Yet another peculiar layer to the Salton Sea's formation — and future
The Salton Sea is hardly natural, and it wasn’t an accident either. Rather, it was the result of a deliberate and prohibited act, complicated by a fatal miscalculation. More on that in a moment.
Salton Sea isn’t really a “sea;” we just call it that for political reasons. It’s actually an artificial sump composed almost entirely of waste – a tiny puddle compared to ancient Lake Cahuilla. And with the advent of the Hoover Dam, ancient Lake Cahuilla became ancient history and it isn’t coming back.
The real Salton Sea bit the “dust,” so to speak, approximately 600 years ago. It wasn’t meant to survive long-term. It was an endorheic lake with a natural life cycle of becoming hypereutrophic and hypersaline until it ultimately died and dried up – just as nature intended.
Unfortunately, the California Natural Resources Agency and the Department of Water Resources are determined to interfere with nature and disrupt the balance by reanimating this watery corpse. They intend to “restore” an open cesspool that never should have been designated as habitat in the first place, and they know their project will kill more birds and wildlife.
They call this progress ― I call it environmental malpractice.
The public is finally realizing that government is the problem to any Salton Sea solution, and that this entire fiasco would be fixed if the private sector took over. But with so much easy money pouring in, there’s no way the state would hand over its cash cow. Besides, success by the private sector would only be a searing indictment of the state’s failures and inefficiencies.
So how did this all start? The true origin of today’s so-called “Salton Sea” is chronicled by Harry Cory, a chief engineer involved in the sea’s creation. In his memoir “The Imperial Valley and the Salton Sink,” Cory explains how the California Development Company (CDC) was responsible for delivering Colorado River water to Imperial Valley farmers.
Around 1904, after years of struggles and tribulations endured by the CDC, several miles of the supply channel had yet again become obstructed by sediment, preventing water from reaching the agricultural fields. The crude machines available at the time were incapable of removing the sediment in time for the upcoming winter season.
With the company hemorrhaging huge losses in lawsuit damages and facing inevitable bankruptcy, not to mention the onslaught of angry farmers demanding their water deliveries, there was incredible pressure mounting on the CDC to do something.
After intense deliberation, the risky decision was made to bypass the clogged section of the canal altogether by making a series of strategic cuts – located on the Mexican side of the border.
The CDC’s attorney traveled to Mexico to secure consent for the cuts, but when the Mexican Government dragged its heels, the frustrated attorney directed the engineers to proceed anyway, giving the impression that Mexico had given the green light – even though Mexico hadn’t.
But the fatal flaw in all of this was actually a lack of due diligence. You see, the engineers were relying on insufficient flow data for the river; only the past 27 years worth. Consequently, they never saw coming the series of massive cyclical storms that would ultimately overwhelm the cuts they had made, leading to the unstoppable filling of the Salton sink.
That was the death blow that ultimately bankrupted the CDC and in 1911, the Imperial Irrigation District that we know today assumed the CDC’s role of irrigating the valley.
There’s much more to this story detailed in Cory’s fascinating memoir, which is rich in Valley history.
Jeff Geraci is an environmental scientist who has studied the Salton Sea for 30 years, including toxic algae, bioaccumulation and the local barnacle population. He has published research on the subject, and has lived in the Coachella Valley since 1975. His email is brownmissile@yahoo.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Yet another peculiar layer to the Salton Sea's formation — and future
