rutabegabunny
holiday in the sun
It breaks your heart, the Salton Sea. It was born of disaster and disaster has dogged it from the beginning. It was originally a desert where salt was mined. About a century ago poorly-built canals intended to bring water to the desert collapsed, allowing the Colorado River to flow into the salt sink.
It took two years to stop the flood, by which time there was a lake covering approximately 375 square miles…the largest lake in California. By the 1920s, the Salton Sea had become a tourist attraction. Fish were introduced into the Sea, waterfowl began to migrate there along with the tourists. Resort towns grew up along its shores.
But because the Salton Sea is located on a salt sink, its water is more saline than seawater. Because there is no freshwater source, its water level is maintained largely by chemically-tainted agricultural runoff. Because it is located in the desert where the summer temperature can reach more than 100 degrees, the water evaporates quickly. As it evaporates, the chemicals and salinity become concentrated. The tainted water breeds algae, which quickly dies and rots. The rotting process consumes more oxygen from the water. The lack of oxygen and the contaminated water case the fish to die and rot. The birds die and rot. The resort towns die and rot.
It breaks your heart, the Salton Sea. Its beauty cannot be denied. Sadly, it’s a corrupt beauty. Can it be salvaged? Yes. Will it be? Probably not. It breaks your heart, breaks your heart.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
