Stories from the Salton Sea: Faces along a vanishing sea

The Salton Sea is a place of contrasts, both gorgeous and foul, a place where some find clarity and others find madness.

It reflects the boundless optimism of the American Dream and the horrors of financial and ecological decline. It is the object of documentaries, fiction and horror movies. Situated in an area of Southern California that few think about, it rarely gets attention outside the Imperial or Coachella valleys except when algae blooms and countless fish die.

Recently, however, the Salton Sea got attention as far away as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar visited the sea and capped off the resulting press conference and locals forum with a pledge work with locals and other stakeholders on restoring the Salton Sea. While it is easy to dismiss the words of officials as mere rhetoric, Salazar’s visit was like a shot of adrenaline to local agencies like the Salton Sea Authority, which have been working for years on mitigation and restoration plans with relatively little support.

The Salton Sea, however, is more than a mere physical body of water. For some who spent their childhoods exploring its shores, it has become a thread that runs through their lives, one that grows and shrinks from a place to satisfy youthful curiosities to a place that is the foundation of businesses, some of which succeed, some of which fail.

For others it is a refuge, a place of escape. And, for others still, it is the blurring of work and play, where occupation becomes something much more than a mere job.

But what about the people who believe in the Salton Sea, the people who, in some way are kept alive by the Salton Sea, and in turn keep the Sea alive, metaphorically speaking?

Here are some of their stories.

Staff Writer Antoine Abou-Diwan can be reached at 760-337-3454 or aabou-diwan@ivpressonline.com

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