In this article, Lourdes Garcia brings awareness on the damaging effects of toxic chemicals, barnacles, and atomic bomb droppings on this once thriving tourist hotspot, The Salton Sea.
The Salton Sea is a salt-water rift lake and it’s considered the biggest lake in California. The Salton Sea is a man made water body that was formed by accident because of an overflow of a canal of the Colorado River. It is located in Imperial County, south of Palm Springs California, it’s nearest city being Salton City. It is unfortunately being depleted because of rising salinity levels, agricultural runoff, and other environmental issues, as well. The Salton Sea is a prime example of water pollution's devastating effects and how it could harm an ecosystem and its surrounding area.
The Salton Sea was once a thriving tourist location filled with people and and attractions. Now, it’s desolate because of the rising sea level and the destroyed ecosystem, with dead fish lining its shores showing just how damaged the ecosystem is. Barely any bottom dwelling fish live there because of the toxicity of the lake bottom, which causes an imbalance in the food chain. The lake’s mud is said to contain toxic chemicals such as arsenic and selenium, which then evaporates into the air harming birds and the residents of neighboring towns. The cause of this was a mixture of things, the main reason is because of agricultural and urban runoff contimantimanting the water and killing animals and plants in the process. Another contribution to the depletion of this ecosystem was it wasn’t in the right geological location, the area this lake is located in is extremely dry, which causes the water to evaporate and then refill again.
The Salton Sea has a huge salinization problem, mainly because it can only receive inflows and there’s no larger body of water the lake can flow into. This causes huge problems for the animals who die because of the salt levels and the salt also causes the lake to evaporate more quickly. Salton Sea was a military base between the 1930’s-1980’s, boats would come in and out from forgein waters carrying with them barnacles, which later lead to an infestation of them and some species can be parasitic and harm animals of that area. Being a test site, the Salton Sea was subjected to atomic bomb droppings, weapon testing etc. which also used harmful chemicals such as depleted uranium. Uranium can contaminate water bodies for hundreds of years and causes mutations and deformities in aquatic animals.
The Salton Sea served for a variety of uses during its prime such as a hotspot tourist location, recreational uses such as fishing etc. and was even a military base site. Now the once flourishing towns surrounding Salton Sea look like ghost towns with no signs of life and extremely small populations. With toxic chemicals running through the lake and rising water elevation Salton Sea is shrinking and there’s nothing being done to stop this. Although the lake is no longer in use by humans, an entire ecosystem of animals will be lost because of water pollution.
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