The Salton Sea heard of it? Its 35 mile long, 15 mile wide 'sea' in the California desert. Its roughly 220 feet below sea level. Hot. hot. At the turn of the century, the Army Core of Engineers screwed up a levy or something dealing with the Colorado River on the Mexican border. For about 15 months the Colorado River flowed freely into this sink, now known as Salton City. Voila! You now have a huge man made 'sea' in the middle of the desert. The problem is, the Colorado is a salty river to begin with, and it also has a lot of selenium in it as well. As the years have passed, the salt levels have increased. There is no where for the water to go or be flushed. What comes in to this fucking hole stays. Water evaporates because its so friggin hot (up to 140 in the sun) but salt doesnt evaporate. As water levels fluxiate, you have more and more salt Fish and wildlife die at an alarming rate. What look like beaches of white sand, upon closer inspection are bones. Nothing but bones. I've seen pictures. Its horrific. In the 50s, this place was a huge resort, with golfing, camping etc. Its supposed to be really beautiful surrounded by snow capped mtns. In the mid 70s there were several flash floods that literally swallowed a portion of what they call Bombay Beach. They built a levy there, of which you can go to , and look down in the brown polluted water and see sunken trailer homes, and other establishments that were flooded. The rust from all the trailer homes makes the water brown and just increases the toxicity. On top of that you have irrigation runoff from the Coachella and Imperial Valleys which increase the toxic levels as well. Talking with my studiomates yesterday after a clean up session, they started talking about this place. When i said I had no idea what they were talking about, they looked at me in shock. Its a photographers paradise, one my studio mates even made an experimental film out there. i see now a film called Salton Sea with Val Kilmer and Adag Goldberg is coming out in May revolving around this place and a crystal meth gang, which is typical in these southern ca desert regions. Ive watched the trailer on line. It looks cool. The place is creepy on film. Another studio mate had proofsheets of his visit out there. Its weird to see beaches of bones and trailors sunk. The air smells. The water is 25% more salty than the ocean. Have you ever heard of this place? I never had. Im hoping to plan a day trip or maybe an overnight camping trip out there. I admit to being a little nervous as it just seems really really really creepy. Desert inbred freaks are scarier than swampland southern freaks in my opinion. Just stop at any gas station from here to Vegas and tell me the toothless pappy inside doesnt creep you the fuck out. I tried to find pics of the bone beaches and sunkin city, but with little luck. These are the best i can do. beachfront upon closer inspection those are most likely fish bones. \link}http://www.tedsimages.com/text/salseac.htm,another beach shot} abandoned bar/hotel another abandoned hotel bombay beach and lastly, here is a diary entry and a couple of pictures of person visting the area. diary and pics To this day, people still live there, fish there and swim there. Its fetid waters but they dont seem to mind. Its almost as if they are becoming a part of the lake...eating and breating such putridness. There are efforts to clean it up, but me and my studio mates agreeds its almost best to leave it like is as a reminder and example of what happens when we fuck up on such a large scale. |
Another place that they use for filming like that is Bell Mountain in Apple Valley. It is beautiful and has an interesting history, but nothing like that. |
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Those b&w photos are neat. |
Coach(sports) ella(as in Fitzgerald) |
i always wondered where they were shot from. i figured somewhere near palm springs. |
now for more manmade natural disasters, has anyone ever heard of bayocean? http://www.oregongeology.com/earthquakes/C oastal/CoastalLandslides.htm |
my post. take the <br> out of the link if you can. |
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Kyuss??? HA!!!! cool pics though, thanks for posting, those are exactly what i was looking for. |
interesting page |
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what happened is that they built a jetty across the bay, and then the town began falling into the sea. at one point it was around a hundred feet per year. |
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however if you are rich enough, like david geffen, you can buy your way though the CA Coastal Commission to get your sea wall approved by threatening campaign dollars to democrats statewide. |
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he has the amazing talent of making the mundane beautiful. |
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that style seems pretty rampant now the ones with people are very cool |
the guy took a picture of his freezer and for some odd ball reason it works. |
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has nothing to do with the locale that I speak of above....however a lot of it is shot there. its actually a great little film. its on video...with a strong recommendation from waffle. |
