This area isn't a ghost town per se but it is filled with ruins from the past. I am using the address of Bombay Beach for reference. I can't count how many times I have visited this place but I never get tired of it. My photos encompass the Salton Sea area and some of the surrounding areas.
The Salton Sea, located in southern Riverside and northern Imperial counties in Southern California, is California' s largest lake (map at right). Although large seas have cyclically formed and dried over historic time in the basin due to natural flooding from the Colorado River, the current Salton Sea was formed when Colorado River floodwater breached an irrigation canal being constructed in the Imperial Valley in 1905 and flowed into the Salton Sink.
The Sea has since been maintained by irrigation runoff in the Imperial and Coachella valleys and local rivers. Because the Sea is a terminal lake, increasingly concentrated salts have resulted in a salinity that is currently 50 percent greater than that of the ocean. The increasing salinity and other water quality issues, including temperature extremes, eutrophication, and related anoxia and algal productivity, are adversely influencing the Sea' s fish and wildlife resources.
The Salton Sea functions both as a sump for agricultural runoff (photo right) and an important wildlife area r from the Colorado River (Imperial Irrigation District [IID] 2010), while about 50,000 acres are farmed in the Coachella Valley (County of Riverside, Agricultural Commissioner' s Office 2010).