Salton Sea — Attraction in Calipatria

So much more to see and explore than a glance could afford. My grandfather, retired from the Army, used to take his family here to water ski in the late 50's. I had heard about the abnormally high salinity, subsequent pollution from runoff, death of wildlife, receding water levels, and decline in surrounding settlements, but never seen it for myself. I did not set out to visit the Salton Sea, but rather to see the rare floral explosion of 2018-2019 in and around the neighboring Anza Borrego dessert. Not dissappointed. But having heard of the Salton Sea, and having heard of its emminent demise, I sought to see it firsthand before it was lost to memory in my lifetime... After many cell phone photos while meandering through a millenial bloom of pink, yellow, purple, red, white, and blue desert flowers and fighting the traffic and hordes of other floraphiles, the notion of visiting a soon to be forgotten polluted wasteland just beyond the Eastern rise of the Santa Anna crestline began to beckon powerfully. We traversed the poorly laid roads leading to and crisscrossing all around the approach to the sea. It seemed that the engineers had no time to level the earth before hastily laying the asphalt for the roads were eneven as though raised all about by the root spread of invisible trees, or else the 140 degree heat of successive summer desert suns has warped the very earth or both. The view of the Salton Sea on first sight differed greatly from the impression I had formed in my mind; one of a small body of water no larger than a high school football field, dark green and murky with algael blooms clouding it and all about edged by miles of leading, cracked, white, salted flats punctuated only by the carcasses of poisoned waterfowl, the remains of fish, and an occasional sign of abandoned human recreation or industry. This was not the case. While the suburban vision was clearly aborted, sgreet signs had been placed for planned future construction that was never to be like an empty crib in a nursery placed by loving parents for a miscarried child now just a painful reminder of hopes dashed, the residents on the Western approach seemed to live simply and sufficiently in what remains of the sprawling civic dream. I was led by none other than Google Maps, leaving nothing to chance that I may end up in any place unwanted or so wanted for sake of diversion that only torturing my flesh in some windowless room of an abandoned shell of someone's sloughed of dreams would break the monotony of heat and decay, I was led as I said to Johnson's Landing Restaraunt and Bar. This was clearly a community center. There was beer, television, firepits out back, two bocce ball enclosures, and an advertised promise of Karaoke every Sat. from 6pm - 10 pm. I checked my watch: Sat. 3/9/19 at 4:55 pm. Hell it was if I'd been called across several hours of desert driving just for this moment! But that's a tangent we'll avert for now. From the vantage of Johnson's Landing, a white corrugated tin can with red hand painted cursive lettering and a pitched roof, I could see the vastness of a body of water the end of which could not be seen to the North but for the implication of an end made by the rising mountain crests, but which to the South truly dissappeared into a horizon bending out of sight off into the distant somewhere like incomprehensible time. It defied all expectation. Only later did I learn from Wikipedia that this is the largest lake in California. That Native American oral tradition and scientific postulation suggest that this lake drains and fills on a cycle of roughly 400 - 500 years. It was only through recent diversion efforts to irrigate farmlands that the current iteration lays as it does as the Colorado broke from its levies and flooded the basin for two years. It has been receding and dead fish do wash ashore due to continual agricultural runoff and the pelicans that migrate through the region have been poisoned. But it was not the post-apocalyptic indication that global warming IS NOW that I expected. See it...

The Salton Sea is a shallow, saline, endorheic rift lake on the San Andreas Fault at the southern end of the U.S. state of California. It lies between, and within, the Imperial and Coachella valleys, all of which lie within the larger Salton Trough, a pull-apart basin that stretches to the Gulf of California in Mexico. The lake occupies the lowest elevations of the trough, known as the Salton Sink, where the lake surface is 236.0 ft (71.9 m) below sea level as of January 2018. The deepest point of the lake is only 5 ft (1.5 m) higher than the lowest point of Death Valley. The New, Whitewater, and Alamo rivers, combined with agricultural runoff, are the primary sources that feed the lake.

Over millions of years, the Colorado River has flowed into the Imperial Valley and deposited alluvium (soil) creating fertile farmland, building up the terrain and constantly moving its main (or only) river delta. For thousands of years, the river has alternately flowed into and out of the valley, alternately creating a freshwater lake, an increasingly saline lake, and a dry desert basin, depending on river flows and the balance between inflow and evaporative loss. The cycle of filling has been about every 400–500 years and has repeated many times.

One such most notable instance took place around 700 AD – great flows of water into the basin, creating Lake Cahuilla, which at its peak was 115 miles (185 km) long, 35 miles (56 km) wide, and 314 feet (96 m) deep, making it one of the largest lakes in North America. This watering of the basin, during extended severe drought, benefited hunter-gatherers who lived there: although the water was too saline to drink, its presence attracted fish and waterfowl to the area. The lake existed for over 600 years until the intake silted up, leaving a closed basin that dried up in around 50 years.

The latest natural cycle occurred around 1600–1700 AD, according to Native Americans who spoke with the first European settlers. Fish traps still exist at many locations, and the Native Americans evidently moved the traps depending upon the cycle.

The inflow of water from the now heavily controlled Colorado River was accidentally created by the engineers of the California Development Company in 1905. To provide water to the Imperial Valley for farming, beginning in 1900, an irrigation canal was dug from the Colorado River to the old Alamo River channel, directing the water west and then north near Mexicali. The headgates and canals suffered silt buildup, so a series of cuts were made in the bank of the Colorado River to further increase the water flow. The resulting outflow overwhelmed the third intake, "Mexican Cut", near Yuma, Arizona, and the river flowed into the Salton Basin for two years, filling what was then a dry lake bed and creating the modern sea, before repairs were completed.

While it varies in dimensions and area with fluctuations in agricultural runoff and rainfall, the Salton Sea is about 15 by 35 miles (24 by 56 km). With an estimated surface area of 343 square miles (890 km2) or 350 square miles (910 km2), the Salton Sea is the largest lake in California by surface area.6[8] The average annual inflow is less than 1.2 million acre⋅ft (1.5 km3), which is enough to maintain a maximum depth of 43 feet (13 m) and a total volume of about 6 million acre⋅ft (7.4 km3). However, due to changes in water apportionments agreed upon for the Colorado River under the Quantification Settlement Agreement of 2003, the surface area of the sea is expected to decrease by 60% between...

I watched a documentary some years ago (with excitement, fascination, and sadness) detailing the “birth”, the bourgeoning life it’s fresh waters brought for decades, the slow death of the sea (with no exits to wash away salt and chemicals) and the residents trapped by poverty, drugs, and/or old age, with nowhere to go.

For a brief period in time (the 1960s and early 1970s, recreating individuals and families flocked to the Salton Sea to fish, water ski, and party in the few resorts that had sprung up. Families started to buy land and build, hoping to move there. It all looked promising until a catastrophic natural disaster stormed in and ruined the dreams of vacationers, land and home buyers (mostly families), and investors alike.

But despite all the setbacks and tragedies that came before and destroyed the dreams of permanent escape from Los Angeles, certain flora and fauna are returning to the Salton Sea or arriving for the first time. An ecosystem tells many tales of the condition of a wildlife area; it’s birth, lifespan, and potential death. In this case, just as the sea appeared to be “on its deathbed”, new life began springing up.

Over and over, humankind “improves” upon nature, and then alters it into ultimate destruction or creates seemingly inalterable geographical changes, none for the better in the short or long run. Then sometimes, if left alone, a ruined tract of land and water recreates itself and tries to rebalance what humankind has decimated. The Salton Sea and the land around it is changing by itself to meet and overcome the evils “that man hath wrought”. Without the “help” of greedy investors with an eye on potential future development, the Salton Sea may just recover on its own, “thank...