A new federal water plan for the Colorado River ignores what’s happening to one of California’s most vulnerable regions.
When federal officials drafted a new analysis of plans and other means of managing water from the Colorado River, they considered the needs of cities, farms, and reservoirs stretching across seven states. What they did not consider is what those rules will do to the Salton Sea, the communities that live beside it, or the Native tribe whose ancestral lands border its shrinking shore.
That omission is not a minor oversight. It is a fundamental failure of the environmental review process, and a coalition of community organizations, public health researchers, and environmental justice advocates is demanding it be corrected.
What is the Salton Sea?
California’s largest lake, the Salton Sea sits in the desert of Imperial and Riverside Counties – one of the most economically disadvantaged regions in the state. For centuries it was fed by the Colorado River, sustaining wildlife, fish, and the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Tribe, whose culture and identity are rooted in these waters.
Over the past century, diversions of the Colorado River have steadily reduced the water flowing into the Sea. Conservation measures have accelerated this trend. Today, the Sea is shrinking rapidly, exposing a dry, cracked lakebed laden with pesticides and heavy metals left behind by decades of agricultural runoff.
When the water leaves, the dust arrives
As the shoreline retreats, that exposed lakebed turns to dust — and that dust is toxic. Studies document strong links between Salton Sea dust and elevated rates of asthma, emergency room visits, missed school days, and cardiovascular illness among residents of Imperial and Riverside Counties.
These counties already report some of the highest pediatric asthma rates in California. The children growing up here breathe air that carries the residue of industrial agriculture. Any policy that reduces water flowing into the Sea will make this worse.
What we’re asking for:
- Water or dust-suppression measures to prevent further lakebed exposure
- Long-term, fully funded air quality and public health monitoring
- Investments in healthcare, infrastructure, and community economic development
- Formal recognition of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Tribe as a consulting sovereign
- Transparent accounting of who benefits from water diversions — and who pays the price
A tribe left out of the conversation
The Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Tribe has called this region home since time immemorial. Their lands lie directly adjacent to the receding shoreline. Reduced water levels harm their cultural sites, their traditional practices, and their people’s health.
The federal government has a legal and moral obligation to consult with sovereign tribal nations when making decisions that affect them. The draft environmental review contains no mention of the Torres Martinez Tribe and documents no consultation with them. This is not only a policy failure, it is a violation of the government-to-government relationship the United States owes to tribal nations.
Who benefits and who pays
The communities surrounding the Salton Sea are predominantly low-income and communities of color. The water being conserved and redirected flows to major cities and agricultural interests far from here. Those regions gain economic and quality-of-life benefits. The Salton Sea’s neighbors are left with toxic air, collapsing ecosystems, deteriorating roads and schools, and an economy hollowed out by disinvestment.
This is what environmental justice advocates call a sacrifice zone — a community that absorbs the costs of systems designed to benefit others. Federal law requires that decisions like this analyze those disproportionate impacts. The current draft does not.
The federal review process must acknowledge what it is asking these communities to sacrifice.
What needs to change
The Bureau of Reclamation must revise its environmental review to honestly assess the consequences of its water management plan for the Salton Sea, its communities, and the Torres Martinez Tribe. That means real analysis of public health impacts, economic harm, and environmental injustice, not footnotes, but rigorous, enforceable commitments to prevention and mitigation.
Water conservation is necessary. Climate change demands it. But the communities that bear the cost of that conservation deserve protection, investment, and a seat at the table, not erasure from the official record.
Signed by Alianza Coachella Valley, Los Amigos de la Comunidad, Coachella Valley Parents, Lideres Campesinas, Imperial Valley Equity and Justice, and researchers at UCLA, Loma Linda University School of Public Health, and Brown University.
