California’s Salton Sea – a lake in crisis

By Engr. Edgar Mana-ay

 

The Salton Sea is a shallow, saline endorheic (meaning its water never discharge to the ocean, they either seep into the ground or evaporate just like the Dead Sea in Israel) rift lake on the San Andreas Fault at the south end of California. The area was once part of a vast inland sea but which geologists claims was filled up with silt from the Colorado river the past 3 million years. It was still a land depression 85 meters below sea level when in 1905 a breach in Colorado river irrigation canal flooded the area of 900 square kilometers (sq. km.) for two years, thus creating the largest inland artificial lake in California, 50 km. long by 20 km. wide.

At first, the lake was viewed as a “tourist miracle”. Developers created resort destinations that would eventually overtake nearby Palm Spring. Resorts and condos sprouted on the shores of Salton Lake like weeds and an in-land “sea paradise” was born. For decades the fun didn’t stop because its main attraction is its relatively warm water drawing more tourists than the Yosemite National Park. The Beach Boys anchored their boats at a well-known shore town Bombay Beach and Frank Sinatra could be seen mingling among its visitors.

However, no natural rivers nor streams connect to the lake, hence it has NO natural intake of fresh water. And in addition, the bottom of the lake at 85 meters below sea level became a natural drain for the southeastern portion of California and the agricultural pesticides and insecticides laden run off from nearby farms. These two conditions aided by a dwindling rain pattern in California (the 24 km. wide by 56 km. long lake is an excellent watershed had there been ample rain that could refresh the lake waters) the past 50 years resulted in an inevitable environmental degradation of Lake Salton.

In just a little over 60 years of tourism bonanza, by the 1970s, visitors started to dissipate. The rising salinity, fertilizer runoff from nearby farms created unsafe algal bloom (because of its unusually warm water and high nutrients) which gave rise to the elevated bacterial level. The natural flow of salts and chemical runoff from nearby farms mixed with constant drying up of the lake have created a health hazard.

Chemical shift in the water caused a number of environmental disasters: mass extinction of fishes littering the once sandy beach with expanses of fish bones (about 20% of the beach sand comprises of fish bones!), bird population also vanished together with the fish. The cause was avian botulism, a disease that has been passed to them by infected and dying fishes. Since 2010 Salton Lake which was once dubbed as a “sea paradise” is now mostly abandoned.

Today, Salton Lake beaches look like a scene from a science fiction movie. The seashore at Bombay beach is barely recognizable. Abandoned towns along the beach are everywhere. However, as you move a few miles inland from the lake, the towns aren’t abandoned. The residents there are getting sick from breathing all the chemicals in the dried-up lake bed that is now being blown around Imperial County in a constant dust storm that keeps increasing in its frequency.

Some 17% of the student body in nearby Westmoreland High School are suffering from asthma. Schools have started installing air monitors on their roofs so that they can alert their student bodies on poor air quality. The stench of Salton sea, think of rotten eggs, will hit Los Angeles when the wind is particularly strong, making the entire city stinks! Over the next 30 years, the Lake will continue to dry up and another 100 sq. miles of the lake bed will be barren and expose more toxic gas.

There is NO panacea in the restoration and healing of such a gigantic case of environmental catastrophe. According to Pacific Institute’s 2014 paper on the Salton Sea crisis, just the cost of clean up will amount to as high as $70 billion with no chance at all to HEAL AND RESTORE Salton Sea to its original splendor as an inland lake teeming with fishes and birds for tourists destination.

After about 60 years of use, the Americans should have already noticed the gradual environmental degradation of the Salton Sea and they could have started some mitigation process which at that time would still be cheap and manageable. Now it’s too late, the Americans just like any human being on the planet, were blinded by the tourist attraction and the money it brought in without noticing that the lake is irreversibly undergoing a slow death.

We have our own very beautiful and natural lakes in the country mostly created through volcanic eruptions and volcanic activities that resulted in the formation of these lake basins. Foremost of them is Laguna De Bay or Laguna Lake, the largest inland body of water in the Philippines with an area of 950 sq. km. with an average depth of only 9 ft. The United Nations Environment Program has rated Laguna Lake “C” for its water quality and “F” for fisheries which is very alarming.

In 2019 half of the physicochemical parameters examined did NOT meet the water quality guidelines of DENR. To remedy this, there is a need to reduce the overcrowded fish pens installed in the lake by 50% to restore water quality and this writer doubts if the President has the political will to implement it. Signs of gradual environmental degradation include frequent fish kills and the growth of algal bloom and water lilies that choke waterways, dirt from fish feeds and manure results in bacteria proliferation resulting in reduced dissolved oxygen in the water. Now even the plan to source fresh water from the lake for water-starved Metro Manila will also be jeopardized.

Taal Lake is also a fresh volcano crater lake, a large volcanic caldera formed by a very large eruption 100 to 500 thousand years ago with a depth of 100 meters, the deepest in the Philippines with an area of 234 sq. km. Fishkill is also a common occurrence at the lake, a sign of water quality deterioration. Water quality is maintained by inflow from Alulod river and outflow from Pansipit river. But the government should not be complacent and should be vigilant in maintaining water quality to preserve the economic and tourist attraction of Taal lake.

It is a common experience that we never appreciate the good things we have until we lose them. Let the collapse of Salton lake in California be an object lesson for us to protect our pristine lakes especially in Mindanao, Lake Sebu and Lanao Lake among others. According to Dante (1265-1321): “There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time in the midst of wretchedness”. Despite everything, still wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!