Salton Sea


sorabji.com: The Stalking Post: Salton Sea
THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016).

By patrick on Monday, April 15, 2002 - 06:06 pm:

    I learned of something yesterday i had never heard of, and the more i uncover, the more fascinating it is.

    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.



By eri on Monday, April 15, 2002 - 07:10 pm:

    Yes, I have heard of it. Being a desert rat, everyone knew of it out there. They have filmed scenes from a lot of movies and television shows out there. They use that place for the shots and then when the actors actually enter the water, they do it on a set of some sort. They also taught us about it in the L.A. school district which is probably why they were suprised you didn't know about it. It is one of those things that stick in the back of your brain and you don't even realize you know it.

    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.


By Dougie on Monday, April 15, 2002 - 07:22 pm:

    Never heard of it. Dig that first picture of abandoned bar/hotel though.


By Spider on Monday, April 15, 2002 - 07:43 pm:

    Patrick, how do you pronounce Choachella?

    Those b&w photos are neat.


By patrick on Monday, April 15, 2002 - 07:53 pm:

    just like its spelled.

    Coach(sports) ella(as in Fitzgerald)


By dave. on Monday, April 15, 2002 - 09:14 pm:

    one of kyuss' albums features pictures from there.

    i always wondered where they were shot from. i figured somewhere near palm springs.


By pez on Monday, April 15, 2002 - 10:43 pm:


By pez on Monday, April 15, 2002 - 10:44 pm:

    note: macs are stupid and inserting html into
    my post. take the <br> out of the link if you
    can.


By eri on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 10:05 am:

    I like the fact that the pictures make the place look dark and haunted. It gives the place a dark life of it's own. It is beautiful, and completely different in person. They only way it would actually look that dark is if there was some creepy thunderstorm going on. The thing with that area of the desert is that it is almost always sunny with clear blue skies, a contradiction to the place itself. You beg for rain to kill the monotony of the damned sunshine. I like the eerie feeling the pictures show. It portrays how desolate and lost the whole area is.


By patrick on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 12:07 pm:

    that link just doesnt work by taking out the <BR> pez.

    Kyuss??? HA!!!!

    cool pics though, thanks for posting, those are exactly what i was looking for.


By Mr. helper on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 01:10 pm:

    remove the %20<BR> and the link works

    interesting page


By heather on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 02:13 pm:

    that happens on the east coast, too


By pez on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 02:21 pm:

    the town's completely gone. i've been there, it's a wildlife sanctuary now.

    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.


By pez on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 02:22 pm:


By heather on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 02:25 pm:

    there's a shopping center built on reclaimed land at the end of the street my sister is moving to- she's hoping that the saltwater claims it back


By patrick on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 02:26 pm:

    its been established here in CA that Sea Walls and jettys are a bigger threat to coast line than previosuly thought.

    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.


By Platypus on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 08:41 pm:

    I love that people put in jettys thinking that the beach gets bigger...it does, on one side, while the other side gets even smaller.


By Dougie on Friday, April 19, 2002 - 03:41 pm:

    I have this picture hanging in my office. Kind of reminds me of the pictures posted above. I love the symmetry of this picture, and the (implied?) asymmetry of gasoline and water.


By patrick on Friday, April 19, 2002 - 03:52 pm:


By Dougie on Friday, April 19, 2002 - 06:05 pm:

    Eh, they don't do much for me, the 3 I saw.


By patrick on Friday, April 19, 2002 - 06:41 pm:

    Eggleston makes me thing of droopy for some reason.


By heather on Friday, April 19, 2002 - 07:43 pm:

    i guess if you remember that they're from the early 70's

    that style seems pretty rampant now


    the ones with people are very cool


By patrick on Friday, April 19, 2002 - 07:51 pm:

    definitely. the still life and random out door subjects are most interesting because you find yourself thinking "why the fuck did he take a picture of that?"

    the guy took a picture of his freezer and for some odd ball reason it works.


By patrick on Friday, April 19, 2002 - 07:53 pm:

    he also has a command of color photography unlike anyone i can think of at the moment. photoshop wasnt invented when those were printed.


By patrick on Monday, September 23, 2002 - 01:35 pm:

    Saw the movie Salton Sea this weekend.


    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.


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