Tourism vision turns toxic in California's Imperial Valley

[n2doc]

By Randy Stulberg, producer, VBS.TV
March 25, 2010 -- Updated 0109 GMT (0909 HKT)

Brooklyn, New York (VBS.TV) -- Set beside the Imperial Valley in southeastern California, the Salton Sea area was supposed to be Hollywood's answer to the Riviera back in the '50s. But its developers failed to anticipate the raw sewage that would run up the New River from Mexico and make survival impossible for many aquatic species.
Rotting fish guts and toxic debris soon littered the shoreline. Construction projects were abandoned and yet another impotent vision of luxury tourism was left flaccid. Thanks again, trash!

See the rest of Toxic: Imperial Valley at VBS.TV

Today the entire Imperial Valley is an apocalyptic dustbowl in the center of the California badlands.

video at link
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/03/24/vbs.imperial.valley/index.html

[county worker]

1. I don't understand this statement.

"It's pretty much all that remains of the Wild West."

The Salton Sea area is just a very small part of the west. I use to live the the lower Sierra Nevada mountains north of there and it is still open range country. We still have roundups and cattle drives. The old West lives on.

http://www.zillow.com/homes/15515-Calientecreek-road-caliente-ca-93518_rb/

[hunter]

2. The Imperial Valley is a bizarre place, from the Salton Sea to the Gulf of California.

Some of the freakishness is natural, but most of it is the result of reckless human activities.

It's a very geologically active area and contains the Colorado River delta. Prehistorically the Colorado River would switch between the Gulf of California and filling up the basin where the Salton Sea is now.

The Salton Sea itself is the result of an irrigation diversion that failed. It took a year or two to push the Colorado river back into it's ocean-going channels. A railroad bridge was built across the flood from which to drop entire trainloads of rock into the channel day and night until the water backed up and went the other way.

The Salton Sea is below sea level. If the U.S. was still a "we can do it" nation instead of the sniveling bunch of fearful couch potatoes we've become, we might use the basin to generate and store huge amounts of electricity, which would also allow us to clean up the water and stabilize it's level and salinity. This would allow those sort of luxury developments to occur along the sea's shore, or maybe we could simply leave it as a wildlife oasis.

But then again, I sort of enjoy the region's quirkiness and profound ugliness as it is.

[NNadir]

3. Back in the days I still believed that "renewable" energy was worthwhile, I wrote about this option.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x37366#37371">I offer a crazy energy idea about which I've fantasized: The Salton Sea.

This was about 5 years ago, however, and my enthusiasm for so called "renewable" energy has sort of drifted away, as the Shoreline of the Salton Sea sometimes does.

One could make the argument that geothermal energy is actually worth pursuing in that area, if the water could be found. But the only water that's available, as I pointed out then, is seawater, and seawater dams and one of the world's most active and intense faults just may not mix well.

[hunter]

4. Think positive! Maybe more frequent large earthquakes would mean fewer super-sized earthquakes.

Maybe it would be a good thing. Or maybe not if your fancy geothermal plants turned into volcanoes.

For seawater systems I'd use an "up and over system," not dams, on the western desert side of the valley. It would be a big pipe or canal, with pump-generators at each end. If the canal or pipe failed catastrophically (perhaps because of a monster earthquake) it would be designed so the salt water would quickly drain to the Gulf or the Salton Sea.

If we truly cared about the environment (alas we don't) the system would replace multiple dams on the Colorado River.

Good-bye Glen Canyon dam, hello natural water and sediment flows through the Grand Canyon, making the river brown and wild again.

[NNadir]

5. Well, I did raise that up and over idea with the siphon breaks.

I'm still not sure how I feel about all of that, the Salton Sea, the Imperial Valley, the whole thing.

It is definitely one of the weirder places on Earth.

But in theory, I agree. An inland sea with access to the ocean would not be a totally bad idea.

It's worth consideration certainly.

A big problem is how to get the salt out. Removal of salt will eat up some of any energy that is gained, even if the solution is to pump brine. Even if you try to pump brine into the ocean you're going to produce environmental objections, some of them clearly valid.

[hunter]

6. If it was used primarily as an energy storage system...

...with the evaporative energy gains limited to making up for system losses such that the project was operating as if it was a humongous 100% efficient battery, then the water ejected to the ocean wouldn't be so salty.

Shorelines and salinity levels in the Salton Sea would have to be fixed by legislation and strictly enforced. Otherwise there would be a financial incentive to generate more power at the expense of the Salton Sea becoming increasingly salty, and the water discharged into the Gulf of California increasingly toxic.

The government regulating such a system would have to be honest and capable. Otherwise such a project would only add to the environmental degradation of the Imperial Valley. That's my greatest concern. If some right wing republican money laundering San Diego or Big Ag California politician is in charge, then such a project would SUCK.

Always think of the Vaquita...

WWF