Wednesday March 26, 2025
SF Gate —
After decades of trial and error, a new plan is taking shape around the Salton Sea, California’s largest — and endlessly troubled — lake. The accidental inland sea, some 35 miles long, sprung to life 120 years ago when the Colorado River breached an irrigation canal east of Palm Springs. The sudden, shimmering water briefly created a tourist boom that lasted into the 1960s, though for much of the half-century, the lake could more aptly be described as an environmental disaster zone.
Now a new wave of conservation efforts, sparked by millions of dollars in recent federal funding, has washed ashore at the ultra-briny sea, and there’s cautious hope from some that incoming industry will bring an economic boom.
That is, if it doesn’t all fall apart first.
California’s strained relationship with the new Republican-led federal regime means that some conservation funding approved under President Joe Biden could dry up faster than the accidental lake itself. And then there’s the resource race, a clamoring from both the public and private sectors to extract valuable lithium and underground water from the area as quickly as possible, adding more uncertainty to the delicate ecosystem. A rollback of federally protected areas nearby is already underway.