Posted on 11/22/2002 12:09:41 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Edited on 04/12/2004 5:46:28 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) - Interior Secretary Gale Norton warned state water agencies Thursday to sign an agreement to keep hundreds of billions of gallons of Colorado River flowing or face a federal cutoff.
Speaking at a meeting of Association of California Water Agencies, Norton compared the situation to the closing minutes of a game and said, "There are no time outs left."
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Are any of those birds on the endangered list? I would think that would be a show stopper if so.
LVM
The depression that is now filled with water and called the Salton Sea was, millions of years ago, the northern extension of the Gulf of California. Over time, the delta of the Colorado River grew and blocked off the far northern end, isolating a remant of the ocean in the middle of the desert. That remnant then dried up. Up to roughly a century ago, the land was the lowest point on the North American continent (lower than Death Valley), a desert wasteland and salt sink.
Late in the 19th century, the All-American Canal was built to bring water from the Colorado River to the Imperial Valley for irrigation purposes. In 1906 (?) there was an earthquake (this is California, after all), the walls of the canal ruptured and water began pouring into the basin. By the time the canal was repaired, a lake had formed out in the desert, and remains today.
Those birds that use the Salton Sea on their migration didn't have a lake to stop at for hundreds of thousands of years, prior to the 20th century. If the Salton Sea vanishes now, they won't miss it.
So what does that have to do with a Federal decision?
LVM
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