Sonia Herbert of Bombay Beach wants people to know that California’s Salton Sea isn’t all dystopian sunbaked abandoned homes, poverty, ominous toxic dust and decaying nostalgia. It’s also a place where people live and find beauty around the mirage-like lake in the desert.
A shortage on the Colorado River has put tremendous pressure on the water supply that serves more than 40-million people in the Western United States.
But a punishing drought and the over allocation of the river have also created an urgent problem for California’s Salton Sea.
It’s just past noon on a Wednesday, but the bar at the Ski Inn in Bombay Beach, California, is already packed. The crowd is mostly Canadian, snowbirds escaping to the desert spas and country club communities that dominate this southeastern corner of the state, just 50 miles from Mexico. Bombay Beach is not their destination, just a side trip to see the ruins of the once-famous party town.
