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RECENT NEWS ARTICLES ON THE SALTON SEA
From The Desert Sun, March 29, 2008. It's mating season at the Salton Sea with nearly 400 varieties of birds converging on the area (humans with binoculars and
cameras following closely behind).
The Salton Sea is an inland saline lake which was created in 1905 when heavy rainfall and snowmelt caused the Colorado River
to swell and breach an Imperial Valley dike filling the Salton Sink, which was part of the vast inland sea which once covered
the area. The Salton Sink was the site of a major salt mining operation. The sea become a resort area in the 1940s-1960s but
is now a growing environmental problem as it turns saltier. Plans to save the sea currently focus on sectioning off two different
parts (one for animals and humans, one that would get saltier and eventually dry up) could cost billions. The sea is both
a temporary and permanent home for a variety of birds.
It is also home to a lot of abandoned buildings and to charming eccentrics who inhabit the small towns on the shoreline.
It is a complex, magical and baffling place. And despite the fact that it smells like fish and garbage a lot of the time I
find it one of the most inspirational places I have ever visited.
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