History during the 1900s of the Salton Sea

note: 

I realized the mud pot I ran through was on the Western side but they say the mud pots are all on the eastern side. So, now I'm not sure about what I ran through but I remember screaming in pain and so was my 5 years older cousin as we ran through this Hot mud to the lake because the day was so very hot we needed to cool down (no air conditioners in cars then) so we both already had headaches then likely in the late 1950s. 

end note.

When I was a child of about 8 or 10 I stupidly ran through one of these mud volcanoes at the Salton Sea not knowing what they were and burned my feet but luckily I didn't fall down into it but instead made it to the cooler waters of the lake and cooled my feet down. But, I've noticed I don't have the pain sensors in my feet that most people do since then. However, being a surfer in the 1960s and being able to go barefoot was really great in my teens and 20s and after too and I found it easier to build up callouses on my feet for walking long distances barefoot as people often did then who surfed or walked in forests barefoot in the summer time or through rivers and lakes which I like to do to. However, by the 1980s I started wearing Tevas for crossing streams and now I often wear crocs to walk through streams or mud. I don't go get cuts and stickers in my feet like I might have done in my teens and 20s now. 

It's much better not getting sticks broken into my feet or fish hooks and stuff like that back then. But, live and learn, I still love the outdoors but don't like getting injured like I once did when I was young and reckless. Luckily, I have guardian angels because I never broke anything more than a nose or little toe because I'm big boned. So, even though I have fallen up to 40 feet I know how to roll to take the force out of it so my bones don't break. I guess that's sort of Gymnast or stunt man stuff. However, now I'm almost 70 and I can still roll to not break something but I just don't try the crazy shit I once did anymore because I'm not stupid like people are when they are young anymore. You've just got to know what you can survive doing at every age. Graveyards are full of young people who didn't know their limits. You might think you are immortal when you are in your teens or 20s but that's only an illusion in the end.

Also, The Salton Sea was then more like swimming in the Dead Sea or swimming in Mono Lake (I'm not sure people do either any more but I did both in the 1950s then. IN other words your body rides on top of the water almost like you are riding on one of those floating lounge chairs you can buy at hardware stores. You don't  sink down into the water like you do on the ocean or on a lake. But, you could still swim in the Salton Sea or in Mono Lake in the 1950s then. You just might want to go to a motel and take a shower afterwards or find a water hose and hose off because your skin is all crusty from the salt in the water which makes it extremely uncomfortable if you don't have fresh water to wash off with pretty soon.

I think the water on the Dead Sea, the Salton Sea and Mono Lake must have 5 to 10 times the concentration of Salt that the ocean does or even more than that.

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• 1.1 History during the 1900s

History during the 1900s

Original caption: Dry Bed of Colorado River Below Imperial Intake [...] River Diverted Into Imperial Canal

In 1900, the California Development Company began construction of irrigation canals to divert water from the Colorado River into the Salton Sink, a dry lake bed. After construction of these irrigation canals, the Salton Sink became fertile for a time, allowing farmers to plant crops.^[13]
Within two years, the Imperial Canal became filled with silt from the Colorado River. Engineers tried to alleviate the blockages to no avail. In 1905, heavy rainfall and snowmelt caused the Colorado River to swell, overrunning a set of headgates for the Alamo Canal. The resulting flood poured down the canal, breached an Imperial Valley dike, and ran down two former dry arroyos: the New River in the west, and the Alamo River in the east, each about 60 mi (97 km) long.^[14] Over about two years, these two newly created rivers sporadically carried the entire volume of the Colorado River into the Salton Sink.^[10]
The Southern Pacific Railroad tried to stop the flooding by dumping earth into the canal's headgates area, but the effort was not fast enough, and the river eroded deeper and deeper into the dry desert sand of the Imperial Valley. A large waterfall formed as a result and began cutting rapidly upstream along the path of the Alamo Canal that now was occupied by the Colorado. This waterfall was initially 15 feet (4.6 m) high, but grew to 80 feet (24 m) high before the flow through the breach was stopped. Originally, it was feared that the waterfall would recede upstream to the true main path of the Colorado, becoming up to 100 to 300 feet (30 to 91 m) high, at which point it would be practically impossible to fix the problem.

Salton Sea

As the basin filled, the town of Salton, a Southern Pacific Railroad siding, and Torres-Martinez Native American land were submerged. The sudden influx of water and the lack of any drainage from the basin resulted in the formation of the Salton Sea.^[15][16]
The U.S. Navy conducted a preliminary inspection of the Salton Sea in January 1940, and the Salton Sea Test Base (SSTB, run by Sandia Labs) was initially commissioned as the Naval Auxiliary Air Station, Salton Sea, in October 1942. The SSTB, just to the south-east of Salton City, originally functioned as an operational and training base for seaplanes. Additional activities at the base have included experimental testing of solidfuel plane-launched rockets, jet-assist take-off testing, aeroballistic testing of inert atomic weapon test units at land and marine target areas, training bombing at marine targets, testing of the effects of long-term storage on atomic weapons, testing of the parachute landing systems of the Project Mercury space capsules, parachute training and testing, and military training exercises. The base was abandoned in 1978.^[17]
The continuing intermittent flooding of the Imperial Valley from the Colorado River led to the idea of the need for a dam on the Colorado River for flood control.^{[citation needed]}

Subsequent evolution

A gaseous mud volcano

The Salton Sea had some success as a resort area, with Salton City, Salton Sea Beach, and Desert Shores, on the western shore and Desert Beach, North Shore, and Bombay Beach, built on the eastern shore in the 1950s. However, many of the settlements substantially shrank in size, or have been abandoned, mostly due to the increasing salinity and pollution of the lake over the years from agricultural runoff and other sources. Many of the species of fish that lived in the sea have been killed off by the combination of pollutants, salt levels, and algal blooms. Dead fish have been known to wash up in mass quantities on the beaches. The smell of the lake, combined with the stench of the decaying fish, also contributed to the decline of the tourist industry around the Salton Sea. Many people now visit the Salton Sea and the surrounding settlements to explore the abandoned structures. The town of Niland is 1.5 miles (3 km) southeast of the sea, with a population of 1,006. Evidence of geothermal activity is also visible. Mudpots and mud volcanoes are found on the eastern side of the Salton Sea.^[18] A number of geothermal electricity generation plants are located along the southeastern shore of the Salton Sea in Imperial County.
The US Geological Survey describes the smell as "objectionable", "noxious", "unique", and "pervasive".^[19]