In a mere seven weeks, hundreds of thousands of California residents will face a major deadline affecting the health of their families and their communities. On Dec. 31, water deliveries that have been staving off ecological disaster at the Salton Sea for 15 years will come to a halt, leaving an uncertain future for the entire region.

Here’s how we got here: In 2003, California struck a deal to divert a large amount of water from Imperial Valley farms to cities. Knowing this transfer would cause the level of the Salton Sea to drop — generating dust and massive habitat destruction — the agreement required the Imperial Irrigation District to put water into the sea for 15 years while the state implemented restoration projects.

Thus far, the state hasn’t done any of those restoration projects, and there is no long-term plan for how to manage the sea.

Meanwhile, the sea has been shrinking, and loss of the mitigation waters at the end of the year will greatly accelerate the deterioration. One hundred square miles of lakebed will be exposed by 2030, resulting in massive dust storms and severely degraded air quality for the 1.6 million people that live in the regional air basin.

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High housing costs keep Californians poor There is some good news: Last month, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 5, a bond proposal that, if approved by California voters in June, will raise nearly $4 billion for water, parks, coastal and climate-related projects across the state. A key component of the bond is $200 million to address the environmental and health crises at the Salton Sea.

While this state funding signifies a major step in keeping its promise to address these issues, money without action will not avert the looming disaster at the sea.

While the narrative around the Salton Sea is one of broken promises and bureaucratic procrastination, recent state actions have demonstrated new urgency from the state. The State Water Resources Control Board recently committed to a new timeline for completing 29,000 acres of dust control and restoration projects over the next decade, with annual benchmarks that start with at least 500 acres constructed by January 1, 2019.

The estimated price tag for the state’s plan to build those 29,000 acres of air quality control and habitat projects around the sea’s retreating shorelines is about $380 million, $80.5 million of which has already been allocated. Potential funding from the parks and water bond in Senate Bill 5 could close that gap significantly.

Ultimately, the question of whether California will act fast enough in 2018 to avoid the worst impacts at the sea depends on leadership from Gov. Brown and California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird. If the state fails build those projects at the Salton Sea, their legacies will forever be tarnished. Instead, their legacy will be communities suffering from toxic air pollution, hundreds of species of birds dying at the sea, and the reliability of California’s water supply in jeopardy because the conditions in the Imperial and Coachella Valley will be so hazardous that the water transfer may be halted.

The potential human, environmental and fiscal toll of failing to take action is huge. Children around the Salton Sea are already showing some of the highest asthma rates in the state. Loss and degradation of habitat is already causing bird populations to crash. And the failure to properly manage the Salton Sea risks billions in damage to local economies — inflating health care costs, wrecking tourism, crashing real estate values and retail sales, and restricting the region’s important agricultural industry.

The situation at the Salton Sea is severe, but it is not insurmountable — the state has been given the tools it needs to get the vital work on the ground underway. Now it’s time to get started.

Frank Ruiz is Audubon California’s Salton Sea program director.