‘Farm To City’ Deal To Dry Out Stretches Of California’s Legendary Salton Sea

Unfortunately, since the late 1970s, the Desert Riviera has been ravaged by what Johnson calls a “slow-motion apocalypse.” Hotels and marinas were ruined by floods, then left high and dry by drought. Giant, stinky algae blooms linked to farm pollutants drove people out of the water. Rising salinity levels linked to evaporation helped kill nearly all the fish. Traces of everything from DDT to arsenic have been detected in the mud beneath the lake, and in dried-out stretches of lakebed exposed by drought.