Project Delivery
Aided by input from community members, local leaders, and interested groups, California state agencies are focused on implementing projects as part of the Salton Sea Management Program’s 10-year plan. The plan calls for the construction of habitat restoration and dust suppression on 30,000 acres of currently exposed lakebed and areas that will be exposed by 2028.
Since the state is not a significant landowner around the Salton Sea, collaboration with various land-owning entities is critical to the SSMP team’s ability to implement projects. Land-access agreements and permits must be secured before any testing, monitoring, or construction work begins. As a result, the SSMP is prioritizing work to secure land access in areas with the highest emissivity potential. These projects will help control dust and limit Sea-related impacts on air quality for shoreline communities.
A 4,100-acre project, the Species Conservation Habitat (SCH) Project is the state’s first large-scale project to reduce exposed lakebed and create environmental habitat. Following initial onsite work in 2020, the state’s design-build contractors, Kiewit Infrastructure West Co., began construction in 2021 on the $206.5 million project located at the southern end of the Salton Sea on both sides of the New River.
| Projects completed at the Salton Sea in 2020 |
The SCH, enabled by land access and water use agreements with the Imperial Irrigation District, is creating a network of ponds with islands and areas of varying water depths to provide important fish and bird habitat while suppressing dust emissions to protect regional air quality as the Salton Sea continues to recede.
Prior to launching the SCH, the SSMP team completed approximately 755 acres of temporary dust suppression projects at the southern end of the Salton Sea in 2020 as an interim proactive measure to treat areas of exposed lakebed.
The SSMP team shared its near-term plans for interim projects to help control dust with the release of the Dust Suppression Action Plan in July 2020. The plan is a guidance document that outlines 9,800 acres of project planning areas on exposed lakebed around the Salton Sea, identifies potential dust suppression concepts, and describes the steps needed to transition from concept to on-the-ground implementation over the next few years.
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| Projects in progress and potential future projects under consideration |
Salton Sea Monitoring Implementation Plan
Developed in collaboration with the SSMP Science Committee, the Monitoring Implementation Plan (MIP) is a regional-scale monitoring plan for the Salton Sea ecosystem. It describes monitoring activities to measure conditions of water, air quality, land cover, biological resources, and socioeconomics. The MIP provides a framework for future project-scale monitoring plans and identifies and prioritizes the filling of existing data gaps. It also promotes practices to best store, manage, and make monitoring data publicly available in a timely manner.
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