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Beautiful Decay at the Salton Sea
Steven Biller
One of the first Sunday drives I took after moving to the Coachella Valley nine years ago was to the Salton Sea, the state’s largest lake and a perennial point of contention among preservationists, politicians, and residents — especially when gusts of foul air blow across the desert.
And the first thing my friends and I noticed as we walked toward the beach at the old North Shore Yacht Club was that no one was on the water. Not a single boat. Only a few people along the shoreline fishing for tilapia. Yet the sea appeared as beautiful and fascinating as it was troublesome.
The modern history of the Salton Sea traces back more than 100 years, when the Colorado River burst out of an irrigation canal and created the lake. Since then, agricultural runoff has fed the sea, preventing it from evaporating under the desert sun. But the waters that have sustained the endorheic Salton Sea have also poisoned it. Its salinity now exceeds that of the Pacific Ocean, inhibiting fish reproduction and diminishing the food supply for millions of fish-eating birds.
Nearly a decade since my first visit to the sea, I still wonder what will happen if evaporation continues and dried salt sediments give way to alkali clouds that could travel across the Coachella Valley, potentially destroying agricultural crops and golf courses and causing a pandemic of respiratory problems among residents and visitors.
While various authorities grapple with the future of the Salton Sea, artists continue painting and photographing around the yacht club and former shoreline resort towns such as Bombay Beach, Salton City, Salton Sea Beach, and Desert Shores.
In April, the new Salton Sea History Museum, located in the restored North Shore Yacht Club, opened its inaugural exhibition, Valley of the Ancient Lake: Works Inspired by the Salton Sea. The artwork, says Ann Japenga (“The New Sublime”), showcases the traditional, apocalyptic, and everything in between.
We hope the exhibition raises awareness of the threats and opportunities at the Salton Sea and inspires a sense of urgency for the health of the Coachella Valley.
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Steven,
I'm glad you touched upon this always thorny subject, as the Salton Sea has been a fascination of mine since the first time the pilot mentioned it over the loudspeaker over 40 years ago...and I wondered why he would point it out.
From my vantage point, it forces one of the most complex decisions that modern societies must ultimately come to grips with: the cause and effect not only of man's impact on the land we live on, but even more specifically--the role of Federal & State agencies and the opposing special interest groups have at the highest of levels.
The Salton Sea is a classic case where the 100 year old "situation", gradually matriculates into a "dilemma", which jumps onto the fast track of "potential catastrophe", and it is only when we reach the "catastrophe " stage that any real action is taken. Which at its very core begs the question as to how and why the communities potentially impacted had not acted sooner?
In the old days it was called common sense. Today it is not only “uncommon” but situation-ally and effectively “senseless” to voice an opinion…. as layers upon layers of committees, panels, and special commissions have snuffed out the real voice of the individual citizen.
I sincerely hope that regardless of what the next steps are…that each and every citizen ask the following question: Which is worse… the “result of man’s miscalculation of a canal’s retention and resistance level?”, or the continuously protracted “Process” that took over 100 years to finally agree on a course of action?