The Salton Sea , one of the world ’s largest inland seas and low points on earth , exists exclusively by fortuity .
situate in the Sonoran Desert ( the hottest desert in North America ) and worry the Salton Sink ( a vale below sea level that has no exit ) , the Salton Sea was created in 1905 through an applied science mischance by the California Development Company . Irrigation channel were dug from the Colorado River into the Imperial Valley to abide the agrarian realm surrounding the sink . When heavy silt build - up threatened the livelihood of the sodbuster , a cutting was made into the western bank of the Colorado to allow more piddle to flow through . Unfortuately , torrential bounce runoff caused the water to crash the canal gates and flood into the Imperial Valley .
For two years , the intact Colorado feed steadily into the Salton Sink and submerged the townspeople of Salton until mend of the epithelial duct could be made in 1907 . Out of this floodlight was born the Salton Sea , a body of refreshing water measuring 45 international nautical mile foresighted and 20 Admiralty mile all-encompassing with 130 miles of shoreline . ( To this day , it remains the largest lake in California . )
When the H2O did n’t evaporate from the basin as quickly as engineers had hoped , literal estate developers seize the opportunity to build the “ Riviera of the West , ” a shangri - Pelican State in the desert with ritzy resort towns give out by names like Bombay Beach , Salton Sea Beach , Salton City , and Desert Shores ; a sort of Palm Springs by the water , if you will .
Thousands of fish were released into the newly formed sea , becoming a fishermen ’s paradise . Multi - million dollar marinas and yacht club sprung up on the shore , golf game courses exact scenic sea views , hotel were constructed and home were built . Over half a million tourer clump to the region annually , not to mention the likes of Frank Sinatra , Jerry Lewis , and the Beach Boys . Through the 1950s and ’ 60s , Salton Sea wastheplace to see and be seen .
But as a landlocked lake , the lack of efflux mean water could only be lost through desiccation during the valley ’s serious summers ( temperature of 120 ° F and up are not unheard of ) . farming overspill from surrounding farms fill the Salton Sea with pesticides and fertilizers . What began as a consistency of impudent urine step by step turn into a salty sludge as the ecosystem was unable to sustain itself .
Build - up of minerals made the lake too salty for most fish to survive , and botulism killed off many of the migratory bird that depended on the Salton Sea for home ground . Ever - increasing saltiness and alga salad days create an environment too unfriendly to support most maritime life .
By the 1970s , all but the steadfast residents and developer take flight the area . die were the resplendency Clarence Shepard Day Jr. of boat race and water - skiing . What were once thriving stamping ground township became dusty ghost township .
Today , the only signs of life sentence along the Salton Sea are the day of the month palm farms that fringe the shoring . ( The vale is the elemental date - originate region in the United States , supplying nearly 95 percent of the nation ’s dates . )
A drive down the eastern shore of the lake on Highway 111 seemed idyllic at first . The sun was scramble , the melody was unagitated . The lake look disconsolate from a space and its shore a sandlike white .
But as soon as I stepped out of the cable car , the foetid smell of fish directly smack me in the face . all in , rotting fish , left to blacken in the sun .
I walk down to the beach and what I primitively think was white sand were really the decomposing , sea - worn skeletons of thousands of fish scraunch under my groundwork . More fish carcase in various level of decay line the shore as far as the eye could see .
The whole scene was unsettling and somewhat post - apocalyptical , which is how many people refer to the Salton Sea . I half bear Milla Jovovich to emerge from the heat - warped sea in lacing - up combat boots , shooting salt - crusted zombies in the read/write head .
Further down the lake , we stopped at the townspeople of Bombay Beach , the theme of many a heartache documentary and one of the most famously depressing places on earth . A wooden sign and a lone palm tree greeted visitant , which at this stage are curious passersby like us , local story buffs , and documentarians .
Bombay Beach still exists as a town , brag a church , a market and a eatery ( and 295 house physician , grant to the 2010 nose count ) , but the blocks of derelict duple - wides and board - up shacks are far from the fancy haunt destination it once was . house physician buzz off around in electric golf carts , as the nearest gas post is 20 mile out .
Many of the homes were abandoned but some were actually lived in . Every once in a while , you would total across a little gem like this pristine Airstream tucked away next to a mobile home .
poke my head into a few of the structures , it seemed like whoever used to live in them had left in a haste . Furniture , clothes , and canned good were straw about like a hurricane had ripped through the position .
And it actually did . In 1977 , Hurricane Doreen made landfall in the realm , ravaging what was left on the lake ’s shoreline . The lake burst its bank and inundate the town , leave many social system half bury and corroded in piquant clay , in what was once the town ’s most coveted stretch of tangible estate .
functionary built a dyke around half the town to protect the homes still remaining . The lower part of townspeople is now known as the ruination of Bombay Beach , and draws a fair share of tourists . As one of the modest settlements in altitude in North America , its dilapidated structure slowly sink into the mud with every rise and autumn of the Salton Sea .
These twenty-four hours , the Salton Sea is salty than the Pacific ( increase by about 1 percent each year ) and sits at 226 foot below ocean stratum ( that ’s a duet hundred feet lower than New Orleans , and just a touch above the lowest point in Death Valley ) . It ’s eat by runoff from farm in the Imperial and Coachella Valleys , along with inflows from the Alamo , New , and Whitewater Rivers .
Even so , the Salton Sea shrinks at a charge per unit of 7 inches per year ( and maybe more , if the drought in California continues ) . Worse still , a piddle transfer agreement ( known as the2003 Quantification Settlement Agreement ) takes effect in 2018 by block the flow of pee from surrounding agricultural field ( and diverting it for urban manipulation ) . Without this agricultural water , the Salton Sea could turn into the Salton Dustbowl within a few decades — just in time forTravertine Point , the controversial superior - be after development on the northwestern tip of the lake , to be finished .
Another shot at the Riviera of the West ? Only time will severalize .
