Salt Dreams: Land and Water in Low-Down California

by William deBuys, Joan Myers

In low places consequences collect, and in all North America you cannot get much lower than the Imperial Valley of southern California, where one town, 186 feet below sea level, calls itself the Lowest Down City in the Western Hemisphere, and where the waters of the Colorado River sustain a billion-dollar agricultural industry. The consequences of that industry drain from the valley into the accidentally man-made Salton Sea, California's largest lake and a vital stopping place for migratory waterfowl. Today the Salton Sea is in desperate environmental trouble. A second river also ends in the Salton Sea. It is a river of dreams, the remains of which may be seen in the failed real estate developments that sprawl beside the sea. As the ending point of both the real Colorado and this river of dreams, the Salton Sea has become emblematic of much of the history of the American West. Its troubling story is masterfully told here in William deBuys's narrative and Joan Myers's austerely beautiful photographs. The story of Southern California is fundamentally a story about the control of nature. Beginning with the Yuman-speaking tribes encountered by the Spanish in the sixteenth century, deBuys traces the subsequent exploration and development of the region through the Gold Rush of 1849, the government-sponsored surveys that followed, and the inept tinkering with the river by an assortment of irrigation and development interests that resulted in the floods that formed the Salton Sea nearly a century ago. He introduces us to a gallery of rogues and dreamers who saw a great future for this arid wilderness but could never refrain from interference with the forces of nature. The floods that produced the Salton Sea created a vast desert oasis, but the agricultural exploitation of the region, combined with evaporation, poisoned that paradise. The stark beauty of the desert, the engineering feats that have transformed the landscape, and the eerie spectacle of Salton City and its ruined beaches and abandoned yacht club are the subject of Myers's photographs, made over a period of more than ten years. In the last section of Salt Dreams , deBuys acquaints us with the human and avian denizens of the region, all struggling for survival as the twentieth century draws to a close. The history of chicanery and greed recounted in deBuys's narrative and his empathy with the desert dwellers he and Myers have come to know--hardworking laborers and entrepreneurs who live on both sides of the Mexicali border, eccentrics hiding out in the Salton Desert, pelicans dying of avian botulism--are crucial to an understanding of the border issues of today and the impassioned environmental debate on whether--and how--to save the Salton Sea.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Environment

407 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

William deBuys is the author of seven books, including River of Traps: A New Mexico Mountain Life, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in general non-fiction in 1991; Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range; The Walk (an excerpt of which won a Pushcart Prize in 2008), and Salt Dreams: Land and Water in Low-Down California. An active conservationist, deBuys has helped protect more than 150,000 acres in New Mexico, Arizona, and North Carolina. He lives and writes on a small farm in northern New Mexico.

Reviews

[Keely · Rating 5 out of 5]

I checked out this book from the library because I wanted to know more about the Salton Sea. It is a wealth of information about the sea as well as the history of water in the Imperial Valley. Particularly fascinating is the story of the "Great Diversion"--the irrigation mishap that contributed to the massive floods of 1905-1907 which formed the modern-day Salton Sea. But this story of the sea is also a tale of U.S. westward expansion, water politics, agriculture, race relations, U.S./Mexico relations, and the highs and lows of the so-called "American Dream."

[Sylvie · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting study of the development of the Imperial Valley and the accidental creation of the Salton Sea, including early Native American settlers, forty-niners and other pioneers, farmers, and developers. A fascinating read for anyone interested in the issues of water rights and the environment, especially in Southern California.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Informative, at times alluring. Tries to strike a balance between the poetic and natural history with varried success. A good read for the sections on Leonard Knight and Slab City and the interface between Calexico and Mexicali.

[Tattered Cover Book Store]

Photographer and author Stephen Trimble recommended this as part of the Rocky Mountain Land Library's "A Reading List For the President Elect: A Western Primer for the Next Administration".

[Deuce Bigelow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would've given it 4 stars but not all the pictures have captions so you're kind of left wondering where in the where you're looking at.