Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Tom Kirk (760) 564-4888

January 16, 2003

The Salton Sea Authority Board today voted to jump-start the Salton Sea Salton Sea Restoration effort by taking the lead in developing a restoration plan.

Under such an approach, the Authority will retain engineers and designers to help design a restoration plan with or without any partners.

"We are getting into the driver's seat, but we will welcome others aboard if they wish to join us," said Andy Horne, a member of the Imperial Irrigation District Board and Chairman of the Salton Sea Authority Board of Directors.

The Salton Sea Authority is a joint powers agency made up of the Imperial and Riverside counties as well as the Imperial Irrigation District and the Coachella Valley Water Authority.

Federal and State administration officials will be asked to participate in developing a restoration game plan; however, if such participation does not occur, the Authority will move forward alone.

Under the Salton Sea Reclamation Act, the Secretary of Interior is charged with developing a Salton Sea feasibility study by Jan. 1, 2000. To date, no preferred restoration plan has been submitted to Congress.

Salton Sea Authority Executive Director Tom Kirk said the greatest single complication to selecting a preferred project has been uncertainty regarding water supply, largely because of water transfers from the Imperial Irrigation District.

"Whether because of reluctance, political calculus or some other reason, the government's failure to develop a preferred project has frustrated the Salton Sea Authority, members of Congress, the environmental community and others," Kirk said.

Two environmental groups and an Indian tribe have sued the Secretary over not meeting the requirements of the Salton Sea Reclamation Act.

In a bipartisan Dec. 19, 2002 letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, 22 members of California's delegation to Congress also were highly critical of the delays.

"The single greatest obstacle to... [the water transfers] is the uncertainty over the scope and cost of efforts to protect and restore the Salton Sea.  This continued uncertainty is the direct result of Interior's failure to carry out the provisions of the Salton Sea Reclamation Act of
1998," the letter noted.

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