99% Invisible - 224- A Sea Worth its Salt

Episode Date: August 9, 2016

The largest body of water in California was formed by a mistake. In 1905, the California Development Company accidentally flooded a huge depression in the Sonora Desert, creating an enormous salty lake called the Salton Sea. The water is about … Continue reading →

This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. The largest body of water in California was formed by mistake. In 1905, the California Development Company accidentally flooded a huge salty depression in the Sonoran Desert known as the Salt and Sink, creating an enormous salty lake called the Salt and Sea. And here we are at the edge of the Salt and Sea. It's incredible, you almost can't see across and we're just at the tip, it's pretty narrow here. Reporter Emmett Fitzgerald recently visited the Salt and Sea on a hot summer day in the desert. Yeah, it's just a mile to 107 right now.

The water is twice as salty as the Pacific Ocean. The only fish that can live there are tilapia, and even they struggle sometimes. It's just a lion of dead fish, dead tilapia. And then, oh my gosh, flies everywhere. The ground beneath the southern end of the sea is volcanic and boiling water bubbles to the surface in muddy pools. It feels post-apocalyptic and prehistoric all at the same time, but it's also weirdly beautiful. And the sea isn't dead, the water is teeming with microbial life and the beaches are covered

with sandpipers, egrids, and pelicans. This sea, in this gurgling, sometimes stinky, accident of a sea, is actually in danger of drying up and disappearing. And you may be thinking, good riddance, it doesn't sound all that nice, and you wouldn't be alone. Over the years, it's been hard to get people to care about saving the salt and sea, in part because it doesn't seem natural enough. In general, we tend to think about places and objects

as either natural or unnatural. Forest, natural. City, unnatural. But that black and white distinction is sometimes greater than it seems. Today, Paragon Falcons are nesting on skyscrapers. Coral reefs are growing on oil dericks, and some seemingly wild ecosystems are carefully managed by humans. The truth is, a lot of places on earth are the messy result of a combination of natural

and unnatural events. No where is messier than the salt and sea. And it raises the question, should we protect an ecosystem that's not purely natural? The salt and sink has not always been full of water, but it hasn't always been empty either. Over centuries, the meandering Colorado River would periodically flow into the sink and fill it with water, and then over time, the water would dry up. This cycle repeated itself every four or five hundred years or so. But when white settlers showed up in the desert in the late 1800s, there was no sea there

at all, just a parched basin, a trough, 270 feet below sea level at its deepest, and filled with natural salt deposits, which companies harvested to sell in cities like San Francisco. But frontier developers soon realized that if you brought in water, you could grow crops 12 months a year under the desert sun. So they said about rebranding this place as an agricultural paradise. And they started by getting rid of the name, Salt and Sink. Well, that's not a very appealing name if you're trying to sell lots. So they thought of imperial value, it sounded great.

That's Pat Lafflin. She's a local historian who's lived in the area for the last 60 years. They established a water company which would bring water by canal from the Colorado River. They said if you start a farm here, we'll bring you the water. This water came into Imperial Valley and watered the acreage. And these real estate developers sold a lot of lots in Europe to people who wanted to come to America and get a new start. And they had a wonderful agricultural industry going down there.

For a few years anyway, in 1905 the water company cut a new canal and before they had time to reinforce it. They had a very late flood up river in the Colorado, and the water just came through and washed out that cut and flooded the valley. Water broke through the wall of the canal and poured into the salt and sink, destroying farms and homes.

It was a disaster. And it just kept pouring in. The federal government could not be bothered to help, so the task of stopping the flow of water fell mostly to the Southern Pacific Railway, which had lost train tracks in the flood, and would lose more if they did nothing. It was an amazing task.

They built railroad tracks out to the break in the dike, and then they just took flat car loads of cement and old cars or any junk that they could throw in because there was just no solid bottom there to the river. It was all sandy. They did this for an entire year until they finally managed to fill in the breach and get the river back into its channel. But by that point the water had filled up the salt and sink, creating a massive lake

in the middle of the desert. The salt and sea. And most people assumed it would just dry up like a puddle on a hot day. Which is what it usually did whenever the Colorado flowed into the salt and sink. But the sea had a new water source this time, agriculture. As irrigation flowed off the fields in the Imperial Valley, it ran downhill into the sink and sustained the salt and sea. And for much of the 20th century, the runoff coming into the sea was about the same as

the amount of water being lost to evaporation, creating a strange balance that made the sea appear stable. And back then, the sea was pretty different than it is now. It looked like a peaceful oasis and an otherwise hostile desert, like somewhere you might want to go on vacation. In the 1950s, a new round of developers saw a chance to turn the sea into a playground for Los Angeles Weekenders. They called it the California Riviera.

Here is truly a miracle in the desert, a whole new outlet for the crowded millions in big cities, a palm springs with water. Here is where you can find the good life in the sun. Today, the Salton River... In oil tycoon, named Penn Phillips, built a plan community on the west side of the lake called Sultan City. He put in a yacht club over there and laid out lots and sold lots and brought busloads of people down to see the sea and purchase lots. That's Pat Lafflin again. She used to take her family to the Sultan Sea on weekends. It was really a wonderful place to go for recreation when I first came in

1950. And I have memories of many hamburger fries on the beach and swimming, but the water was great and there was water skiing and they had a lot of boat races across the sea and back. And then there were the fish. The California Department of Fish and Game decided to stock the sea with fish in order to encourage more tourism. Scientists at UCLA worked to design the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish and the C-Fish the Gulf of Baja California and they brought in the brine fish and then whatever the brine fish came and then the next thing up the chain. The water was salty but not too salty, and so they tried a mix of fresh water and salt water species.

And a lot of this work was done by biologists, but some of it was just renegade fishermen. They tried all kinds of fish, they tried harbor seals, and they survived, I guess, for a while. After a while, they didn't see any of many more. That's Steve Horvitz, a retired ranger with the California State Parks. Spent about 10 years down at the Salt and Sea, living in a desert. Steve says that a few fish, like tilapia, sargo, and corvina, thrived. And by the 1960s, the Salt and Sea was one of the most popular fishing destinations

in the country. The marinas were full of boaters. The marinas were full of life, and the bars were full, and it was packed. They were a run of cars coming from the LA area down to the Salt and Sea every weekend. Stars like the Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra touled around the lake in motorboats. And they gave concerts and programs on the

shore of the Salt and Sea. Was a place to go. There was a time when more people went to the Salt and Sea than went to Yosemite. time and more people went to the Salt and Sea then went to Yosemite. But the good life in the sun didn't last all that long. In the 70s and 80s, floods knocked out a lot of the infrastructure along the shoreline. And most of the owners of the marinas and the yacht clubs decided not to rebuild. By then people began thinking that maybe there were more issues and then they were aware with the Salt and sea. And they were right. One of the biggest issues was salinity.

The water entering the salt and sea picks up salts from the soil. And those salts have nowhere to go. Salt and sea is a closed body of water. The only way water leaves is it evaporates and as water evaporates the material the solids stay. And so the salt concentration continues to increase and increase and increase. Every year the sea gets saltier and saltier, which is a natural process for lakes with no outlet. But tourists didn't like super salty water, smelly fish dios and massive algae blooms. By the 1990s most of the marinas and hotels had closed their doors, and a lot of people had left town.

A rugged contingent stuck it out in small sea-side towns, but the dream of the California Riviera was over. And then in the mid-90s, the sea began to dry up. Remember, pretty much the only water going into the sea was from agricultural runoff. But over the years, farms had become more efficient with water. They installed drip irrigation systems that reduced the runoff draining into the sea. Then in 2003, as part of a complicated water deal, the water district in Imperial Valley sold off the rights to a lot of their water, mostly to San Diego. Some farmers in the area had to stop watering their fields which meant less water draining

into the salt and sea. Steve Horvitz and many other local people fought hard against the water transfer, which they say was done without a proper environmental review. They lobbied politicians in Sacramento and Washington demanding a plan for saving the salt and sea. But few lawmakers wanted to prioritize a fading tourist destination. In the 90s, celebrity congressman Sonny Bono had been a champion for the sea,

but he died in a ski accident in 1998. Steve Horvitz says that he even had trouble getting help from environmental groups. Some environmentalists that I knew they would discount the solaceous, just a wasted body of water, it's just a man-made lake, and so why are you so worried about it?

And I was amazed by that. You know, many people talk to us about why restored the salt and sea. It was an accident. That's Bruce Wilcox. I'm the assistant secretary for natural resources agency in charge of salt and sea policy. And Bruce takes issue with people who call it an accidental sea. This latest version of the salt and sea was an accident, but there's lots of geologic history that shows that the Imperial Valley was flooded periodically by the Colorado River. Either way, wildlife doesn't really care whether or not the lake is an accident.

Just look at all the birds. Ducks, geese, stilts, and douchers, hair and brown pelicans, and white pelicans, a large population of white pelicans. There are about 425 different species that have been catalardt or identified it to salt and sea. Aside from the Texas Gulf, the salt and sea has more bird species than any other place in the US.

Many of those birds migrate up and down North America and the birds would stop at marshes in Southern California to refuel. But those marshes aren't there anymore. Most of the wetlands in Southern California are actuallyuel. But those marshes aren't there anymore. Most of the wetlands in Southern California are actually probably in all of California. I've disappeared because of development of one kind or another.

The sun sees one of the last stops they have. So if we lose that link, if it dries up, we'll crash a lot of bird populations. And there's another reason not to let the sea evaporate. Probably the most compelling reason is human health. As the sea recedes, it exposes dry lake bed, called playa, and it's made up of tiny dust particles that can get into your lungs and cause respiratory diseases, like asthma. To make matters worse, heavy metals and other toxins from all that agricultural runoff

have settled at the bottom of the lake. So there's a tremendous health risk. And not just for people living near the sea. Toxic dust could get blown as far away as Phoenix, Arizona. The Pacific Institute of Water Think Tank in Oakland wrote a report in 2014 saying that the cost of doing nothing at the Salt and Sea

could be as high as $70 billion over the next 30 years. As part of that 2003 water transfer, California agreed to send some water to the Salt and Sea for a few years, to keep the salinity in check while they figure out a solution to the dust and the birds. That water will stop flowing after 2017. But there is a little glimmer of hope. This year, California approved $80 million for a new Salt and Sea task force, which Bruce Wilcox heads up, and are using the funds to start designing ways to keep the dust down

and the birds coming back, all using a lot less water. The plan is basically to build artificial wetlands, with water cycling between ponds of varying salinity levels, each designed to support different bird species, and there'll be walkways and boat launches, so people can enjoy the resource too. But there's no blueprint for this kind of ecosystem architecture. In planning an ecosystem runs counter to a pretty basic ecological principle, that nature knows best. For a lot of environments environments the best approach is to keep humans as far away as possible. But it's too late for that at the salt and sea.

Humans have transformed this landscape really the entire Colorado River Basin in such profound ways. We damned up the river and irrigated the desert. We have dried up all the wetlands. We have made all these modifications for better or worse. And now we're in a position where we have to step in and manage. That's Bruce Wilcox again, the Assistant Secretary for Salt and Sea Policy. And I would be lying to you if I didn't say I was a little nervous about that,

because we don't know anywhere near as much as we think. It's just a little bit arrogant to think we screwed it all up and then suddenly we decided we can fix it. I mean, there's a danger in that. But we're in a position where we don't have a choice. Building hundreds of acres of artificial wetlands is going to require a lot of money. Much more than the 80 million they just got. And that means California is going to have to start valuing a landscape that's the furthest thing from pristine.

It's easy to contrast the saltancy with California's second largest body of water, Lake Tahoe, the beautiful blue mountain lake that northern California, yuppies, and hippies, and yuppies who used to be hippies flock to every weekend. Tahoe is sexy. There's no doubt, but the saltancy at former park ranger Steve Horvitz. to every weekend. Every where you go in California, they're bumper stickers that say keep Tahoe blue. It's almost a badge of environmentalism out here. The salt and sea might not be as beautiful or as natural as Lake Tahoe, but we need it all the same. But if the salt and sea is going to get saved, it'll need to get appreciated first.

We're going to need to see some of the bumper stickers. We just got to think of a slogan, and it probably can't be Save the hot sweaty guy in the desert So, um, let's see See you at the salt and see make the salt and see great again Redesign the Riviera the salt and see is for the birds we came we saw the salt and see maintain the mistake Don't add salt in the womb keep God on your your right shoulder and saltin' on your left. Philapia, I hardly know ya. That's the one.

99% invisible was produced this week by Emmett Fitzgerald with Sheree Fusef, Katie Mingle, Kurt Colstead, Sam Greenspan, Avery, Troubleman, and me Roman Mars. Some of the music in this episode was provided by our friends at Okakumi from Hell Audio. Okakumi have a new 4-song EP that I just bought yesterday. It's on Bandcamp, it's called Sea Landsky. We are a project of 91.7KALW San Francisco and produced on Radio Row.

In beautiful, downtown, Oakland, California. You can find this show and like the show on Facebook. Follow all the people who work on this show on Twitter and Instagram with the best way to explore the 99% invisible activity that shapes the design of our world. stories on 99pi.org.