bustling bubble of tourism until the 1970s when the environmental factors at play began to catch up.

In the 1970s, a series of tropical storms caused the lake to flood, severely damaging lakefront communities. This damage slowed tourism significantly, and before the area could be fully rebuilt, the Salton Sea’s water source diminished. At the same time, toxic agricultural runoff had been consistently flowing into the Salton Sea from nearby farms. The lake became increasingly concentrated with salt and agricultural chemicals as its water evaporated in the brutal desert sun with no source of replenishment. Fish washed up dead on the shore in masses. A rotten-egg stench clung to the air and grew stronger each year. Tourists stopped coming, and the once glittering resort towns of the Salton Sea were abandoned.

Today the Salton Sea evokes a haunting memory of the idyllic tourist destination that once was. Skeletons of old vacation homes bake in the sun. Bits of buildings covered in peeling candy-colored paint jut out of the sand. In just a few years the lake will dry completely and the highly toxic lake bed will become fully airborne. California’s largest internal body of water is now “the biggest manmade source of hazardous dust in the United States. Los Angeles has spent more than $1.2 billion dollars trying to suppress the dust, pouring 30 billion gallons of water onto the lake bed each year.” These efforts have been to no avail. Hazardous dust levels around the lake bed are roughly 10 times the acceptable standard and growing worse.

Walking across the sunbaked lake floor, the silence is deafening. My friends and I drove down here for the day because we’d heard it was a cool place to explore and maybe see some urban art. Fun new sculptures set against creepy old ruins, stuff like that. As we neared the Salton Sea and saw (and smelled) the lake itself, our excitement turned somber. We wandered through the ruins of Bombay Beach and stumbled across the art installments and sculptures we’d expected, uneasily joking that this felt like an attempt at a trendy LA “pop-up” exhibit. Perhaps it could be called “A-pop-up-calypse.”

While alluring, the art at Bombay Beach feels like a thinly veiled attempt at distracting us from the impending horror of this environmental disaster. I can’t help but think of this week's UN Climate Action Summit. Is it too late to stop this pollution? Even if it’s not too late, will we be able to come up with a sufficient plan to fix this? Time is running out and it seems as though no one is paying attention.

Though once a blossoming oasis, the natural world has exposed the Salton Sea as nothing more than a mere mirage of splendor. The remnants of this attraction are an important reminder that the creation of a fantasy land is not always sustainable. A reminder of what can go wrong when we don’t take the natural world into account, when we do not plan for the future, and when we prioritize our own leisure and amusement over the long-term. Though this particularly toxic reminder lays hundreds of miles in the desert, slowly being buried by sand, I hope we don’t abandon the problems it has created like we abandoned the structures that surround it.

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Classes were canceled at two Coachella Valley Unified Schools on Wednesday and Thursday after high winds knocked down power poles around the area.

Salton City resident Carla Sanchez told News Channel 3 her sister was one of the students impacted.

“Unortunately, she had to come back home. But I know a lot of people that you know, they had to come back from work because their kids were having to come back home from elementary and high school as well," Sanchez explained.

Strong winds brought down 76 power poles off Highway 86, according to the Imperial Irrigation District. Power is back up and running for about 800 Salton City residents, but 1,202 residents are still in the dark. At one point Wednesday, around 2,500 Salton City residents were without power.

UPDATE: 797 customers have been restored in Salton City- North of Fillmore Dr and East of HWY 86, 1202 customers are still out. Crews are on site and repairs are underway. Estimated restoration time is unknown. Thank you for your patience.

— IID (@IIDatWork) February 23, 2023

“We heard banging, we heard cracking, we heard fences going down. At 11:30pm, it just went dark," said resident Anthony Marmolejo.

Marmelejo told News Channel 3 he was shocked how strong the winds were.

“I couldn't believe it. It's just something you don't see. Something like it won't happen to us, here. You know, but it really hits home once you see that," he explained.

It’s was like nothing he had seen before.

“My kids were here and stuff like that. So we were gonna get a hotel but everything was sold out. Generators, you know, they were rented out and stuff like that. So it was it was an experience," Marmelejo said.

In the same neighborhood, Sanchez also woke up without power.

“We did realize the power had gone out last night and we woke up to still no lights," she said.

The strong, gusty winds swept through her neighborhood.

“It was really crazy. I mean, you can hear, you know, all the noise and stuff falling down outside of the homes," Sanchez explained. "I feel like this has been maybe a little worse than it's been in the past, especially with all the light posts coming down.

Sanchez’s power was restored by the end of the day, but she says that’s not always the case.

“It's really hard. Only very few people have generators out here, if we're lucky. Otherwise, you know, we kind of have to go into town and there's nothing close out here. So we have to drive minimum half an hour to an hour," said Sanchez.

IID has been working since Tuesday night to restore power to communities. The Red Cross created a shelter to help residents there on Wednesday night.

UPDATE: Thank you for your continued patience while crews are working as quickly and safely as possible to restore power in Borrego Springs, Ocotillo Wells, Salton city, Thermal and La Quinta. Current estimated restoration time is unknown. Thank you for your patience.

— IID (@IIDatWork) February 22, 2023

Jamie Asbury, IID Energy Manager, said it is “all hands on deck” in response to the incident and has asked other utilities for mutual aid assistance, expecting four additional crews to arrive on scene by noon Thursday.

IID officials said the company is working with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and Imperial County to set up temporary assistance until electric service can be restored.

Wednesday evening, CVUSD officials announced classes at Sea View Elementary and West Shores High School would remain canceled through Thursday.

"Imperial Irrigation District has notified us that power will not be restored by tomorrow," wrote Lissette Santiago, CVUSD spokesperson.

Both schools are in Salton City, a couple of dozen miles east of the Coachella Valley.

The district announced classes were canceled Wednesday morning, even as students were being dropped off. District officials said staff was on site to supervise students until parents or guardians were able to pick them up.

Officials said the decision was made once the damage was assessed and the time of repair was confirmed with IID.

Winds caused damage throughout the Coachella Valley as well, bringing down trees and poles.

The Desert Sun

Highway 86 will be improved to accommodate a landfill near Salton City that's set to gradually expand from three to 287 acres to handle hundreds of truckloads of trash daily from throughout Southern California.

Work has already begun to grow the controversial landfill that's about two miles southwest of Salton City.

The project had drawn criticism and praise from nearby residents, and concerns from officials in Riverside County, which sued Imperial County and Burrtec Waste Industries in 2012 claiming Imperial County failed to consider how a bigger landfill would crowd roads and worsen air quality in Riverside County.

The counties and Burrtec signed off on a settlement agreement in August that calls on Burtecc to pay $214,097 to help cover immediate intersection improvements along Highway 86, plus more money for five major intersection upgrades once the need arises.

Future studies will be needed to determine the price and cost-sharing breakdown of overpass projects for the intersections at 62nd, 66th, 70th, 81st and 84th avenues.

Ray Smith, a spokesman for Riverside County, said this week the agreement accomplishes the county's goal of having Burrtec pay fair portion of the costs for highway projects to improve traffic flow and address congestion and pollutions concerns.

"Anytime we have that kind of increase in traffic, not just for this project but overall, you have to make improvements to accommodate growth," Smith said.

In a court filing, Riverside County officials said the expanded landfill would add more than 348 truck trips per day along their part of Highway 86, significantly hurting the county's air quality.

"Such impacts will degrade the quality of life, health standards and economy of Riverside County and thus must be mitigated," the filing said.

A representative from Burrtec did not return multiple messages seeking comment.

William Brunet, director of public works for Imperial County, said Burrtec has received all the needed permits and is constructing the first segment of the expanded landfill.

He said the landfill has continued to accept trash and the expanded portion could operate by January.

"They're permitted for 6,000 tons a day," Brunet said. "They are going to start slowly, ramping up to 1,000 tons a day."

Some expect the extra traffic to be good for businesses along Highway 86, while others don't want their community to be associated with such a large trash repository.

Fran Aldridge, president of the Salton Community Services District Board, said she's heard from concerned residents but believes the landfill will be an overall win for the area.

Aldridge said the district had discussed receiving 25 cents for each truckload of trash going to landfill to pay for services like parks, streetlights and its fire department.

But Mitch Mansfield, the district's general manager, said no such deal was in the works. Burrtec supports the community with donations, and support from the landfill could come later, he said.

"As far as monetary value, there's nothing really to talk about," Mansfield said. "Four or five years down the road, maybe."

The project is expected to generate huge revenues for Imperial County, bringing in excess of $6.3 million by 2022 while only costing taxpayers an estimated $18,000 for various public services, according to a 2011 fiscal impact analysis.

Everett English is among the Salton City residents who fears the landfill will become the best-known feature of the already challenged community, which was once hailed as a tourist destination but has struggled in the midst of environmental concerns at the Salton Sea.

English, 69, dubbed the landfill, which could rise as high as 250 feet above the ground, "Mount Trashmore."

"With all of the odors and everything, it's going to be a terrible place to live," he said. "It isn't so much the odors from the landfill; it's the odors from the trucks going down the road."

Reach Barrett Newkirk at (760)778-4767. [email protected] or on Twitter @barrettnewkirk.

Plus, several other items top the Riverside County Board of Supervisors' priorities list.

City News Service, News Partner

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — The Board of Supervisors is slated next week to approve a list of priorities for Riverside County's state and federal lobbyists to pursue in 2019 and 2020, to enable the county to save money and operate more efficiently and safely, focusing on pension reform, greater entitlement funding, enhanced freight rail service and restoration of the Salton Sea.

The board will discuss the 45-page list of objectives during its agenda Tuesday. Unlike in previous years, the new legislative platform is intended to cover a two-year period and will only be amended on an as-needed basis -- without a complete list of priorities being submitted to supervisors for approval again next January.

Topping the county's to-do list is a push for the state lobbying team to encourage reform of the nascent Adult Use of Marijuana Act, or Proposition 64, which was incorporated into the broader Medicinal & Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation & Safety Act.

Board Chairman Kevin Jeffries and others have expressed concern that the tax scheme now imposed by the state on marijuana distributors, amounting to a 23 percent baseline sales tax, is too high. When localities impose their own excise taxes, the rate can climb to 40 percent -- nearly half the cost of the product -- on every sale.

The county is seeking a reduction in tax rates, similar to what has been done in Colorado and Washington, to prevent sellers from resorting to black market activity.

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Unfunded pension liabilities in the county are approaching $3 billion, and the county is expected to divert close to $400 million in general fund revenue to support the retirement apparatus in the current fiscal year, with costs steadily escalating over the next decade.

The board wants stronger advocacy for a change in investment management at the California Public Employees' Retirement System.

"Each year, the fund seeks further into the hole, requiring a bailout from the state budget and local governments," according to the legislative platform. "In the past 10 years, CalPERS has averaged a 4.4 percent return, while the stock market has gone up over 100 percent."

The county is also making it a priority to intensify pressure on the state and federal governments to slash permitting requirements connected with restoration of the Salton Sea, and for the California Department of Water Resources to free up revenue from previously approved bond sales to allow the joint restoration project by Riverside and Imperial counties to move forward.

In October, the board established the Salton Sea Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District, initiating the process of paying for revitalization of the dying 360-square-mile lake.

The platform directs lobbyists to seek changes in state realignment to end funding disparities related to the county's receipt of state money for mental health programs and child support services. According to the Executive Office, the county has been short-changed for several decades because of how realignment formulas were set in 1991.

Additionally, to lower rising jail inmate costs, the board is looking to reinforce its support for federal legislation that would no longer make counties automatically responsible for paying detainees' healthcare costs when they enter the correctional system already insured.

Lobbyists will also be directed to express the county's desire for a short-haul rail service between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the Inland Empire, in order to reduce big rig traffic -- and pollution -- along freeways throughout the region. According to the legislative platform, providing state and federal transportation incentives might "induce railroad operators to commence short-haul service and invest in ... intermodal facilities or rail yards."

One of the problems confronting railroad operators is state environmental regulations that stymie construction of railway transfer stations, officials said.

As it has for the last few years, the platform emphasizes the need for the state to fully fund veterans services officers statewide by appropriating $11 million. According to county officials, only $5.6 million was allocated in the current fiscal year, leaving Riverside County and other jurisdictions unable to add personnel to their respective veterans services help centers.

— By City News Service / Image via Shutterstock