– The 1999 Western States Book Award for Creative Non-Fiction
– The 1999 Clements Prize for the Best Non-Fiction Book on Southwestern America
– The 2000 Norris and Carol Hundley Award from the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association
In low places consequences collect, and in all North America you cannot get much lower than the Imperial Valley of southern California, where one town, 186 feet below sea level, calls itself the Lowest Down City in the Western Hemisphere, and where the waters of the Colorado River sustain a billion-dollar agricultural industry. The consequences of that industry drain from the valley into the accidentally man-made Salton Sea, California’s largest lake and a vital stopping place for migratory waterfowl. Today the Salton Sea is in desperate environmental trouble.
