Salton Sea Pieces Missing From Water Transfer Puzzle

Throughout the high-stakes poker game that coastal cities and a giant irrigation district have been playing for the past seven years in the California desert — with a rich pot of Colorado River water the prize — the Salton Sea has been a peripheral presence, like a high-roller’s mistress standing just outside the glare of the lights.

But events earlier this year suggest that the ecologically ailing drainage sump at the heart of the Imperial Valley has really been manipulating the game all along.

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