California's Accidental Inland Sea

In 1905, engineers from the California Development Company cut a canal to irrigate the Imperial Valley from the Colorado River. The canal silted up. They cut a bypass. The bypass eroded into the main channel, and by June the entire Colorado River was flowing into the Salton Sink — a dry basin 227 feet below sea level in the desert east of Los Angeles. It took 18 months and $3 million to stop it.

The accidental lake they created is 35 miles long, 15 miles wide, and saltier than the Pacific. Fish were stocked in the 1950s and it briefly became a destination resort: the Salton Sea Beach Hotel opened in 1958, the Salton Sea Yacht Club in 1959. Frank Sinatra performed at the North Shore Beach and Yacht Club. In the 1960s, more people visited the Salton Sea than Yosemite.

Then the agriculture that fed it began using less water. Without the runoff, the lake started shrinking. By the 1980s, algal blooms and rising salinity were killing the fish. By the 1990s, the resorts had closed. The hotel at Bombay Beach is a ruin. The marina at Desert Shores is a parking lot.

Today the lakebed exposed by the receding water turns to dust in the desert wind. The dust carries selenium, arsenic, and pesticide residue. Asthma rates in the Coachella Valley and Imperial County are among the highest in California. The state has spent years debating a restoration plan. As of 2024, the lake continues to shrink.