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Photo tour: Aqua Blog Maven visits the Salton Sea

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 20, 2009 at 6:48 am

Good morning to all…  I’m blogging from the beach today and tomorrow – thanks to someone’s open internet access at their beach condo and as long as my battery holds out….!  Last week, I traveled to the Salton Sea – yes, in the middle of summer, silly me! – click “read more” to check out some pictures of our trip.

We began our trip to the Salton Sea by heading south from Palm Springs, through the Coachella Valley. You can see the Salton Sea in the background behind the date palms. The Coachella Valley is known for its dates and its grapes, and we saw plenty of both.

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We stopped at the now deserted Desert Shores Marina on the west side of the sea ….

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There are signs all around that are reminders of the sea’s better times in the 50s and 60s, when the area was sold as the ’super-spectacular’, ultra-modern resort for the common man, a regular Joe’s Palm Springs. Many lots were sold, but few homes were ever built.

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But everywhere we went, there wasn’t a soul in sight.

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This probably has something to do with it… It’s hot here in the Imperial Valley! What fool would visit the Imperial Valley in July??? (oh yeah, me!)

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We then went around the southern part of the sea, where I expected to see row crops or orchards or a variety of crops, but all I saw was hay (or alfalfa)…..

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And more of it …..

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And yet even more …. According to this website, alfalfa is the number one crop in the Imperial Valley, with most of it going to California diaries and some of it for export. The salad vegetables are grown over the fall and winter, with melons hitting the market in late April. We stayed mainly towards the south end of the Salton Sea; there’s much more to the Imperial Valley than this, and many more agricultural fields we didn’t not see.

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Irrigation here is still done by hand….

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And water is still measured, literally, in inches.

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We stopped for lunch at Weist County Park, where the Aquakids had a swim in the local swimming hole.

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Then on to the Sonny Bono Salton Sea bird refuge. but we weren’t willing to walk out to the shoreline to see the birds… (Did I mention that it’s hot here? …. )

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Geothermal energy is big at the Salton Sea. due to the thin crust and the high temperature groundwater found near the surface. The Salton Sea and the Imperial Valley are part of the East Pacific Rise crustal spreading center. Yes, the earth’s crust is literally pulling apart in the Salton Sea – it is “one of the few places on earth where zero age crust is being created at an active plate margin within a continent” (Oglesby, 2005).

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There are several geothermal facilities located throughout the Salton Sea area, and more are planned. Unlike other geothermal facilities, the geothermal fluids in the Imperial Valley are among the most saline natural liquids known, which create challenges with corrosion of metal fixtures as well as brine disposal. My research says that the brines are injected back into the ground, which helps with soil subsidence (due to geothermal extractions). It is very smelly behind this plant.

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The Red Hill Marina looks like it hasn’t been used in quite awhile. There’s a sign off to the side, asking fishermen to fill out a survey of what fish they caught, a relic of the time when the Salton Sea fishery was robust with orange-mouth corvina, biardella, and sargo. From the 1960s to the 1980s, it was the most productive fishery in the state, with over 1.5 million use-days per year, and attracting more visitors than Yosemite National Park. Fishermen were able to catch an average of 1.46 fish per hour. When locals talk of restoring the sea, it is that era they are remembering. Now, most of those fish are gone, with the hardy tilapia still abundant in the waters.

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No fishermen today … just birds.

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We enjoyed the unusual rock formations around the Red Hill Marina.

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Mud pots are another sign of geological activity and volcanism in the area. This small field of mud pots is on the west side of the Salton Sea.


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And no visit to the Salton Sea can be complete without a trip to Salvation Mountain.

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On the east side, another deserted beach.

It’s getting late in the day and we’re headed back to Palm Springs. No time to stop at the rotting trailers in Bombay Beach or the abandoned motels and night clubs of the North Shore. Here’s a picture of the abandoned night club at the North Shore from an earlier trip – I think I remember reading that it’s going to be renovated and turned into a community center for the hearty souls still living here.

July 20, 2009 · Filed Under Salton Sea, Uncategorized

Comments

3 Responses to “Photo tour: Aqua Blog Maven visits the Salton Sea”

  1. Farmer2 on July 20th, 2009 5:10 pm

    Cool pixs!

  2. on July 20th, 2009 5:17 pm

    My wife and I spent a day there a month ago; even so the temp was in the 90s. We observed thousands of dead tilapia along the shoreline, a sad consequence of the increasing salinity and toxicity of the sea. Nevertheless, we found numerous groups of people fishing at one of the eastside campgrounds we visited. We visited Salton City, the resort that never was (good overview about this in the book Salt Dreams in the chapter “Have We Got a Deal for You”). I too was amazed at the endless alfalfa as we searched for veggies and fruit in vain, though I knew it was there somewhere. Thanks for your post and the pics.

  3. Salton Sea | Chance of Rain on July 20th, 2009 7:01 pm

    [...] webmaster of the Water Education Foundation blog Aquafornia today published a delightful photo essay of a visit to Salton Sea in July. To see (do see) click on [...]

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