Karl is mostly right.

The Salton Sink, better known now as the Imperial Valley, is part of a
vast delta for the Colorado River. As recently as five or six hundred
years ago, it was a freshwater lake, fed by the Colorado and draining
into the Sea of Cortez. The desert area surrounding the Salton Sea is
littered with fish weirs, which the Indians used to catch fish. But
then it all dried up.

Early in the twentieth century, developers dug a canal from the
Colorado to Salton City, an agricultural community. A spring storm
rerouted the Colorado into the sink along the line of the canal. It
took three years to get the river back into its channel.

Geologists expected the resulting Salton Sea to dry up in a decade or
two, but run off from agriculture in towns like El Centro have
maintained the level of the Sea through run-off. As of now, things are
very confusing. San Diego County, where I live, would love to buy the
water that Imperial County uses to grow alfalfa and other crops, but
doing that would lead to a dry lake bed full of contaminants. So for
the time being, the Sea is kept at about the level it has been until
someone comes up with a plan.

Vanagon content: if it weren't for the deserts in southern Cal. and
Arizona, plus the Colorado Plateau, what would I need a Westfalia for?
I wouldn't.

Mark

On Dec 26, 2010, at 5:18 PM, Karl Wolz wrote:

> The Salton Sea is not a natural lake, but rather the result of a
> break in
> the California Aqueduct some 80 years ago.  The sea is gradually
> evaporating
> and will be completely gone relatively soon.  The water is pretty
> much too
> foul to use for agriculture, and has been for many years.  We have
> screwed
> up this planet a fair amount, but the Salton Sea is not an example
> of such.
>
> Karl Wolz