- A 1.5-mile stretch of the New River in Calexico has been improved to prevent pollution.
- California contributed $46.5 million to fund pollution control and water diversion infrastructure.
- The project supports both public health and environmental goals in the Salton Sea region.
- It is part of a broader 10-year plan to restore 30,000 acres around the shrinking Salton Sea.<
- Community and state partnerships were essential to the project’s success.
Tuesday, May 27, 2025 — The City of Calexico marked a major milestone last week with the completion of the New River Improvement Project
—an ambitious effort that is already being recognized as a key achievement in California’s broader Salton Sea Management Program. The project addresses long-standing public health hazards posed by the polluted New River, which flows north from Mexico through Calexico and ultimately into the Salton Sea.
Backed by a $46.5 million investment from the California Department of Water Resources, the State Water Resources Control Board, and California State Parks, the project reroutes contaminated water away from a 1.5-mile segment of the river within Calexico’s city limits. This section had long been plagued by untreated waste, trash, and other pollutants that posed serious risks to both local residents and the river’s ecosystem.
As DWR Director Karla Nemeth explained, “The New River Improvement Project helps further State efforts to ensure that every Californian has access to clean, safe, and affordable water.”
The work involved installing a trio of integrated infrastructure components: a trash screen to intercept solid waste, a diversion structure to redirect polluted flows into a bypass pipeline, and a pump-back system that reintroduces treated wastewater to sustain natural river flow. Together, these features drastically reduce the health and environmental hazards posed by the river’s contamination.
State Water Board Chair E. Joaquin Esquivel praised the initiative’s environmental and social benefits, saying, “We are here today because it is time to renew the New River and make it a symbol of the environmental restoration possible when we come together to make it happen.”
Calexico Mayor Diana Nuricumbo emphasized the significance of the long-standing collaboration among local, state, and regional entities. “If it weren’t for the great teams created many years ago… the City of Calexico and the Salton Sea wouldn’t have a cleaner river, vibrant wetlands, a healthier fauna, and an overall healthier population within our communities,” she said.
The project is not only a local triumph but also a critical link in California’s wider push to restore the Salton Sea—a lake that has shrunk dramatically in recent years due to declining inflows, leading to rising salinity levels and exposure of toxic lakebed dust. The dust is a growing health concern for communities across Imperial and Riverside counties.
Under the direction of Governor Gavin Newsom, California agencies are pursuing an ambitious 10-year plan to restore 30,000 acres of habitat and suppress dust along the perimeter of the Salton Sea. The effort is led by the California Natural Resources Agency in partnership with the Department of Water Resources and the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
In tandem with short-term mitigation projects, state officials are evaluating the long-term feasibility of water importation and other restoration strategies. Since 2019, the Salton Sea Management Program team has significantly ramped up its project delivery capacity, aided by input from community stakeholders and local leaders.
The completion of the New River Improvement Project not only addresses one of California’s most pressing environmental justice challenges, but also sets the stage for future restoration projects aimed at preserving public health, ecological balance, and water quality in the Salton Sea region.
Image via the California Department of Water Resources’ news release: A Saline Pump Station is under construction to pump saline water from the Salton Sea into mixing basins. Photo taken February 9, 2023.
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