California’s largest lake — the Salton Sea — was once a recreation destination, filled with fish and migratory birds, that supported the surrounding agricultural communities throughout the Imperial and Coachella valleys.
However, the lake's environment has changed dramatically in the past decade, according to Patrick O’Dowd, the executive director of the Salton Sea Authority.
“The types of birds that frequent the sea have changed," Dowd said. "The water level has changed. The water quality has changed.”
The Salton Sea and Utah’s Great Salt Lake share some commonalities. Both are drying terminal lakes hurt by the West’s drought and where water is siphoned off for human needs before water levels can replenish. In both places, dust is a consequence of the exposed lakebeds — and both have a pungent aroma. The ecological, environmental, and in Utah’s case, economic, impacts of the lakes’ declines have pushed both states into varying degrees of action to save them.
Tom Sephton, president of Sephton Water Technology, said the difference between the Salton Sea and Great Salt Lake is there is “much greater political will in Utah” to address the shrinking lake.
“(The) Great Salt Lake is part of the cultural history and definition of the state,” Sephton said.