The Sinking Land

In part i, “The Doomed Land,” we talked about the origins and the geology of the Salton Sea. Now, we discuss the destiny and current state of the “accidental ocean.”

v. the ugly future

In other words, in a powerfully crazy geological zone, with the Pacific Ocean knocking at the door, and a stretching and falling drumskin over a pool of magma, the Imperial Valley and the Salton Sea are ripe for a catastrophe of Katrina proportions on a much larger scale. All it would take is one big earthquake. Water is patient. It erodes entire mountain ranges. It cuts a mile deep through hundreds of miles of solid rock (i.e. the Grand Canyon).

East Shore of the Salton Sea

In a wrestling match between human engineering and the Pacific Ocean, the Pacific Ocean is always going to win. Guaranteed.

The 1905 flooding was just a foretaste. The Colorado River wants to spill into the Sink, and the Pacific Ocean wants to overtake it. If that happens, marinas would be located in Palm Springs, which would probably be perfect for them. They already own the yachts.

This would be more or less the land inundated (below sea level):

Areas in red are below sea level today

So how high is the berm protecting the valley?

Well the entire Salton Sink/Colorado River Delta complex is less than 200 feet in elevation, with a major sea lane running 20 to 40 feet above sea level (see large top0 map)

Of course, when you consider that the mouth already gets tides of up to 32 feet, that’s not exactly encouraging. One catastrophic tidal wave, or earthquake or combination could breach the soft sediments that protect the Salton Sink from the Sea of Cortez. And once erosion began, it would proceed through the river-deposited silt berm like a bandsaw cutting through soft pine. The Salton Sink would be inundated as far north as Indio, with the entire flood filling the basin in a week or less.

Sea level marker in Brawley (about the middle of the Salton Sink)

vi. It’s pool party time!

Ole Nordland, Editor of the Indio Daily News for many years, described the effort of the Southern Pacific in these words: ”The gargantuan effort of stemming the flood tied up a network of 1,200 miles of main lines for three weeks while the SP fought to bring the river under control. The work started the very day of the exchange of telegrams, December 20, 1906. Dispatchers sidetracked crack passenger trains to let rock trains through while amazed passengers looked on. Surplus engines stood by to aid in the massive haul of rock and gravel. The rock trains came from as far away as 480 miles to hurtle 2,057 carloads of rock, 221 carloads of gravel, and 203 carloads of clay into the break in 15 days. The loads were dumped from two trestles built across the river break and were literally dumped faster than the water could wash them away. The Colorado River put up a stubborn fight. Three times it ripped away the trestle piles. Finally, on January 27, 1907, the breach was closed and the valley’s farms and cities were saved. The Colorado River was returned to its former path but it left in its wake today’s Salton Sea.”

– Laflin, P., 1995. The Salton Sea: California’s overlooked treasure, Chap 5.

In 1929, the California Department of Fish and Game began to introduce every kind of fish to see which would survive. In 1935, 15,000 silver salmon fingerlings from a Fish and Game hatchery were introduced into the Salton Sea and were never seen again. During WWII, the Salton Sea was used by the navy and army air force for training and testing. Because ocean  fishing was dangerous (submarines) the Salton Sea prospered as a commercial fishery for mullet. In the 1950s, the increasingly saline water (and generally smooth surface) made the Salton Sea the fastest boat racing track in the world — the equivalent of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah for automobiles.

Then, the Hollywood Crowd discovered it.  Or rediscovered it. They’d been toodling down there since the 1920s. The only remains of their bygone civilization are Palm Springs, and Palm Desert at the extreme north end of the Salton Sink.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Hollywood crowd returned, via the North Shore Beach and Yacht Club, a multimillion dollar development that opened in 1960. Notables included the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Dwight Eisenhower,  Bing Crosby, Tony Bennett, John F. Kennedy, the Marx Brothers  and Jerry Lewis, etc.  etc . Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz spent quite a bit of change to develop their own resort, but, like the Salton Sea, it rapidly declined.

North Shore Yacht Club in early 1960s

Abandoned for decades

Newly restored with stimulus funds – will be a seniors’ center and museum

And the bourgeoisie followed: “by the early 1960s the Salton Sea State Recreation Area was attracting more visitors annually than Yosemite National Park,” wrote Steven Greenfield, in “A Lake by Mistake.” (American Heritage: Invention & Technology Magazine, Winter 2006).

Dead fish on shore

But the sea was dying and so was the party.

Same fish, wider angle

vii. Enter the Conservationists

In the past century, it has been used as the repository for agricultural wastewaters originating in the Imperial valley, which neighbors the Salton Sea to the South. The sea is slowly deteriorating for its other uses, and the question has been raised: What to do about this? Should the sea, effectively a sink for wastewaters, be left to degrade slowly with time? Or, should it be restored to an optimal or target salinity level? This article explores the various issues surrounding the controversy.

The cited quote is from THE SALTON SEA: AN ASSESSMENT, by Victor M. Ponce, San Diego State University, which offers a fairly balanced overview of the “controversy” over the Salton Sea:

As it currently stands, the Salton Sea serves three purposes:

• A convenient repository for agricultural wastewaters,
• A resource for fisheries and outdoor recreation, and
• A resource for wildlife.

Since the natural state of the sea is a dry lake bed, all three of these uses are artificial. The first use is a logical consequence of extensive irrigation in the Imperial valley, which results in substantial economic benefit to the local growers and, by extension, to the State of California. The second use admittedly would not exist if it were not for the first, and the existence of the third use is related to the second. Thus, in the Salton Sea, the needs of the agricultural enterprise are closely intertwined with society’s perceived needs for recreation and wildlife.

In 2003, a decision was made to effect an annual transfer of 200,000 acre-feet of water from the Imperial valley to San Diego County, for urban use. After 2019, with the transfer in full force, the reduced inflows are likely produce a shift in the sea’s hydrologic equilibrium to a lower water level, reducing its surface area by about 30 percent.

• WHAT TO DO? •

Left on its own, the lake’s salinity will continue to increase gradually, eventually impairing its other uses. The fish will disappear, and this will affect the wildlife. Only one use will remain: that of serving as a dump for the wastewaters of the agricultural enterprise. …

Barring no action, the alternative is to restore the sea so that it can continue to serve its other purposes, i.e., recreation and wildlife. In principle, this requires reducing the salinity of the Salton Sea to a level comparable to that of the ocean. This undertaking is technologically complex, energy-intensive and costly, with the price tag likely to run into the billions of dollars.

Yes. There is a strong ecological movement to dilute the salinity of the former dry lake bed (the salts came from earlier, evaporated seawater and runoff that concentrated them by evaporation) restore the fish, and, therefore restore the habitat for migrating birds. Many conservation and ecological activism issues are involved, and, as one would expect, it’s politically controversial in California.

Sign from the refuge on the South-south-east marshes on the Salton Sea

Enter Congressman Sonny Bono, originally of “Sonny and Cher” the rock/pop duo, then “The Sonny and Cher Show,” then of Bono’s Restaurant at La Cienega and Melrose in West Hollywood (where I knew him as a small, worried man,  whose restaurant was never filled and often empty) then to Palm Springs, where he became a successful restaurateur, mayor, and then a congressman, just going to show that if you can’t run a restaurant, you can always run for political office.

Statue of Sonny Bono in Palm Springs

Sonny Bono decided to help save the ‘habitat’ of the Salton Sea. Then he died. Bono’s widow was appointed to his seat, which she still occupies. Congress passed legislation:

The “Sonny Bono Memorial Salton Sea Remediation Act”

[snip]

SEC. 4. SALTON SEA RESTORATION ACTION PLAN.

(a) In General. — As soon as practicable after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary, in accordance with the memorandum of understanding entered into under subsection (f), shall prepare an action plan for restoring the Salton Sea in California.

(b) Contents. — The action plan shall consist of

(1) a study of the feasibility of various alternatives for remediating the Salton Sea;

(2) the selection of 1 or more practicable and cost- effective options for remediating the Salton Sea; and

(3) the development of a remediation plan that will implement the options.

(c) Objectives. — In preparing the action plan, the Secretary shall evaluate options that will

(1) reduce and stabilize the overall salinity of the Salton Sea to a level between 35 and 40 parts per thousand;

(2) stabilize the surface elevation of the Salton Sea to a level that is between 240 feet below sea level and 230 feet below sea level;

(3) restore habitat and reclaim water quality over the long term to promote healthy fish and wildlife resources and their habitats in the Salton Sea;

(4) enhance the potential for recreational uses and economic development of the Salton Sea; and

(5) ensure the continued use of the Salton Sea as a reservoir for irrigation and municipal and stormwater drainage.

(d) Options. — In evaluating options under the action plan, the Secretary shall

(1) consider

(A) using impoundments to segregate a portion of the waters of the Salton Sea in 1 or more evaporation ponds located in the Salton Sea basin;

(B) pumping water out of the Salton Sea;

(C) augmenting the flow of water into the Salton Sea;

(D) improving the quality of wastewater discharges from Mexico (including discharges from the Alamo River, the Whitewater River, and the New River) and from other water users in the Salton Sea basin;

(E) implementing any other economically feasible remediation options; and

(F) implementing any combination of the actions described in subparagraphs (A) through (E); and

(2) limit the options to economically feasible and proven technologies.

Here’s that sinking valley again, on a government map

Yeah. Here’s an interchange between Congresswoman Mary Bono (R., Jupiter) and a guest editorialist in the Los Angeles Times:

Salton Sea Is Dead–Keep It That Way

By Ivan P. Colburn
Emeritus Professor of Geology, California State University, Los Angeles
The Los Angeles Times, Thursday, June 18, 1998

The sea was a mistake in the first place; trying to save it will squander water resources better used elsewhere.

Saving the Salton Sea, as many have advocated, is a dubious project because it cannot be supported by science. The Salton Sea was created by an accidental break in an agricultural diversion canal of the Colorado River. The break allowed Colorado River water to flow into a sub-sea level depression in the Colorado Desert, thereby temporarily creating a fresh water lake. The fresh water ultimately became very salty because the evaporation rate is high in the Colorado Desert and no additional fresh water diversions were developed to reduce the lake’s salinity.

The salinity of the Salton Sea is now more than three times that of ocean water. The transition from fresh water to salt water should be clue enough to alert even the most myopic observer that the sea can never be made into a viable bird refuge or recreational water body under current topographic and climatic conditions. If a huge, permanent inflow of fresh water from the Colorado River could be provided to dilute the sea’s salt content, the Salton Sea still could not be saved, because there is no outlet to the Gulf of California to flush away the salt that will continue to build up in spite of the addition of more fresh water. Moreover, the only feasible outlet for the Salton Sea is to the Gulf of California, and that would be impossible to develop because to do so would require the lake to be filled to a level that would drown virtually all of the agricultural land in the Coachella and Imperial valleys. [...]

To which this letter appeared in response:

Reasons To Save The Salton Sea

Representative Mary Bono
Chair, Congressional Salton Sea Task Force
R-Palm Springs

Letters To The Editor, The Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1998

Re Ivan Colburn’s June 18 commentary: Contrary to his assertion, the Salton Sea is not dead. It is an ecological system in a state of advanced decline. However, according to many scientific studies, the sea can be restored.

This issue is of great concern to residents of the region. Allowing the sea to die will result in a devastating dust-pollution problem that will inflict severe economic and public health impacts on the people of the Coachella and Imperial valleys.

Perhaps the most compelling reason to save the Salton Sea is to protect the many species that rely on the sea as their habitat. The Salton Sea is an indispensable stopover for birds on the Pacific Flyway. More than 380 species of birds have been recorded at the Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge, the largest number of species found on any national wildlife refuge in the western U.S.

Our task force challenges any reputable environmental organization to visit the Salton Sea and then publicly advocate allowing the sea to die. The scientific and environmental communities must continue to work together with the responsible agencies to forge a consensus solution. The time has come to resolve the looming environmental crisis threatening one of our nation’s truly unique ecosystems.

Yeah. Truly unique because it’s been a completely artificial and rapidly changing eco-system for a century. It is, alas, both a puddle drying up AND a future sea floor. Unique, yes. Preserve?

Preserve WHAT, exactly?

From the US Geological Survey Site

The issue isn’t whether to “save” the Salton Sea. The issue is how and when to evacuate the Salton Sink. But, as Sherman noted when he surveyed the city of Sacramento: Once buildings go in, nobody’s interested in moving them, no matter how imminent and/or inevitable the catastrophe.

But, with the full faith and backing of the US Government, a century later, they seek to “preserve” that disaster which the US Government would have no hand in averting in 1905.

You know. “Limited” government and all.

And that is the problem of “conservation.”

We attempt to “preserve” that which by its very nature CANNOT be preserved. It’s like trying to embed flame in a lucite paperweight: it can’t actually be done.

The irony is that by carefully choosing habitat scientists and not considering the geology and history of the region, we would be imposing an artificial ecosystem on the region. And we would be in direct conflict with that nature to whom we so ardently profess our newfound love and fluffy hugginess.

If you want to change the world, you need to pick your battles carefully, and this isn’t a battle that anyone sane ought to be taking on. The opposite, in fact, except that the Imperial Valley produces astonishing amounts of crops. Using, ironically, that same Colorado River water that threatened the valley in 1905, there is now virtually zero outflow at the Colorado River Delta, which only increases the rate at which the Pacific Ocean is cutting North: North to that inevitable flooding of the Imperial and Coachella Valley.

the opening rift of the upper Baja Peninsula Baja and the Salton Sea (top)

For the past 80 years or so, since the 1907 dam was completed, the enormous and diverse wetlands of the Colorado River Delta have been dying. Leading to erosion. Leading, ultimately, to disaster.  Not unlike what has happened to the marshes of the Mississippi River delta in Louisiana, only in a dryer climate. Wikipedia:

The construction of Hoover Dam in the 1930s marked the beginning of the modern era for the Colorado River Delta. For six years, as Lake Mead filled behind the dam, virtually no freshwater reached the delta. Even spring flooding was captured. This ecologically devastating event was repeated from 1963 to 1981 as Lake Powell filled behind the Glen Canyon Dam. [...]

The loss of freshwater flows to the delta over the twentieth century has reduced delta wetlands to about 5 percent of their original extent, and nonnative species have compromised the ecological health of much of what remains.

Yes. The delta wetlands are 95% gone since the Hoover Dam.

The Coachella Valley was misnamed by mapmakers. It was originally known as the Conchilla Valley, which means “seashell valley” because fossilized seashells can be found everywhere in it. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust and seashells to seashells. It was ocean bottom once, and will be again.

The nature of nature is change. One of these days the Salton Sea will welcome the salt water life of the Pacific Ocean as its new inhabitants. At present, it is home to a lot of rotting mobile home parks. And LOTS of industrial, large scale farming.

And that’s the fundamental contradiction in our American program of “conservation.” We want to “conserve” our “natural splendor” resources, pretty stuff, etc. etc.

And, with the Salton Sea, it seems that our desire to preserve “habitat” and “nature” is in direct contradiction with the clear direction of that very nature we’re trying to preserve. Birds and fish are wonderful, of course. And, of course, a century ago, there WEREN’T any fish living in nor migratory birds visiting the Salton Sea.

But,  Congress has decreed that we “preserve” the Salton Sea by reducing its saltiness. And, that we must “remediate” its fundamental “unique ecosystem”ness.

Because we’re fighting nature in order to preserve nature.

The USGS map as of this moment

We destroyed that village in order to save it.

viii. epilogue

Perhaps Theodore Roosevelt knew what “tonto” means in Spanish. Which might explain this as a sly joke he played in 1907, frustrated by the two years of bleeding of the Colorado River that formed the Salton Sea:

Tonto National Monument was established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907. Tonto is one of the first National Monuments to be proclaimed under the “New Antiquities Act” of 1906.

In common Spanish parlance, “tonto” means “stupid” or “dummy.” So, that would be the “Stupid National Monument.” Which OUGHT to be the Salton Sea.

Courage.

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