A collection of photographs document the changing landscape of the manmade Salton Sea, from its beginnings formed by broken levees of the Colorado River, its heyday as a desert paradise, its overdevelopment and home to migrating birds, and its current state as an environmental battleground.
In 1905 and 1906, California's largest inland body of water - the Salton Sea - was formed when Colorado River levees broke below the California-Mexico border. Great floodwaters filled the depression previously known as the Salton Sink - which, at its peak level of 195 feet below sea level, covered upwards of 400 square miles - creating an immediate sanctuary for birds and opportunities for future development.
During the past 100 years, numerous resort schemes arose along the shores of the Salton Sea. Frank Sinatra, Desi Arnaz, President Eisenhower, Jerry Lewis, the Beach Boys, and the Marx Brothers all frequented the area, and during the 1960s tourists visited the Salton Sea in numbers that at times exceeded tourism in Yosemite.
By the 1980s, however, the Salton Sea's biologically overburdened system resulted in the near abandonment of the area's resorts and communities, and massive fish and bird die-offs reflected escalating environmental harm, especially from agricultural runoff in the Imperial Valley.
The future of the Salton Sea is uncertain. It remains a major habitat and stopover to more than 400 bird species as part of the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge; but poor water quality and impending water transfers to ever-expanding Southern California communities complicate the environmental picture.
Kim Stringfellow's visual and historical account highlights one of California's - and America's - most fascinating and complex landscape histories at a time when the management of an entire regional ecosystem is at risk.
The Salton Sea is a man-made catastrophe, redolent with the smell of algae and decomposing fish. Nevertheless, the lake's vast, placid expanses continue to attract birdwatchers, tourists and artists. In Greetings from the Salton Sea, photographer Kim Stringfellow explores the history of California's largest lake from its disastrous beginningsthe "sea" was formed when Colorado River levees broke and spilled into a depression 280 feet below sea levelto its heyday as a desert paradise in the 1950s and its current state as an environmental battleground.
Like the 400-plus species of birds that use the lake as a halfway point in their annual migration, developers flocked to the water too: they planted palm trees, built golf courses, and hired showstoppers such as the Beach Boys to perform at area resorts. These days, politicians seek to redirect the lake's only source of replenishmentagricultural runoff from surrounding farmsto water golf courses and green lawns elsewhere. Greetings from the Salton Sea's photographs capture the war among policymakers, environmentalists, developers, and the individuals still living along the lake's shores. As Stringfellow aptly documents, it is a war for water and, ultimately, for existence.
