Salton Sea
Another must see while you are staying in Palm Springs.
The Salton Sea was formed between 1905 and 1907 when the Colorado River burst through poorly built irrigation controls south of Yuma, Arizona. Almost the entire flow of the river filled the Salton Basin for more than a year, inundating communities, farms and the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
Continued filling of the Salton Sink was finally halted in 1907, when a line of protective levees was built by boxcars dumping boulders into the breach from Southern Pacific tracks. By then, this inland lake was about 40 miles long and 13 miles wide, covering an area of about 400 square miles.
The Salton Sea is currently 35 miles by 15 miles and can be as large as 40 miles by almost 20 miles in particularly wet years. The Sea is currently 228 feet below sea level. Interestingly, the bed of the Salton Sea is only five feet higher than the lowest spot in Death Valley.
After the initial fill of the Salton Sea, its water level was supported by irrigation runoff as farming in the Imperial County took hold. The agricultural runoff that sustained the lake contained not only fertilizer and pesticides, but high quantities of salt. Over the years, the salinity rose enough to kill off most of the lake’s fish species, even the salt water fish. Its salinity measures slightly higher than that of the Pacific Ocean.
The Salton Sea is so flat and shallow that a vertical foot of drop can expose thousands of feet of dry lake bed. As the playa is exposed, it dries quickly in the desert heat and sun. The winds kick up the dust, creating a serious air pollution problem. At the end of 2017, the flow of water into the lake will be greatly reduced, causing salinity to spike; eventually, even the hardy tilapia will die off, the birds that feed on them will either migrate or die off themselves, and the dust will only get worse.
The nonprofit Pacific Institute estimates that without intervention, the salinity will triple over 15 years, and the fish will disappear in seven years. Read more: http://www.desertusa.com/salton/salton.html#ixzz4X0dGpEjQ
