Given the situation now (as in “generally the early 2020s”, not now as in “this afternoon”), the least bad outcome for the area surrounding the SS is that the lake quit shrinking, and maybe grow a smidgen to cover some of the worst of the newly dry areas.
Armed with a magic wand to retroactively prevent the Colorado river diversion that flooded the valley in 1905 would be nice. Or a different magic wand to fill the lake now to its heyday depth and keep it there in perpetuity. Or yet a different magic wand to remove all the current water, and all the salt, and all the toxic sludge leaving a lower, harder, but non-nasty valley floor.
Absent magic wands, the choices are few and none are good. SS is a festering shithole of an ecological disaster. Kicking the can down the road another 20 years is a decent career move for each of the several agencies charged with managing one or another aspect of the inexorably unfolding disaster.
Besides, the authorities are really worried about what’ll emerge from the lake if it gets any shallower:
No, Tropical Storm Hilary was a LOT of rain in a few places, causing mudslides, flooding and damage. Yeah, most of the state only got some much appreciated rain, but it was pretty nasty in a few places.
I see places saying up to 7 inches of rain. And for my area, 7 inches of rain in 24 or 48 hours isn’t that big a deal. It doesn’t happen every day, it doesn’t happen every month, but it probably happens at least once pretty much every year.
@DrDeth: I have a vague memory of me as a preschool kid when the family went to a resort at the Salton Sea for a weekend. Nothing nasty or raggedy about it. It was kind of yet another miracle wonder of Magical California.
As Inspector Closeau once said of a priceless Steinway:
Not Anymore!
@Darren_Garrison: 7 inches fell in some places where that amount represents 5 years worth of normal rainfall.
One of my all-time favorite “cheap” monster movies (“It’s a giant snail! Walk for your lives!”), and inevitably the first thing I think of when I read or hear “Salton Sea”. It seemed to be on WNEW’s Creature Feature all the time when I was a kid.
Looking back, now as an adult who’s tried to get his own stuff produced, I can appreciate how well they did with few resources. It’s not a “bad” monster movie. They came up with a pretty neat monster effect – one hydraulically-controlled Giant Snail Head (with un-snail-like ping pong ball eyes and an equally un-snail-like pair of mandibles) and used it several times to good effect. The script is reasonably well-written, with some ghoulish humor thrown in. They build interest and suspense properly. And the got Tim Holt (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) to star, and Hans Conreid (too many roles to list) for good measure. They got around the relative immobility of their monster contraption cleverly enough.
My only complaints – 1.) Giant Snails? Really? Can’t believe one sneaking up on an unsuspecting dam control guy. Or a diver. 2.) Title’s too damned long and pointless.
Actually, I originally saw this as a one-panel comic in the 1970s with people Walking for their Lives from a Giant Ground Sloth. Good to see that someone finally drew a snail version.
It is widely thought that the Salton Sea was created accidentally in 1905–07 because of engineering negligence in the diversion of Colorado River water for agricultural use in California’s Imperial Valley. This is a misconception. Scientific data and historical records establish that formation of the Salton Sea was not accidental. The lake formed during 1905–07 in the same manner that numerous other large Salton Basin lakes did for at least tens of thousands of years from the Late Pleistocene through the late 19th century: as a result of the lower Colorado River’s natural hydrodynamic regime, floodplain morphodynamics, and established avulsion style in combination with changes in streamflow attributable to regional hydroclimate. A large body of scientific and historical evidence indicates the 1905–07 Colorado River flooding into the Salton Basin and the creation of a large lake there would have occurred regardless of man-made modifications to the river’s natural levee and distributary channels. In fact, the flooding would likely have been even worse in the absence of human intervention.
No one doubts that the Salton Sea, or some similar body, existed there before 1905-7. In fact, one of the bits in the Monster Movie points out that a parallel case to the one that lead to the monsters being loosed occurred elsewhere where a body of water had formerly existed and eggs had been laid, which were hatched when that body of water got flooded again. The clear implication is that the Salton Sea iotself had been a sizable body of water in the past, and the Giant Snail Eggs had been laid there at that time. The recent flooding simply renewed the sea.
The Salton Sea lies at a low point, and I think people thought it could be flooded again. The only “accident” part was the engineering mishap that lead the canal’s water break into the basin again. If I understand it, that is an observed situation, and not in any doubt. That the sea could’ve been re-formed under the right circumstances without human intervention seems likely enough, too. I haven’t read the cited article yet, though.
They pumped water out of the Great Salt Lake. This increased the surface area which allowed for a higher evaporation rate. Google “West Desert Pumping Project” or the Wikipedia “Great Salt Lake” paragraph on the subject
I was in SLC a year ago and the lake was barely a lake. Islands that used to be islands could be walked to over dry ground. It was pretty dramatic. I think I have pics somewhere but I am sure there is better online.
IIRC the Great Salt Lake is somewhat unusual when it comes to lakes. Geography, height, something something about how it is filled and runoff…I forget (I read it on a plaque in a visitor center). Point being, it isn’t a lake like Lake Superior is a lake (never mind size differences). I think hydrologically it works differently. (Again…not sure)
In general SLC was difficult for non-Mormons years ago because substantially the entire populace was Mormon, and the few non-Mormons were sort of looked askance at. Made becoming friends with your neighbors or co-workers difficult. They were cordial, not welcoming, and you would always be a social outsider looking in.
In addition their strait-laced and “family friendly” (read “bland & inoffensive”) culture utterly dominated the forms of recreation and entertainment available.
Over the last decades a LOT of non-Mormons have moved in, diluting the above effects. Separately, some of the most extreme forms of cultural restriction and required conformity have eased up within the church proper.
For a very stretched metaphor, imagine being a gentile living in an area that is almost entirely Orthodox Jewish versus in an area that has a few Orthodox, but a plurality of Reform Jewish folks mixed in with some moderate quantity of gentiles. Big difference in the lived experience in and around those two communities.
A good friend of mine moved from the Denver area, with his family, to SLC a little over 20 years ago, and what you describe was consistent with his experience. He’s an atheist, his wife is a devout Roman Catholic, and they had four kids, who were, at that time, teens and tweens.
The neighbors were friendly, on a very surface-y level, but not at all inviting, and a number of them instructed their kids to not play with the “gentile” newcomers. My friend and his family had a difficult time making friends, and it was absolutely because they were non-LDS.
They quickly decided that they were very unhappy there, but wound up having to stick it out for several years, as they were upside-down on their mortgage, but as soon as they were able to, they moved back to Colorado.
All of the white areas used to be lake. No water between the “island” and downtown. If the salt on the lakebed is toxic it is already blowing around. (Not that it won’t get worse if the lake dries up entirely.) I personally doubt “unlivable”, just more “unhealthy for sensitive groups” days.
The thing that is unusual about the Great Salt Lake is that it has no outlet and is very shallow (deepest point 33ft, average 16ft) so the area is huge (which controls evaporation) but the volume is small. Makes it more likely to dry up than a normal lake.
All salt lakes are are salty because there isn’t any runoff. Many fresh-water rivers flow into the lake and bring trivial amounts of dissolved solids (salts and minerals) in the lake each year. The water evaporates, but the salts stay behind.
Correct. Lake Cahuilla, which dried up around 1600CE. During my 55 years in San Diego I did a LOT of camping in the local deserts, a favorite area being the flat country 10 miles west of Salton Sea (SSE of Ocotillo Wells for those of you who know the area). The sand underfoot is FULL of tiny shells of aquatic critters, both snail-type mollusks as well as clams.
