Imperial County is seeking to declare a public health emergency at the Salton Sea, The Desert Sun has learned, aiming to force Gov. Gavin Newsom and federal officials to free up emergency funds and take immediate action to tamp down dangerous dust.

County supervisors will vote Tuesday on an urgent action item to proclaim a local air pollution emergency due to airpollution at the state's largest lake, which is rapidly shrinking and exposing shoreline that is potentially loaded with contaminants from decades of agricultural runoff and military testing.

Update:Imperial County declares Salton Sea emergency, demands California take action

The county air pollution control board is "aware of harmful dust and pollution at the Salton Sea that is harming Imperial County citizens," according to agenda materials. "This is a peril to human life and a crisis beyond the control of the local County of Imperial."

County Supervisor Ryan Kelley, who chairs the board, said he proposed the drastic action and it had the full support of fellow supervisors in public discussion two weeks ago.

Kelley,whose district includes Bombay Beach, Desert Shores, Niland, Salton City and Salton Sea Beach,much of which sit in the path of prevailing winds, said supervisors and thousands of frustrated residents have watched state and federal officials bicker, squander millions of dollars and stall for more than a decade on how to prevent a looming health crisis they all knew would begin Jan. 1, 2018. That was the day farm waters that had drained into the sea started to be diverted to urban areas under the terms of a state and federal agreement.

Despite being given 14 years to prepare, nothing was done, he said, and wildlife and residents are now paying the price with increasing coarse and fine particles blowing into their lungs.

"This is a disaster beyond our means," said Kelley. "If we declare a local emergency, it gets sent to the state, and then Gov. Newsom has to make a decision. If he doesn't declare a state emergency, he's ignoring a major health crisis. If he does, it opens up the Emergency Services Act, and permitting and procurement materials and equipment are streamlined."

While state and federal emergencies are usually declared in the wake of wildfires, storms or earthquakes, state policy does lay out criteria for declaring a local emergency that include air pollution: "The duly proclaimed existence of conditions of disaster or of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property ... caused by such conditions as air pollution, fire, flood, storm, epidemic, riot, drought, sudden and severe energy shortage, plant or animal infestation or disease."

A local emergency must be declared and a request for funds must be made to the state within 10 days of the disaster. Either the state director of emergency services or the governor must then respond, and the governor has 30 days after the disaster to request a presidential emergency declaration.

Kelley said the county supervisors could also invoke national environmental and war powers clean-up laws, to try to pry funds and attention from federal officials. The U.S. Navy and other military flew over and tested munitions in a southwest corner of the lake known as the Salton Sea Test Base.

"We've got a whole list of challenges for the feds and for the state that they need to address," said Kelley.

FEMA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Newsom and statewater and natural resources appointees have visited the lake several times, and said fixing the problems there are a top priority.

Deputy Natural Resources Secretary Lisa Lien-Mager, speaking on behalf of the Newsom administration, said efforts to control dust spread at the Salton Sea are already being considered.

“We strongly agree that local, state and federal agencies need to partner to improve air quality, public health and ecosystems at the Salton Sea, which includes reducing emissions from dust sources in the region. One important solution is to expand dust suppression projects at the Salton Sea and to address other sources of dust," she said.

"The state is intensely focused on implementing 15,000 acres of dust suppression as quickly as possible, along with another 15,000 acres of wetlands to cover exposed playa. More than $200 million is committed for this work in the near term. In addition, the California Air Resources Board, the local air quality district and the Imperial Irrigation District are working on several pilot projects to test effectiveness of various dust suppression techniques that can improve conditions on the ground.”

Vivien Maisonneuve, a senior program manager with the California Department of Water Resources who is overseeing the design and execution of the state projects, said while he didn't have any comments on the emergency request, "I am not aware of that type of emergency declaration being issued for air quality projects. An emergency was declared for the Oroville Spillway project due to the immediate threat to human life."

California voters and legislators have set aside about $285 million in recent years to fund projects at the Salton Sea, but officials have said they need far more, and are pushing to gain U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Bill funds for drought-stricken communities.

Top state official vows turn-around

On Thursday, before word of Imperial County's proposal broke, California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot told Coachella and Imperial Valley residents and experts gathered at a Salton Sea Summit at UC Riverside's Palm Desert campus that Sacramento is determined to change the trajectory of failed and overdue projects at California's largest lake.

"The governor has told me, 'look, we've got to have a breakthrough,'" Crowfoot said. "We've got to demonstrate we can get things done."

A stipulated order from the state water board requires 30,000 acres of dust suppression and habitat projects be constructed by sister agencies, but the projects are already two years behind, with not a single acre completed. Separately, the 3,700-acre Species Habitat Conservation plan at the mouth of the polluted New River, which flows into the sea, and the federal Red Hill Bay projects are also years behind schedule, though some bureaucratic logjams have been broken.

"Frankly, we're behind the eight ball, we haven't met the milestones," said Crowfoot. "You deserve to be very skeptical."

He added: "My agency has a regulatory and legal obligation to deliver. ... We're here to focus on jump-starting a lot of work we need to do."

He outlined four "buckets" of activity for the next several years, including getting near-term and medium-term projects rolling and cementing strong on-the-ground partnerships with federal and regional entities like the Imperial Irrigation District, which in the absence of state action is plowing ahead on its own dust projects. Crowfootalso identified as priorities better communicating with and listening to the affected public, and identifying an independent evaluator, possibly UC Riverside, to review all proposals for long-term projects.

Sea to shining sea

That last statement was welcome news for a coalition of community groups that is pushing hard for water to be brought from Mexico's Sea of Cortez to the Salton Sea; the bodies of water were connected at one time. Many would prefer state officials begin planning and funding that long-term vision, which could fully restore the Salton Sea to its former glory as a prime boating and fishing spot and a key stop on the Pacific Flyway for about 400 species of birds.

Crowfoot said it was an opportune time to talk with Mexican officials, saying the incoming governor of Baja California is a water professional who previously sat on a San Diego County water district board. But he said he was not there to make promises, and that it was important to plunge into short- and medium-range projects while evaluating bigger proposals that could cost billions of dollars and might not be feasible. He said it was not a matter of either doing short-term projects or undertaking a long-term plan and that the state was committed to doing both.

State water officials are seeking U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approval to begin a pilot dust suppression project by the start of 2020. Crowfoot said they are also seeking overall "programmatic" environmental approvals from federal and state officials and have won state legislative authority to use a "design-build" approach to constructing wetland ponds, both steps that will help streamline the process and begin to make up for lost time. A new assistant secretary for the Salton Sea, Arturo Delgado, has been appointed to replace departing longtime Salton Sea "czar" Bruce Wilcox. Delgado's office, currently in Palm Springs, may be moved closer to the Sea.

Crowfoot's remarks at UC Riverside Palm Desert were met with guarded optimism.

"If I had to write the speech for him, I couldn't have written it better," said Michael Cohen with the Pacific Institute, a lead organizer of the event. "Now let's see if there's action."

But community representatives at a Thursday evening forum warned Crowfoot and other state officials to be cognizant of the area's unique challenges. For instance, he and his team announced plans for a new Salton Sea website that would be updated regularly, and plans to regularly solicit community opinion online.

One woman bluntly reminded them that in the low income, rural communities of Mecca, Thermal, Oasis and North Shore, wireless service is spotty and many people cannot use computers regularly. She urged the state to hire community organizers who were willing to go door to door in desert heat to inform neighbors and get them fully involved in decisions that will affect their lives and property.

Heard it all before

Kelley, the Imperial County supervisor, had little patience for the latest state commitments. He said the idea to declare a county emergency to cut through bureaucratic delays came to him as he was driving home along the western edge of the sea after yet another sit-down for "stakeholders" with Crowfoot, U.S. Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Palm Desert, state Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, and community groups at the North Shore Yacht Club,a community center at the edge of the shrinking sea.

"I sat basically wanting to know what the status was on these projects, and they discussed just the first item on the agenda for 40 minutes," he said with exasperation. He said he heard the same litany of promises to speed things up coupled with projections that it will take at least two years before anything major gets done.

"I've been to three groundbreakings for Red Hill Bay alone," he said, referring to an incomplete restoration project near the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge. "The Species Habitat Conservation plan was first permitted in 2012," he added. "They're saying (it) isn't going to be done until 2022. That's not good enough."

Kelley said that as he drove south along Highway 111 after the meeting, he saw Caltrans crews doing repair work. He pulled over and had a roadside conversation with the foreman, who told him the only reason they were able to move forward with the project was because the county had declared an emergency.

A former Brawley firefighter paramedic and county emergency medical services administrator, Kelley had an epiphany.

"So I'm driving home, and I thought, 'well dammit, we've got all these permitting issues, all the procurement issues, all these agencies getting in each other's way, let's declare an emergency!" he said.

State air resources board officials have long documented thousands of lives cut short annually by disease related to air pollution. However, it is unclear whether a formal state of emergency has ever been declared to combat the problem.