Latest / Ridiculous History / The Salton Sea: How A Little Whoopsie Turned into Ecological Disaster

Transcript

The Salton Sea: How A Little Whoopsie Turned into Ecological Disaster · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as old ways so
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in here. In twenty twenty four, we
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: have returned with a bit of a follow up episode.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Shout out to our super producer, the main man, mister
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Max Salt and c Williams.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Shout out to the Hoover Dam. Shout out to the
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Hoover Dam that goes out there.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: You're gonna you got you shout into the damn and
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: the damn shouts back.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: It sure does. Oh my gosh, I am I.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Be called salty boy? Yeah, course, Well that's what we
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: talk about.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Salinity and that's Max, that's what Well, that's what we
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: call you when we're just texting without you. I'm Ben Bullen.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Here is the one and only mister Noel Brown. And
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: as you may recall Ridiculous Historians when we when we
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: did our recent episode series about the Hoover Dam, one
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: thing we continually returned to is a strange hm we
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: could call it a fun little accident sarcastically that went
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: on to change the Southwest. It's called the Sultan Sea.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: And Noel, you have have have you been out to
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the Sultan Sea.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: I haven't, but I have seen the movie The Sultan
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Sea starring jeez Val Kilmer, and at the setting is
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: the Sultan Sea, and it's very much the kind of
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: Sultan Sea that you also will Sultan see depicted the
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: Grand Theft Auto Door. It it wasn't really but thank you.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: You know, there's that character, I think his name's Trevor.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: He's sort of the like the he's a real salty dog.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: He represents sort of that kind of methy, sort of
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: grizzled element. Yeah, in that game, and it is an
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: explorable part of the map, and it's not called the
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Sultans I can't remember what it's called in the game,
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: but it very much is based on that, and it
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: is sort of like this weird, kind of creepy ghost town.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Like it it was meant to be some sort of
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: resorty kind of exactly, but that's right exactly. But it
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: is a very sad and scary place and that's also
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: what it's like in the film. But it didn't start
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: that way. And oftentimes, you know, when we see things
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: like abandoned malls, for example, or abandoned theme parks, there's
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: a certain extra creep factor that goes along when something
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: that was once tended with care and treated like it
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: was gonna be this beautiful thing for all to enjoy
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: and then it just kind of abandoned. But those remnants
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: remain of what once was meant to be a place
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: where children would play or people would water ski and
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: hang out with their families and have picnics.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's dystopian indeed. And to be clear, folks, when
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: we're saying salt and sea, we're talking about a specific place.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: We're not talking about salt and the sea that.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Dultan has anything to do with it.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: I think the name is just a geographical but it
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: turns out that salt is a big part of the story.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: So it's very easy to make that mistake. But I'm
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: glad you you nip that one in the bud right
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: off the rip. But we found out about this again,
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: we'd all been aware of it, but from our wonderful
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: tour guide at the Hoover Dam, where there's a yeah,
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: that's right, who was a believe an employee of the
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: what's it called. There's a name of like sort of
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: land reclamation correct and their job is to deal with
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: watersheds and all of that stuff in the way water
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: resources are used in the south Southwest. Yeah, they don't
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: care what happens on the East Ghost and a shout
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: out to you, Hoover, mataf you're tuning in. That was
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: very clear in our conversations. The Sultan Sea is going
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: to be familiar to anybody who lives in or around California.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: It is, through pure accident and misadventure, California's largest lake.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And we know that the basin has been home to
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: a cyclical rise and fall of different bodies of water,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: pretty much due to the Colorado rivers propensity for flooding
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: and the uh.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the river is of course what is harnessed by.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the Sultan Sea was formed in its current
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: iteration pretty recently in the Grand Scheme of things. Back
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: in nineteen oh five, Colorado River floodwater breached a canal.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: We mentioned this in the Hoover series and flowed into
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: what was called the Sultan Sink's It's like how a
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: poetkemon evolves. It's the Sultan Sink when there's not water.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Sultan Sea when the Colorado River has a
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: bad day.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: And it has reached his final form, so it's it's
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: a ground Pokemon with not water, but then it comes
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: a water ground hybrid Pokemon.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Don't talk about Pokemon with me around, I'll go, well,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: got to get them all.
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: I guess there's a two thirty eight on Pokemon Crystal.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: One time the two fifty and then the battery inside
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: of it died. As an adult I was doing this.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Pokemon Go, by the way, is a surveillance skim.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I just have to say it, you know.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: But it's one of those things where it's just so fun.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: I willingly give up my data for the privilege of
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: catching a I can't even think of the name of
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: a Pokemon. Let's say, a wild snore lax in my backyard.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: There is just a lot. There are a lot of them,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: and there's only one salt and sea this time around.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Historic evidence and geological studies show that the Colorado River
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: has created something like the Sultan Sea numerous times over
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the past thousands of years. The first lake to arise
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: occurs in about seven hundred CE, and this is because
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the Colorado River shifted its course due to silt, which
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: is also the silt as part of why the Hoover
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Dam was built.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: I believe that was called Lake Coahuela Kahuila. I'll go
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: with that. Yeah, seven hundred AD. And according to the
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: Sultan Sea Authority, the present day Sultan Sea is that
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: body of water that occupies the Sultan Basin. But to
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: your point, Ben, there have been many that came before.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: The ancient evidence or geologic evidence of the moving shoreline
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: does indicate that Lake Kohila occupied that basin until just
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: around three hundred years ago.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: So people lived and died there.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a prefermanent thing in their experience.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: And then from eighteen twenty four to nineteen four the
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: Colorado River starts to flood that salt and basin and
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: it happens the flooding no less than eight times. In
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: eighteen forty, for example, floodwaters created a salt lake that
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: was the measured three quarters of a mile long and
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: about half a mile wide. And then in June of
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: eighteen ninety one, another overflow of the Colorado River created
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: a lake thirty miles long and ten miles wide.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Oof For everybody listening who is not in the United States,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: that is a big lake. You know about the vest
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: leaves that, yeah, because we'll do anything not to use
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the metric system, and we want to give credit where
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: it's due, want to shout out. I don't know about you, guys,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: but I love learning about specific repositories of expertise and knowledge.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: So with great acclaim, we have to thank the Sultan
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Sea Authority, which is a real thing and shock full,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: dare I say, overflowing with resources and research about this,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: about this somewhat unique erstwhile body of water there again,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: gone again.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Erstwhile on Fargo.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: You guys noticed that you guys watched Fargo whenever they
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: do the next time or previously, they say erstwhile, Oh nice,
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: because I guess that's sort of a Midwestern.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: It's cool, it's just clever.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: That show really pays a lot of attention to detail,
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: and if you haven't watched it in the new season,
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: is pretty spectacular, dare I say, very triggering for some folks.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: That deals with a lot of topics and depictions of abuse,
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: you know, domestic violence and such, so treadlight, but we're.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Talking about ecological abuse. That's like, you need to talk
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: about silt. When we got to talk about the silt,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: you haven't thought of the silt folks. So is the
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: true noal that no one will ever know for sure
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: how many times the saltan scenk has becomeless sultancy like
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: I think. We know it's at least eight times, but
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: we don't know how far back this phenomenon goes. We
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: we mainly know the time that humans messed.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: It up, that's right, Yeah, and that was specifically, you know,
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: involving the Hoover Dam. The construction of the Hoover Dam
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: while a fantastic feat of engineering, and you know the
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: power of science to tame nature and harness, you know,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: the wilds of a planet Earth, you know, to the
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: benefit of humankind.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Things can go a little wrong.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: You know, from time to time there are byproducts and
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: let's just call it collateral damage can occur when such
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: a massive undertaking is undertaken.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: There we go love it, yes, because humans. Humans can
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: be accused of many things over the course of history,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: but they can't be accused of lacking ambition even when
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: they should. So these these heavy silt loads become an
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: issue when the California Development Company says, look at this thing,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: look at the Inland Valley. We could grow so much
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: food here. All we have to do is sweet talk
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: the Colorado River into feeding future crops.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Come on, you know you want to feed those crops.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. In nineteen oh one, they start digging these canals
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: from the river meant to go through the Imperial Valley.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: But they again not to be two Dennis Reynolds here.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: They hadn't thought of the silt, and.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Just really quickly, if anyone doesn't remember from high school geology,
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: isn't silt just kind of very fine particulate matter that
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: is carried by river current specifically, and it can, of course,
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: you know, form deposits that can you know, clog up
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: things and correct cause all kinds of problems, but also
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: move the location of shorelines over time.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, mud, little bits of sand, this this agglomerates, you know.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: This is actually this similar to the reason that you
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: can't put coffee grounds into your disposal and your sink.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: It'll be okay for a minute, then over time, and
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: I've had I have died on this hill with roommates
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: who swear it's fine.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: It's nope.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: It might be okay for even a couple of months,
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: but if you keep doing it, it's just gonna build
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: up and like it gets ground more every time it
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: gets you know, you run the disposal, but that just
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: creates the stuff that builds up on the blades, and
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: over time will eventually cause that thing to grind to
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: a halt.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: And so so these poor folks at the California Development Company,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I'm kidding, they're quite well off. They said, dang, it
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: didn't it didn't work. We have to try to fix
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: it somehow. And this led to a feedback loop of
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: bad decisions and mistakes that ultimate led to what we
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: call the Sultan Sea today and later led to the
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: creation of what we call the Hoover Dam.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: And ben really quickly, and I just want to correct myself.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: I think I may have gotten order of operations a
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: little off the mark a minute ago. It wasn't the
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Hoover Dam that caused this problem. The Hoover Dam was
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: one of the solutions to dealing with this human made
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: issue that sprung up around the Sultan Sea from previous
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: attempts to dig irrigation canals from the Colorado River. Just so, yeah,
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: it's the best band aid that America could come up with,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, but it still did spring forth from issues
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: surrounding human intervention.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, And the Sultan Sea is different from a
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: lot of other bodies of water in the United States
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: and indeed the world, because there's no real place for
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the water to go over land, it would have to evaporate.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: It's what's called an indorict lake e h EIC. So
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: because the waters in the Salt and Sea have no
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: it's like a crowded concert hall with no exit.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: O's got to have those exits, fire code.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: They've got no exit at all. These poor particles water.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: At least they have no runoff opportunity, which means they
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: have two choices. They can either evaporate or they can
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: sink into the ground. And this leads to a very
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: high salinity level, a very high amount of salt in
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the salt and sea.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: The California Department of Fish and Wildlife say that the
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Sultan Sea has been maintained by irrigation runoff coming from
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: the Imperial in Coachella Valleys and nearby rivers since it's
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: very formation, and that those salinity levels, those levels of
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: salt are currently more than fifty percent higher than ocean
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: waters than the water of the Pacific specifically, and those
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: levels continue to go up as time goes on. The
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: salt in the Sultan Sea is sort of the culprit
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: at play here regarding what we could, with very little
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: hyperbole referred to as an ecological disaster, and we're going
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: to get to that. But for a time, it was
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: kind of awesome, you know, it was like this this oasis, like,
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: you know, a beautiful little ocean, you know, a contained
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: ocean that didn't go off into the horizon, that was
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: just right there and therefore could be used for things
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: like recreation.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: And max if we could, could we get some like
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: retro as, you know, maybe forties fifties resort music, swinging y, Yeah,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: picture it this way, lay.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: Back, So just use the music from the Adolpho Sax
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: episode Sweet Saxiphying right here.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, make it sexy.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: So picture this, Someone says, Dolly, and I know the
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: land on the coast is expensive for vacations, but we
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: have a happening scene in inland. We have a sea
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: you see, all our own. This was like a hot
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: spot for tourists, for people who own a boat but
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: honestly cannot afford marina fees in more expensive areas.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: That's a good point, because it wasn't like at this
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: point it was sort of a place for the halves,
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: but maybe the haves, not.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Quite as much as the top tier halves. You know.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: It was almost more like having a condo rather than
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: like a mansion, or like owning a timeshare rather than
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: you know, some sort of like beachside you know, get away,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: you know, for your summer home. So it did create
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: this sort of community that was very attractive to developers.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: And that was also largely because those high salt level
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: you know what happens when you've got salty waters, things
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: float better.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: So people with boats.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: Were using it because it was able to make speedboats
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: go faster. And I believe there were some records that
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: were set, you know, using speedboats in the waters of
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: the Saltan Sea during the first half of the twentieth century.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's more fun to operate a boat on this
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: buoyant brine.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: There. We go too much alliteration, but we'll keep it.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: So in the nineteen fifties, the California Department of Fish
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: and Game gets into the mix and they say, hey,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: let's jush this up a little bit more. Let's get
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: people to come not just to play around on their
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: boats or to have a lake side vacation. Let's also
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: draw in the fishing crowds, So we're going to stock
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: this lake. Stocking a lake. This happens all the time
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: in Georgia, which has no natural lakes as a state.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: It's a very weird fact, but you're welcome. The process
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: of stocking a lake means that you take a bunch
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: of different kinds of fish that people like to fish
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: for recreationally. You put enough in that even someone who's
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: kind of bad at fishing is almost guaranteed to catch one.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: It's almost like those wildlife resorts where they have like
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: penned in kind of deer that really have nowhere to go.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: So it's it sort of lowers the sporting quot just
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: a little bit, like it's it's a little bit like
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: a shooting fish in a very large barrel. But you know,
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: it was, it was popular. And also like deep deep
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: sea fishing is certainly more expensive and you can't you
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: can fish off a pier, of course, but you're limited,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: you know, in terms of coastal areas where you can fish,
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: you know, for people that maybe don't have the money
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: to you know, own a trawler or whatever.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: They're really crap.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Those things are called that can go deep sea fishing,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: so you know, since this is a lake, you can
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: fish right off the side.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: And this is where a guy named Pen of Fillips
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: enters our story. It's the end of the nineteen fifties
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: and our buddy Pen is developing property. He says, look,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: this is going to be the next big thing. This
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: happens all the time in real estate. People will take
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: out of the way land and attempt to make it,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of like a resort, a live laugh, love,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: a little all in one area. And so our buddy
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Pen buys thousands of acres of land. He gets involved
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: in speculation. He's also selling lots of land around the
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: western shore of the Salt and Sea. And he says,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: what I'm going to do really is I'm going to
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: be like Romulus and Remiss founding this great civilization. But
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: this is going to be Sultan City and it's going
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to be tourism, and I want people. Basically, what you
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: want when you're building these kind of things. You want
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: a large traveling, seasonal population, but you want people to
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: live there year round. You want to make it good
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: enough that it becomes like a mall people never leave.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, the West coast of the United States
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: is sort of seasonless largely, so you know, the weather
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: kind of maintains pretty pretty consistently throughout the year.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: So it makes a lot of sense.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: But this would definitely have been sort of a getaway,
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: could have been considered a getaway for folks that maybe
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: lived more in the city, you know, more like in
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Los Angeles or in the valley perhaps, or in some
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: of the surrounding part like it's on or like I
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: think I hear Big Bear Lake come up a lot
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: as far as like a place that the people in
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: LA like to vacation to.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: But you start to.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: See the intention springing up around this development, you know,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: with streets named things like Seaview Avenue and Sea Missed
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: Place and all of these very evocative kind of names.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: And again a lot of this information is coming from
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: a combination of the Kiri Picone article on that all
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: that's interesting and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: But so you start to see the groundwork being laid
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: by Penn Phillips' efforts, and it starts to seem like
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: this is going to transform into what he had envision
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: but then, all of a sudden, as though blessed with
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: some sort of secret knowledge, Phillips ditches the whole thing
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty and we don't we still don't really know,
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: Like what tipped him off. Was he talking to, you know,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: ecologists and environmental experts, and he sort of probably got
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: the tip that maybe this was not going to progress
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: in the way that he had hoped.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was looking at this and probably, although it's
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: tough to assign motivation and prescients, there are a couple
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: of possibilities. Maybe things just went upside down for him financially,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: very like sooner than a thought. And or it may
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: have been a situation where he got the amount of
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: money that he wanted and then handed it off, like
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: he may have not known what was about to happen,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: but he In either case, he ghost in nineteen sixty,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: and Sultan City kind of becomes a ghost, like those
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: massive towns that are built on real estate speculation in
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the nation of China. There's if you went to Sultan
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: City after nineteen sixty, you would see something that looked undone,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: like the developers in a video game had not quite
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: gotten to that part of the map. There's like, there
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: are a couple homes, there was a sewage system. They had,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: you know, as he said, they had the QTT names
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: for different streets. But it started to go downhill almost
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: immediately because there wasn't new investment coming in. And this
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: gave it that dystopian fallout esque vibe that we were
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: foreshadowing earlier. And to be clear, people were still living there,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: just not as many as Penn had originally hoped. And
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: so if we fast forward to the night teen seventies,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: we get to the real ecological disaster. The bill starts
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: to come do and tourists don't love unpleasant things.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: No, And we talked about how the salt levels kind
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: of were on the rise and all of this shoreline
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: flooding was also on the rise. You had farm farming
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: communities nearby, you know, I mean if you go outside
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: of LA you know, places like Modesto and you know
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: a little bit further out from Los Angeles proper, it
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: is super rural and a lot of farming going on
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: out there. You know, things like oranges and various crops,
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: you know, avocado, whatever. But they have to be fertilized,
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: and there were times where regulations surrounding you know, what
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: kind of fertilizer could be used and how it had
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: to be dealt with were not nearly as strict as
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: they are today. So you had a lot of runoff
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: from these nearby farms causing increasing imbalances in the kind
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: of chemical makeup of the waters of the salt and sea.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Pair that with that rising salinity and you start to
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: get these massive fish kills with like fish bones, skeletons
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: kind of piling up on the shore. A lot of
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: those fish that had been stocked, you know, the various species,
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: I believe, including let's see, we had croaker corvina, Yeah,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: something like I think sargo. I'm not a fish scientist,
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: but those were several of the species. They just began
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: to die off, and it was only I think a
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: few of the more resilient species that even stuck around
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: at all.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Right, and this included some endangered species like the desert pupfish.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Coupled with this, there are a number of biblical level storms.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: If you had a resort barely holding on, guess what,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: there's an act of God coming your way. It's not
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: in your favor, So a lot of people were forced
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: to pull out because the numbers just weren't working as
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: an investment. If you fast forward now, you'll see, as
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: you said, just a few very resilient fish species surviving
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: for now. And yeah, and just like just like the
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Marinas a few years back, these things are barely holding on.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: This gets even worse in two thousand and three. There's
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: something called the Quantification Settlement Agreement. Shout out to the
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: California Department of Fish and Wildlife if you'd like to
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: learn more. Its street name is the QSA. Basically, it's
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: a covenant between states that share the Hoover Dam and
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: the Colorado River. And we know California has historically been
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the least favorite state in this agreement because they tend
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: to use more water than the originally agreed amount or limit.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: And we also have to say, in California's defense, it
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: is a country all its own, Like if you look
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: at the GDP of California, it's a huge country. You know,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: it's quite unique in that regard. And for a long
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: period of time, everybody just sort of made do and
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: they said, Okay, we'll figure it out next year, we'll
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: keep kicking the can down the length of this dam
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: because Nevada and Nevada and Arizona never used their full
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: quota of water, so people were just sliding the leftover
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: to California. But problem is, not every place out west
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: is like the Saltan city idea. There are thriving, huge populations,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: huge cities that in some cases you could argue should
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: not exist. Sorry, Las Vegas, but shout out to you.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: Just slap there in the middle of the California desert,
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: you know, by the mafia. The founding of Las Vegas
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: is fascinating, as we discovered when we were out there
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: not too long ago. But all of this to say
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: that this QSA imposes some pretty serious water conservation measures
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: that ultimately have the unintended consequence of drying up the
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: salt and sea. And in doing that, again, I'm not
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: a water expert here, but it caused the salinity to
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: rise even further as the sea was drying up. And
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: I'm not quite sure why that is. Maybe Matter or
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: Max you have an idea.
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So what I got through this research, and I
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: mean shout out to the California Department of Fish and
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: Wildlife because the right up on. This is very long.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: If we did the right up alone, it would be
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: like an entire episode. But basically the gist of it is,
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: there's a ton of there's a ton of salt in
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: the salt sea, but the water getting dumped into the
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: salt and sea is fresh water, so dilute it down.
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: But so as California was getting less and less water
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: because you know, Nevada and Arizona needed more less water
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: going to the crops to run off, and those parts
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: about becoming more efficient, unintended consequences. Basically, there's less fresh
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: water getting dumped into this very high salt count and
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: the water can't go anywhere, so what happens to it?
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: So it evaporates or it goes into the ground, which
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: causes the salinity to naturally increase. And the problem is
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: that the wildlife in this area is not the kind
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: of wildlife that has evolved to exist in these changing circumstances.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: The Sultancy in its current iteration for Everybody Playing Along
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: at Home has only existed for around a century, which
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: is very short term in the life span of bodies
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: of water, and in just that amount of time, since
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: it was the only show in town, ecologically, it became
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: a huge resource for things like migratory birds, for resident
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: animal populations like our pal the pupfish, some endangered species.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: So because the because the rest of California was getting
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: developed at such a hectic pace, they were losing wetlands
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: and the Sultan Sea became the replacement. It became the
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: we have wetlands at home. It's like the wish version
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: of a wetland on et sea. So these these birds
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: in the North American continent need a pit stop, especially
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: if they're migratory, and the Sultan Sea becomes that. We
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: just don't think it will last very long. It's an
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: unsustainable situation because the marine animals are not going to
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: be able to survive that increasing salinity. There's a reason
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: another very briny sea is called the Dead Sea. Super
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: great for boats, not super great floating, yeah, not super
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: great for freshwater fish though, and this leads us to
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the next turn in the story. The demise of the
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Sultan Sea had consequences beyond the water itself. As the
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: sea declined, we see things. We see things become increasingly dystopian.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: The human population that used to be kind of like
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: novou Riche aspirational, middle class, upper middle class tourists. They leave,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: and the folks who remain there just like the Just
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: like the salt that remains in the Sultan Sea, it
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: gets weirder and weirder with each passing year. The vibe
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: becomes strange.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: Right, more and more dystopian. I'm a Newburger, writing for CNBC,
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: had this to say. The vision for Saltan City was clear,
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: a bustling resort community along the crystal blue waters the
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: Sultan Sea. The city's reality is more grim. Instead of
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: a vacation spot, it feels like a post apocalyptic ghost town.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Most of the homes were demolished or never built. The
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: palm trees are stumps, and the sea, while beautiful, is toxic.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: And you know, she actually interviewed Frank Ruez from the
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: Audubon Society. The Audubon Society has a Sultan Sea program,
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: and he said people here used to fish, swim, bring
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: their boats. They went from living in paradise to living
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: in hell.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that is not hyperbole. This also this also
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: affects the surrounding land. Imperial County remains one of the
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: poorest counties in the state of California, and there's a
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: problem with the smell. That's right, fans are always sunny.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: We're doing that Dennis Reynolds joke because it works. We're
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: not going to give you the full quote because we're
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: a family show. But the smell became a huge issue,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: and it's also a teachable moment for our friends in
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Utah who are worried about the stench of the Great
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Salt Lake. It's because of the chemical changes. You know,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: the dust is blowing over the dry lake beds as
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the salt and sea slowly evaporates, and that means you're
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: getting hydrogen sulfide. You're also getting dangerous stuff like arsenic
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: and selenium. And people who live there, honestly, people who
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: are affected by it. Many families cannot afford to move,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: so they just have to put up with this horrible
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: smell and possible health effects in the long term.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Right and Ruiz Frank Ruis from the Audubon said, it
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: makes the point that we see happen all the time
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: with things like this. If the sea were next to
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: Los Angeles, it would have been fixed long ago. But
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: it's next to poor communities and they don't have the
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: political leverage. There are a lot of Latino families that
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: live in this area, and it is just they just
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: don't have the clout and representation to do something about it.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Politicians in Los Angeles are concerned more with things directly
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: affecting the residents of Los Angeles, and these folks seem
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: to be up Poop Creek without a paddle.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're in the salt without the shaker for sure.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: And let's go to Robert Schettler, who is a spokesperson
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: for the Imperial Irrigation District or IID. Schetler says, look,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: let's stay optimistic. Not all is lost. It is a
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: huge problem. It does need attention yesterday, but we are
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: happy to see that there are more. There are indications
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: of positive efforts like small, small scale air quality mitigation plans,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: trying to reinstitute some vegetation that would help also prevent erosion,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: help some of that water go to a better use.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: And this all goes to the big question that people
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: have been asking for decades and decades now and perhaps
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: years in the past when earlier iterations of the sea evaporated.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Is there a way to save the salt and sea?
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Back to our friend from all this interesting Kiri says, Look,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: people are trying. There's a there's a ten year plan
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: that came out pretty recently in twenty eighteen where California's
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Natural Resource Agency. That's right, folks, there are a lot
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: of like alphabet government agencies working on this. Our pals
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: at the Natural Resource Agency said, look, over the next decade,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: we're going to make thirty thousand acres of habitat. We're
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: going to suppress this dust that makes everything look so
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: mad max on the lake shore, and then we're going
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: to import new water. Nol importing new water. That's that's
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: a that's a dicey one.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Well, Ben, didn't this come up in a story that
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: we've covered a couple of times on stuff they don't
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: want you to know. That's right, And they were for
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: a time, I believe, doing just that, like importing. Maybe
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: it wasn't that they were importing water to dilute the salinity,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: but it was the kind of thing that would maybe
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: work as a quick stopgap measure, but like over a
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: long period of time, just isn't tenable.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Right, The quest for a better band aid, just like
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: the Hoover Dam. At the end of twenty twenty, only
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifty five acres of dust suppression projects
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: had started. They originally wanted there to be something like
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: one thousand, seven hundred and fifty and no habitat projects
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: have been started either. So again, you know, shout out
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Sam Cook, shout out Ben Sale, A change is gonna come.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: The question is will the change come in time. Everybody
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: knows California is way behind schedule in any restoration efforts
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: the Sultan Sea. But there are a lot of very good,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: very smart people working on this. They just have to
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: work through red tape. They have to work through all
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: these stakeholders, all these bureaucracies, and it's increasingly difficult to
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: ask for more water in this part of the world.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: It's right, and it's not just water resource management agencies
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: that are getting involved. There are also folks from the
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: state's Energy Commission providing funding to various energy companies to
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: look into lithium alternatives in order to grow geothermal development
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: and lithium recovery in order to maybe provide clean energy
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: and create some.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Local jobs there.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and we have talked about this on our
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: peer shows. Stuff they don't want you to know right now.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Companies are dumping billions into what they're calling Lithium Valley.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: There is a quite ambitious vision, similar to that of
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Penn Phillips all those decades ago, to build a new
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: tech forward community out in this area and maybe at
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: some point the fix the smell. A lot of this
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: is coming from a San Diego based company called Energy
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Source Minerals.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: And to your point, Ben, it's sort of like the
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: focus is maybe shifted on things that could potentially be
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: job creating and money making, so the ecological issue is
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: maybe taken a little bit of a back seat, but
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: it's not completely out of mind.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Ruiz, who he talked about earlier, who.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Is the director of the Audubon Society's Sultan Sea Initiative,
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: had this to say about it. We have a moral
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: obligation to look after the wildlife and communities affected by
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: the Sultan Sea. I'd love to see the lake full
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: of water, but it's not feasible. The solution is for communities,
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: water districts, and environ mental groups to find common ground
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: and protect it. And oftentimes this is me that common
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: ground comes in the forms of things that can make
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: money for people, and that can be seen as like
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: the rising tide that perhaps raises the water level of
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: the Sultan Sea. That cannot be in a society that
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: is very much reliant on commerce the number one priority.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: It has to be just sort of a byproduct of
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: all the other stuff. Yeah.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, that's where we get to the idea of conflicting
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: interest of so called stakeholders. There's also another question. Maybe
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: this is where we where we end it now. It's
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: a question for everybody tuning in, everybody who lives at
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: the Sultan Sea or is doing the work to try
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: to save this quite eccentric body of water. What if
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: we got the origin story wrong? What if the Sultan
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Sea should just be allowed to come and go. There
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: are folks like Loggie who argue that, hey, maybe the
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: sea just happens over thousands of years, probably before humans.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: To be honest, this sea has come and gone. Perhaps
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: it's its formation and its current iteration was inevitable, and
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: that famous canal breach back in nineteen oh five just
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: sort of move the timeline right. And if that is
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: the case, then should people spend all this time and
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: effort to save a sea that just sort of is
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: an indoor outdoor cat Ecologically it comes and goes, it
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: comes and goes, Oh.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: My goodness, I don't think. No, no, it's a good question.
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: And you know, and is you know, sometimes there are
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: byproducts of naturally occurring processes, you know, on the planet
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: that maybe shouldn't be messed with, and that once they're
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: messed with, then that can trigger a new timeline of
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: kind of a dominant effect of negative consequences. So it
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: could be that because of the intervention of human beings
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: in the first place, is what triggered a lot of
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: this really nasty fallout. So that does beg the question,
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: like to what this person you quoted ben as saying,
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: maybe that would be true if it hadn't have been
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: messed with in the first place, But now that it
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: has been messed with, it's become a problem that does
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: need some level of addressing, or it's just gonna get worse,
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: or that part of the country they're just gonna have
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: to like pull those over the whole thing and start
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: from scratch, you know, fill it in with concrete or something.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know what would happen. What are the alternatives?
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's anybody's game, you know. And look, it
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: sounds like we're possibly taking a hit out on the
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: good people in the assaulted area. We are absolutely not
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: got to tell you, folks, we are not a crew
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: of folks who have spent a lot of time in
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: the desert. So I think it's fair to say when
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: folks like us venture out west, especially to this part
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: of California, all that open space kind of puts the
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: zap on us. It's like when Max met Montana and
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: saw why they call it sky Country.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: It's big.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: This scale is amazing.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: I remember I remember.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Driving you and the gang out just the Hoover Dam
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: and we were all somewhat speechless by the immensity.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: Of the of the area.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think super producer Paul Mission Controlled dechead of
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: Stuff that I want you to know, said, it almost
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: felt not real, like you were looking at something that
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: was created in a video game or something, because of
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: the vastness of it and just the epic, you know,
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: expanse of it all that we're not used to seeing that.
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: You know, U must you live out there. We're not
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: used to seeing that in real life. We're its kind
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: of used to seeing recreations of it, So it almost
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: feels like you're in sort of an immersive virtual reality
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: kind of situation, which is pretty weird to say, but
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: it's it's true. I was hit the same way by
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: it that it had this uncanny valley kind of vibe
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: to it.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: And there's a beauty to it, you know, And there's
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: a beauty, there's the ambiguity. There are many questions left
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: to answer about the Sultan Sea. One thing is for sure.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: The clock is ticking. Perhaps the origin story is ridiculous,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: but it has also inspired a great deal of human ingenuity,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: and we can't wait to see what sort of solutions
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: are on the way in the future. We also can't
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: thank you enough for tuning in, and thank you to
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: our super producer and research associate for today's episode, mister
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Max Williams. Guys, I forget to tell you I sent
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: over the holiday, by which I mean.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Today before we record it.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: I dropped our old pal Jonathan Strickland a quick line,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: asked him if you wanted to be on the show,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: wished him a happy New Year and maybe he will
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: deign to return. I have figured out how to tell
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: him he's got some competition now with the Puzzler.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, the Puzzler.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: I really do think we should like pit them against
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: one another in a quiz slash puzzle off.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be for the ages.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: But you know, we can't thank you enough for tuning in,
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: but we surely will try. And we also like to
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: thank everyone else that makes the show possible, of course,
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: including Max Williams, super producer slash research associate Alex Williams
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: who composed this theme, Chris frostiotis here in spirit, and
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: Eves Jeff Coates wandering the wide world of podcasts.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: I'd like to thank Tom Waits sultan Ce feels like
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: his vibe. Oh yeah, he was going to go on
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the show with us, but he only accepts payment in
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: rusted nineteen fifty seven Chevy parts. It's true, which we
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: didn't have handy. But Tom, if you're hearing, we hope
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: you enjoyed this one as well.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: I think Tom listens to the show. He only listens
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: to stuff on like an old Victrola.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Right right, and he has to have a busted, busted
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: couple tubes that he can scatter around. Just so, please
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: tune in later this week we are going to explore
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: a complex, strange phenomenon of yesteryear. You may have asked yourselves, folks, Hey,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: why do so many pictures of historical figures in childhood?
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Why do they seem to be wearing dot dot dot dresses.
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: And our short pants? What is the little Lord fault Leroy?
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Look the Buster Brown. We'll get to it on the
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: next episode of Ridiculous History. We'll see you next time, folks.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.