The Salton Sea was created in 1905 when floods breached a levee on the Colorado River, sending a wall of water through Imperial Valley and to the Salton Sink, a natural desert bowl roughly 230 feet below sea level. Water accumulated there and ultimately created the Salton Sea. For decades after that Colorado River water continued to sustain the sea as it passed through Imperial Valley farms as irrigation runoff.

http://blogs.edf.org/growingreturns/2017/12/01/salton-sea-california-water/

The Salton Sea was created in 1905 when floods breached a levee on the Colorado River, sending a wall of water through Imperial Valley and to the Salton Sink, a natural desert bowl roughly 230 feet below sea level. Water accumulated there and ultimately created the Salton Sea. For decades after that Colorado River water continued to sustain the sea as it passed through Imperial Valley farms as irrigation runoff.

http://blogs.edf.org/growingreturns/2017/12/01/salton-sea-california-water/

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The Coachella Valley’s biggest water district recycles wastewater at three of its six sewage treatment plants, churning out water to irrigate golf courses, parks and lawns at housing developments. Now it’s proposing to reuse more water by converting a sewage plant in Thermal to a water-recycling plant.

http://www.desertsun.com/story/salton-sea/2017/12/08/recycling-wastewater-could-threaten-water-flowing-salton-sea-environmentalists-say/933516001/

Millions of birds depend on a healthy Salton Sea—so do the area's kids.
WITHOUT AN ADEQUATE WATER SUPPLY, THE RECEDING SALTON SEA LEAVES BEHIND DEAD FISH AND TOXIC, ASTHMA-INDUCING DUST.

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2018-1-january-february/feature/salton-sea-dying-we-cant-let-happen

A 2003 water transfer deal called for the Imperial Irrigation District to deliver “mitigation water” to the lake for 15 years. With those water deliveries ending in the final days of 2017, the lake’s decline will begin to accelerate.

http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/energy-water-summit/2017/12/21/salton-sea-race-against-retreating-shorelines-water-transfer-deal-set-expire/967570001/

California's legendary Salton Sea may need an epitaph soon, thanks to a "farm to city" water deal that takes full effect in 2018. The controversial deal redirects most of the water that now sustains the Salton Sea to thirsty towns and cities. As a result, in the years ahead, more than a third of the 350-square-mile lake in the deserts of southeastern California is expected to dry up and blow away.

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/29/574479320/californias-shrinking-salton-sea