Bassenian found himself fascinated by the Salton Sea and its residents, as he described in a podcast conversation with Film Threat’s Chris Gore. The video opens with Gore saying I never realized how important the Salton Sea was until I saw this documentary. The director shares his fascination with the Salton Sea by interviewing residents and talking about solutions that could restore the area and mitigate the impacts on all the living things dependent on it. People still live near the sea. Despite the environmental impact on sea life, flora and fauna, and the declining quality of the shoreline properties, there are still residents of the Salton Sea area, and they are fighting to stay. The human stories are compelling, and in some cases heartbreaking, as we learn of a woman, Michelle Dugan, with severe asthma who deals with the horrific dust pollution from the drying lake.
The area has held a strange attraction for years, from the story of the accident that created it, to the time it hosted movie stars, to films featuring the Salton Sea in decline. Val Kilmer starred in an underrated 2002 gem called The Salton Sea, and recently independent film Don’t Come Back from the Moon was set at Bombay Beach. The images tell a story of their own in a creepy landscape of decaying structures, rusted junk, fish bones, fading signs from vacation spots, and the bizarrely exposed lake bed as the water rolls back. It looks like an exposed wound.
“…a creepy landscape of decaying structures, rusted junk, fish bones…”
The original concept of using the Colorado River to provide irrigation to the Imperial Valley was poorly conceived, with no thought to potential environmental impact. Those factors increased by orders of magnitude when the gates failed, and the sink became a lake. The challenges of the declining sea are outlined in the website for Miracle in the Desert: The Rise and Fall of the Salton Sea: an unfolding environmental disaster of extraordinary magnitude. As the largest lake in California begins to dry, millions of lives are in danger as clouds of toxic dust, massive fish kills, and the destruction of an entire ecosystem threatens the health of millions in southern California, many who have no voice or little representation in the state legislature. If the state of California does not act quickly, it will be the worst environmental disaster of a generation. In 2020, Palm Springs Life magazine stated that the Salton Sea is the biggest environmental disaster in California history.
Again we are made aware of the hazards of implementing a change enabled by technology without the wisdom to consider the consequences, or more likely, disregarding all consequences in favor of profit. Just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should. This seems to be a lesson the United States stubbornly refuses to learn. Manifest Destiny and American exceptionalism have made monsters of us and may be our undoing when all is said and done.
The Salton Sea is a forgotten corner of this country with an amazing story. Miracle in the Desert: The Rise and Fall of the Salton Sea is not to be missed.
"…enabled by technology without the wisdom to consider the consequences..."
