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Project ACES
A Clean Environment for the Salton Sea (Project "ACES")
In addition to gold, the Imperial Gold Project will produce 54 million cubic yards or 94 million tons of clean sand and gravel placed in the Imperial Valley by the Colorado River over the past 10 million years.
Imperial Gold plans to use the natural sand and gravel from the Imperial Gold Project as a remediation material to solve the Salton Sea contamination.
This sand and gravel is the same material that forms the beaches of the Salton Sea, prior to the contamination that has ravaged the local communities in Imperial County and Riverside County. River sand and gravel are a quality source for construction material because they have been “cleaned” during the previous 10 million years of Colorado River transport and deposition.
This material is a huge opportunity to correct longstanding issues with the Salton Sea.
Over the last 100 plus years, the Sea has been contaminated with industrial and agricultural chemicals and waste. The Salton Sea is shrinking in size, and this shrinking means that the contaminated beaches will be growing until, one day, the sea will disappear. With the shrinking of the Sea, these chemicals and waste materials have been concentrated due to the water's evaporation, and the residue of these chemicals have been deposited on the expanding beaches. The hot and dry nature of the Imperial Valley cause these contaminated beach materials to get blown all over the Valley, creating poor air quality and health issues that Valley leaders have been fighting against for decades.
California’s Salton Sea Management Plan
Our plan would be to use the clean, uncontaminated sand and gravel from the Imperial Gold Project (the same material that was in the area prior to the accidental formation of the Sea) to cover the contaminated beaches and thus eliminate the formation of the toxic dust that is harmful to people.
Imperial Gold’s solution is to use the Valley’s own pure resources to address a local environmental concern and address the air quality and receding sea.