In Thirsty West, Another War Over Water

The Salton Sea is California's biggest lake yet sits in the middle of a desert. It teems with fish but is slowly dying. It was formed by accident but is now the most critical stop for migratory birds in the Pacific.

"It's a paradoxical place," said Tom Kirk, executive director of the Salton Sea Authority, which was created to help fix the sea's many problems.

The sea's latest irony also may be its biggest. Long neglected and often derided, the Salton Sea has become the deal-breaker in the West's latest war over the Colorado River. Politicians and officials who ignored its plight are now forced to look for ways to save it - or decide who's responsible if it dies.

The sea was thrust into the spotlight earlier this month when a water board in California's Imperial Valley pulled out of a 75-year deal aimed at reducing the state's overdependence on the river.

The deal called for Imperial Valley, the nation's largest irrigation project, to transfer some of its massive share of Colorado River water to San Diego.

But the water board said the deal's main flaw was that it failed to address its concerns over the Salton Sea, a huge sump that would quickly become too salty for fish and birds if it weren't for water running off farm fields in the Imperial Valley.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton said she would cut the amount of water California draws from the river next year unless an agreement is signed by Dec. 31. Imperial water officials are holding firm, saying something first must be done about the sea.

"We can no longer ignore it," said Andy Horne, a member of the Imperial Irrigation District.

The Salton Sea is slowly turning it into a 380-square-mile salt bath, threatening the survival of the fish and the many species of migratory birds that depend on it. It already is 25 percent saltier than the Pacific Ocean.

Efforts to save it have bogged down with water politics and bureaucratic infighting. Estimates on what it would cost to keep the sea from getting any saltier range as high as $1.8 billion.

This month, members of Congress and the Bush administration took turns blaming each other for a lack of action.

"I truly believe there's such a strong force saying 'Let it die. Let it die,'" said Ted Deckers, a 62-year-old from Minnesota who retired in a home in Salton City on the western shore of the sea. "When it comes to Washington people, they really want it to go away."

The Colorado River created the sea when it burst through a farm dike in 1905 and poured into California's southeastern desert for more than a year, reviving an ancient seabed. Runoff from farms in the Imperial Valley, which use a trillion gallons of Colorado water annually, have kept the sea from drying up ever since.

"If you don't have farmers," Kirk said, "you don't have a Salton Sea."

With freshwater reserves running low in the West, the sea is trapped between the conflicting needs of a fragile ecosystem, a farming region that produces much of the nation's wintertime vegetables and the West's fast-growing cities. All depend on the Colorado River.

The idea of precious Colorado water sitting in an agricultural sump 227 feet below sea level does not sit well in the thirsty West. Arizona, Nevada and other states that depend on the river don't support using the Colorado to keep the sea alive. Many see the runoff that feeds the sea as wasted water.

Cutting water to the sea, however, would soon make it uninhabitable for the corvina, croaker and tilapia that, for now, thrive in it and make the sea one of the most productive fisheries in the nation. That would force the diverse species of birds that visit each year by the millions to look elsewhere for food.

It also would cause the level of the sea to drop, which residents fear would unleash a storm of dust, much like the one residents of the Owens Valley complained of after Los Angeles made its infamous water grab there 90 years ago.

Even with current water flows, the sea's future is grim. For those lacking a sense of how big a job it is to fix its problems, Herb Hein has filled an acre on the ruins of a secret World War II Navy base with a foot or more of salt.

"It's a much tougher job than the people of authority above could ever dream of," said Hein, a 52-year-old Texan who has spent two years in a trailer a short walk from the sea. "There's a witch's brew of materials you've got to deal with."

Still, on a cool winter's day, it's not hard to see the surprising beauty that drew many of the few thousand residents who make their home on the shores of the Salton Sea. Surrounded by mountain ridges and home to a dizzying array of birds, the sea sits like a mirage in California's stark southeastern desert.

"I've seen flights of snow geese during the migratory periods that are just miles long," said Dave Erskine, a 72-year-old Salton City resident.

Many have been long frustrated in their dream of seeing the sea restored to the glory days of the 1950s when it hosted Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. But in this paradoxical place, a potentially harmful deal that would have sent crucial Colorado River water to San Diego may now be the sea's best hope of salvation.

"It took an action that would greatly accelerate the demise of the Salton Sea for people to pay attention to the sea's plight," Kirk said. "If it wasn't for the water transfer, it might be another 30 years before there was enough momentum to deal with the problems of the Salton Sea."