The Salton Sea Can, and Should, Be Saved

Two sentences into “Drop Bid to Revive the Dying Salton Sea” (by Brent M. Haddad and Christopher J. Brown, Commentary, July 14) and I was upset. By the end of the article I was incensed. That “there is virtually nothing that can stop that” [the death of the Salton Sea] is patently wrong. For there is a solution. And it is win/win/win.

Bring water from the Sea of Cortez. It is less salty than the Salton Sea. It is at sea level. The Salton Sea is more than 200 feet below sea level. Win for the sea, for the birds, for recreation, for jobs (anyone care about jobs anymore?), for the environment and for Baja California. Areas to the north of the Sea of Cortez are dying also because its northern feed has been taken by California farmers. By sending the water north, the Sea of Cortez gets a flow (and its fishing industry revived). With gravity on our side, the Pacific then refills the Sea of Cortez and everyone has a better life.

Or we could just let the sea die, the birds try to find their new home--as the authors suggest--before they die and the residents of Southern California try to stop the acid windstorms off the dead seabed before we die. But why would the authors care? They are in Santa Cruz.

Bob Terry

Los Angeles