Formerly Famous Desert Oasis Now A Toxic Wasteland

Sixty miles from luxurious Palm Springs, California, is an abandoned town called Salton City. It wasn’t always abandoned, though. At one time, it was called “the miracle in the desert” with fancy vacation homes and yacht clubs. 

In the 1950s and 1960s, Salton Sea, California, lured thousands of famous Hollywood stars and well-to-do families for yachting, swimming, casinos, and more. Guests included Rock Hudson and Frank Sinatra, Guy Lombardo, and even President Eisenhower, just to name a few.

Salton Sea had everything a vacationer would want and much more. Tourists came to watch hot rod races, swim, boat, water ski, and go to the casinos. It vied with Palm Springs for the most popular resort and lured thousands of visitors each summer.

The Salton Sea resort had an excellent reputation, so good that it drew celebrities from Hollywood who wanted a little bit of rest and relaxation. Since it was a smaller resort and less well-known, they could relax without being hounded by the press.

The Salton Sea is geographically odd. Actually, it was created by accident when, in 1905, the Colorado River overflowed and flooded into the Salton Sink desert valley. For an amazingly long period of time – over two years – water flowed into the valley, creating the Salton Sea.

All of that changed during the early 1970s. Because of the way the Sea was created, it happened to lack a sufficient drainage system. It also had no ecosystem of its own, which would have helped the water stay clean.

During the late 1970s, there was a series of tropical storms which caused the level of the Salton Sea to rise and flood its banks. This created floods in Bombay Beach, Salton City, and other surrounding towns. Many businesses and attractions were ruined.

With Bombay Beach and Salton City flooded, and businesses,as well as attractions, ruined, the entire area, began to decline. Then, in the 1980s and 90s, the Sea, which is not more than 60 feet at its deepest, started to recede.

To understand the situation better, let’s learn a little science. There were farms near the Salton Sea, which of course, used fertilizer to treat their soil. The runoff from these farms, filled with fertilizer, flowed into the Sea and caused the growth of algae, which is usually healthy in a normal water ecosystem. But the Salton Sea was not a normal Sea with a drainage system. 

In addition to the toxicity of the water and the dead fish littering the beach, the stench of sulfur permeated the area. That odor could be detected as far as Los Angeles, 150 miles away. Residents even started to report smelling gas in the air.

During the summer of 1999, as many as 8 million tilapia fish died in one day. The fish washed up on the shore in a three-mile-wide band that was 10 miles long. The toxicity of the lake killed many species of fish.

Aside from the toxicity in the area, the Salton Sea began to shrink. This was caused by the area’s normal high temperatures and had actually begun after a years-long drought in the early 1970s. In the image below, you can see how the borders of the Sea changed.

The very factors that once kept the Salton Sea a healthy environment for fish made it become saltier and saltier each year. This didn’t just affect the fish.  In 1996, about 20% of the white pelicans in the area had died, along with over one hundred thousand other local wildlife.

Dr. Tim Krantz, a well-known authority on the Salton Sea, reported that the odor and ecological issues in the Salton Sea are not the worst problems. Even more dangerous for the residents in the area is the threat of toxic dust flowing from the dry lakebed.

Sadly, the Salton Sea area has now become only a place of interest to people studying ecosystems, as well as to photographers and resort lovers. To see the once-famous resort in such bad shape is an emotional experience. 

The dust has had a dramatic effect on children in the area. In Imperial County, one in five children suffer from asthma, compared to the statewide average of one in eight and a national average of one in twelve.

Because the lakebed blows as much as 100 tons of dust into the air every day, property values have taken a deep dive. Many people living in the area are poverty-stricken and are desperate to move elsewhere.

In 2017, then-Governor Jerry Brown put out an ambitious $410 million plan for building ponds and wetlands near the Salton Sea. But even that plan will only deal with about half of the 60,000 acres of land that is causing serious health problems.

Unless something is done and people can move out of the area, the Pacific Institute estimates that the healthcare costs of residents and diving property values could rise to as much as $70 billion. Some restoration efforts have borne fruit, such as the visitor center pictured here.

As Dr. Krantz states, ‘Millions of will be affected by the toxic dust when strong winds blow, especially if they already suffer from asthma. This is a public health disaster if nothing is done to fix it.’ Recently, voters in California voted for an expenditure of over $200 million to initiate a plan to control the dust in the area.

There is a small community of Salton Sea residents who have remained in the area. Some cannot afford to move. The 2016 census showed that 23% of the county’s residents live in poverty, and California real estate is very expensive.

The stalwart residents who still live in the area often hold rallies to ask for government help in solving the many problems plaguing the area. They are convinced that if they continue to make their case, the authorities will help restore the land to health.

There has been some interest in the deterioration of the Salton Sea community as an illustration of environmental decay. Images of dead fish and toxic dust show what can happen when a natural resource is not properly managed.

Like many current residents of the Salton Sea area, Dale Johnson believes the biggest problem in the area at this point is dust control. He fears the dust will get worse and will travel further and further away, causing serious health problems.