Solution Proposal to EI Centro California’s Water Pollution
This paper establishes existing development and future opportunities to control salinity levels and possible overflowing of the Salton Sea. It also explores continuous activity to mitigate pollution at Sea and in the Alamo and New River drainages (Barbour 5308-5327). Adjacent land use significantly affects surface water quality, with both nonpoint and point- source emissions contributing pollutants to surface waters. The primary land exploitation in the Imperial Valley, comprising the current status of the project is, is agriculture. This kind of land use contributes, sediments, nutrients, herbicide, and pesticides to receiving waters. The City of EI Centro expects a quick development of its urban Sphere over the next sixteen years. Contaminant sources in urban regions include rooftops, parking spaces and streets, exposed soil in construction areas, and countryside areas. Water quality effects from construction are of crucial concern. Grading for construction exercise clears vegetation and exposes the ground to water and wind erosion. The erosion can lead to sedimentation that finally finds its way into surface waters. City overflow from residences and streets is also a likely source of sediment, trash, bacteria, pesticides, hydrocarbons, and metals (Barnum 64-73). The primary focus of this paper is to provide definitive measures and provide direction to the variety of activities that would act to enhance the valuable exploitation of state waters within the Colorado River Basin Region of California by conserving and preserving the quality of these waters.
Contaminated overflow can lead to severe implications for aquatic environments, human health, domestic use, and destruction of wildlife environment, fisheries reduction, and loss of leisure opportunities. Significant levels of nutrients may contribute to the eutrophication of water bodies. Floating substances can limit light penetration into water and restrict photosynthesis of marine biota. Petroleum and water hydrocarbons swept from parking lots, streets, herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers from redesigned areas, may trigger toxic reactions in aquatic life or pollute likely water supply sources, for instance, aquifers and reservoirs. Salts are a contaminant of grave concern in the Imperial Valley because of their negative impacts on crops (Tompson 89-97).
Flooding also occurs in different levels all through Imperial County. Floodwaters originate either from abrupt torrents or as a result of regular heavy rainfall. Surface levels of the Salton Sea vary annually, but the latest mounting surface raises are posing serious drainage concerns in surrounding cultivated areas. Most of the flat flooded basin, with its sea-level drain systems, are exposed to slight, shallow overflowing and ponding because of local topographic relief, irregular strong storms events, and low soil penetration levels that generate quick excess flows (Shortle 111-138).
Development in the basin enhances the number of impermeable surfaces and contributes to the overflow, leading to downstream overflowing. The Imperial Irrigation District presently restricts the size of its drainage system to minimize downstream overflowing possibility from collective agricultural and storm overflow. It is in the process of designing a Preliminary Master Drainage Plan.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency supplies information on overflow threat and occurrence for counties and cities on its torrents insurance rate plans. The body establishes selected areas to demonstrate flood risk potential. Generally, overflowing occurs along streams, with occasional contained flooding also happening because of contractions of surface water ponding or storm drain system.
Implementation Procedure
Assessment of the situation up to this point inform us to come up with the following conclusions:
There is a near agreement among interested groups that the valuable primary use at the Salton Sea, specifically agriculture, residential, recreational and fishing, should be conserved and improved. Moreover, profits from active management pollution, overflowing, and salinity of the Sea are estimated to be worth millions of dollars and seem to validate large scale corrective investment. Failure to successfully mitigate issues at the Salton Sea will mount serious pressure on those entities with legal obligations at the Sea, as following hostile events ensue. Lastly, technical options that would manage flooding and salinity at the Sea are accessible at projected levels of cost that appear acceptable by anticipated benefits (Cantor 527-544).
Irrespective of these agreed interests, accessible corrective opportunities, increasing legal and financial risks connected with non-solution, and the substantial levels of progressive effort evident from the assessment, clearly demonstrate that no focused plan for a solution has yet been designed. The establishment of such a focused options plan will be the main objective of this paper.
- As observed, we conclude that lack of coming up with a focused action plan for a solution at the Salton Sea cannot be primarily associated with disagreement on oppositions because most parties consent to the issue of if possible, solution benefits would supersede costs. In this case, they do, or to whether overall solutions are strictly available and they are. Instead, we think that lack of reasonable progress to this far has been primarily associated with four casual elements.
- A different process that has not always focused members effort on critical objectives and associated critical plans; substantial uncertainty about the information required to provide a solution strategy
- Massive investment requirement to attain full solution results, under any of the alternatives presented;
- Failure to commit substantial energy and time designing a solution plan effectively addresses the problems of informational uncertainty and the subsidy process.
The solution alternative plan established here will delve into these issues. Moreover, in striving to get a solution on the various problems at the Salton Sea, it is critical to begin from somewhere design techniques focus and then extend to more concerns as needed. As observed, our starting point is the control of flooding and salinity concerns. We will then incorporate consideration of pollution, especially from the New River and selenium (Taillie 1918-1930). In this discussion, we consider these issues to be of grave concern. Therefore, we feel that progress in addressing these problems will set the ground for subsequent assessment of other matters.
Solution Proposal and Recommendations
- Management of Solution Efforts at the Salton Sea
The management of solution efforts at the Salton Sea had not been well designed for an extended period. Stakeholders came together from occasionally, sometimes spending substantial efforts, but then going back to their particular organs, where other necessities and obligations ultimately existed. Only in 1987 did the Task Force target ongoing coordination of solution effort between shareholders as a priority. This endeavor has now been continuing for nearly a year. Earlier advancement was slow, but speed now appears to be increasing. The task force will itself have the capacity to measure whether if development is being made, from this proposal, from following final report, and from continuing activities connected with our enabling efforts. Moreover, they would be able to measure if parties attained qualities, more actions, and spending of resources. Should the Task Force settle, that ensuing action is necessary, the necessities of an ongoing facilitative capacity to active parties will significantly enhance projections for the eventual working solution of the concerns at the Salton Sea.
- Rolling on the River
First up is the highly late Salton Sea Management Plan. The principle is to design many tidal ponds along the southern edge. Contaminant-loaded but less saline water from the New River will be mixed with highly concentrated salty lake water. If appropriately done, natural plants important to desert pupfish could grow. White pelicans and other birds would again have some ground to patch on their yearly migration between the Arctic and Baja, Mexico. Moreover, the swamps and creasing projects, flattening deep rows in the broadening lakeshore, will retain dust in some of the stormiest spots.
Unpleasant dust would start to be filled down. Tilapia or other types of fish, and the uncommon birds that prey on them could return in large populations. Opponents observe that administrators have not accomplished renovation so far, and it’s likely to take longer before work starts. The state overseer, Geraci, finds that the Salton Sea does not have a natural passage and is a farming sump.
The new administration, from the Govern on down, is committed to actualizing the plan. The Torrez Martinez tribe’s incoming natural resources director states that they are as well lobbying resources to line waterways and swamps, to prevent them from getting blocked and to filter the naturally happening arsenic. A 530-acre swamps scheme at Red Hill Bay to the southeast could be accomplished early next year, although it does not precisely specify how or when.
Riverside County’s new, improved structure funding district would benefit from small tax growths from proprietors who would profit from new structures to aid advance projects. An Imperial County has agreed to work collaboratively towards the objectives of the new district. Most people and guests would like to see a return to the peak of the lake’s recreational times in the 1950s when speedboats pulled into harbors, and common resorts and golf developments emerged
- Returning to Normalcy
A sizeable, cleaner lake could trigger tourism and economic growth while at the same time offering habitation for birds and fish. Opponents observe that it is uncertain whether there will be sufficient water, with increasing droughts and high demands on the Whitewater River canal that supplies the Salton Sea from the north. The Sierra Club and other organizations are opposing a suggestion by the Coachella Valley Water District to redirect canal water to a wastewater treatment plan, stating that it is vital to the North Lake. Riverside County has brought in consultants and engineers who have affirmed that it could be done, and are refining plans.
- Private financing
Private funding could be used to influence projects with public interests. The Salton Sea would be reclaimed with a continuous supply of water. Although private investors are ready to venture into a speculative water business, the projects, estimated up to $13 billion, will take a duration of up to two decades to be accomplished (Kaspereit 57-66). Desalting the imports would either raise Salton Sea salinity too high concentrations for marine life again, a large quantity of salt would be stocked next to it. Salt could be traded distinctly; slurry could be discarded of at Sea or disposed of in landfill or mine sites. The far smaller ten-year trial strategy has contributed to no advancements, and extensive measures could be attained within the same timeframe.
- Letting Nature Take Its Course
It is already taking shape. Nature is taking its course, and the environment is being formed for ruddy ducks and other species. Public resources would not be misappropriated on what could be failed endeavors to come up with solutions. Bob Terry, a longtime air pollution activist, observes that those who oppose Elmore’s strategy. “He is one of the individuals who deposited all the effluence in the Sea. What implications would it cause to it all?” (Mickus 537-554). He states that the more the Sea dries, the higher the threats of exposure to now-outlawed pesticides and other pollutants. As for disregarding migratory birds, he and others note that it was a good destination for the most significant yearly migration on the world, the North American Flyway (Alzaaq 28-32). With many wet environments occupied up by projects, many birds patched and preyed on or adjacent to the Salton Sea for many years on their long migration to and from the Baja and Arctic, Mexico. Geraci indicates that more than 100,000 eared grebes succumbed to selenium at the Sea in the 1990s, and close to 7,000 ruddy ducks died this winter. Thus, a safer environment could be structured near the Colorado River or other regions with cleaner water.
- Effectiveness in Keeping Corrective Energy at the Salton Sea
Development of Action Teams concentrating on each provisional assignment offers a reasonable next step on the practical expansion of solution options. Each group would comprise only of these interests devoted subsidy or technical support to the creation of the specifically targeted alternative. In this respect, each Action Team would be manageable and more determined and would offer the required professional and organizational capacity to progress rapidly with solution development (Salinas 26-30).
We, therefore, propose that each Action Team keep on maintained by a facilitator, who would act as secretary to the team, provide substantive support in designing a general funding technique, and coordinate between teams and with Task Force management. We further propose that the coordinator prepare the development report for every working group every five months, to be handed in and deliberated at a convention of the complete Task Force. We recommend that the Task Force be constituted of the members of the Action Teams.
- Information Availability for Other Interested Groups
The Salton Sea is a public resource, and thus addressing issues at the Sea will involve considerable public resources and will create massive public profits. Therefore, it is essential to keep contact with these groups or people who cannot contribute immensely to any of the measures established but wish to be kept updated on solution development. To this far, we propose preservation of the wide-based list of interested parties and people for the dissemination of formal progress information, and to attend general informational conventions once convened by the Task Force coordinator.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we deduce that continuous rises in salinity at the Salton Sea will ultimately kill all fish life based on currently accessible information. Regarding the Biosystems assessment, we conclude that fishery resources are at high danger, given existing salinity tolerance at the Sea. These inferences are critical in designing corrective options at the Sea. They demonstrate that measures can helpfully be taken because of the existence of a threat, but that such an action should be incremental in design, and not of a magnitude that would overwhelm execution. Therefore, the plan options designed here will focus first on necessary provisional measures, to be considered for three years until mid-2023, and then discuss alternatives to accomplish complete solutions beyond that period.
Works Cited
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Cantor, Alida, and Sarah Knuth. “Speculations on the postnatural: Restoration, accumulation, and sacrifice at the Salton Sea.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 51.2 (2019): 527-544.
Kaspereit, Dennis, et al. “Updated conceptual model and reserve estimate for the Salton Sea geothermal field, Imperial Valley, California.” Geotherm. Res. Council Trans 40 (2016): 57-66.
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Salinas, Maegan-Antoinette C. Opportunities for Water Conservation in Imperial Valley, California Informed by EEFlux ET and Landsat NDVI. Diss. San Diego State University, 2017.
Shortle, James, and Richard D. Horan. “Policy instruments for water quality protection.” Annu. Rev. Resour. Econ. 5.1 (2013): 111-138.
Taillie, Paul J., et al. “Decadal-Scale Vegetation Change Driven by Salinity at Leading Edge of Rising Sea Level.” Ecosystems 22.8 (2019): 1918-1930.
Tompson, Andrew FB. “Born from a flood: The Salton Sea and its story of survival.” Journal of Earth Science 27.1 (2016): 89-97.