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Irrigation canal was dug from the Colorado River to the old Alamo River channel an effort to provide water into the Imperial Valley for farming. Headgates to canals suffered a buildup of silt, so series of cuts were made in the bank of the Colorado River to further increase water flow.
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Water from the Colorado River spilled out of a poorly constructed California Development Country irrigation system. The lake continued to grow over the next two years before the massive flow was finally stopped. By the time this happened, a 400-square mile body of water had formed on the Salton Basin in Southern California.
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After originally very high salination in the Salton Sea, levels began to drop. The Salton Sea then became a popular tourist hotspot, attracting millions of visitors a year to the sea's relatively warm waters, some years attracting more visitors than Yosemite. Nearby towns such as Salton City and Niland welcomed guests, appreciated its reputation as a warm oasis.
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By the 1970s, shoreline flooding, rising salinity, and fertilizter runoff created unsafe algal bloom giving rise to increased bacteria levels. A chemical shift in the water caused a startling die-off of fish and bird populations. So many fish died that in some places once-sandy beaches are now large expanses of fish bones.
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Although many people still live in the area around the sea, only a mere shadow of once-was remains. In 1990, California's government officials considered a plan to revitalize, however, little came out of it.
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In 2007, the California Natural Resources Agency released a study of eight potential approaches to restoring the sea, with a corresponding cost of $9 billion. The plan was determined infeasible. In 2018, proposition 68, passed by California voters, authorized $200 million for Salton Sea management activities.
