The Tragic Magic of the Salton Sea

The Salton Sea is both a beautiful wonder and a tragic disaster. It used to be a place where people came to spend their vacations, water ski, swim…But today is a very different story. Today, the Salton Sea is home to a couple of campgrounds and the famous Bombay Beach, a partially abandoned town with only a small number of residents who still live there (in impoverished conditions).

Why did this happen?

Well if you really want to get into the nitty gritty, I suggest this article on how this place has turned into a slow moving disaster or this even more depressing article on the air pollution and unsafe conditions residents now face there. But the short of it is that the Colorado River used to run into this lake via a canal. Then that canal was closed off and agricultural runoff was the only source of water coming into this lake. The chemicals and nitrates combined with the soil and ancient salt deposits raised the salinity level further. The lake began shrinking and the water became inhospitable to wildlife. Fish were dying by the thousands. The waters became un-swimmable. The end.

Ok that’s not actually the end. There is also climate change that is making this area even drier. Plus a staggering rate of asthma and other health issues for its residents. So many interesting and heartbreaking facets to this place. If I were a journalist, I would want to cover it. I would knock on people’s doors and ask them if I could interview them. Tell their stories, and hopefully, help them and this place in some way…

But I’m not a journalist, and the thought of asking strangers to open up to me is daunting. Not to mention, this little shanty town was a bit unsettling.

So I don’t have photos of this town nor its residents. (Maybe one day.) Instead, I captured the things that everyone goes to capture when they enter this “wasteland”.

This region, and specifically, Bombay Beach, has transformed into a place for artists to set up installations and photographers to gather. A place for people to shoot their new album cover. A place to see a shell of what once was.

It is quite the photogenic place. Beautiful and tragic all at once.

Parallel to the Salton Sea there is a train track. Towards the end of the below photo collection you’ll see some shots of the road by the lake and a parked cargo train. It was powerful to be so close to this old form of machinery. I wondered what this area was like during its heyday. Maybe people used to take a train to their Salton Sea vacation? I thought about the slowness of it all back then…If only we humans didn’t always try to speed things up…maybe we wouldn’t have this environmental disaster. Maybe this place would still be buzzing with wildlife, tourism, and healthy residents.

But one things for sure, I wouldn’t have gotten photos like these.