• Project:
• Original Title:
• Translated Title: New Track
• Translator: Louise Cocks
• Language: English
• Subtitles: 182
• Words: 1720
• Comment:
• Client:
• Creation Date: 09. Jan. 2012
• Revision:
• Revision Date: 09. Jan. 2012
• Media File: Toxic_Imperial_Valley_PART1_0706_Preview_TC.mov
• Format: 25 PAL
• Offset: 00:00:00:00
[TOXIC
IMPERIAL
VALLEY]
[IMPERIAL VALLEY
CALIFORNIA]
We're driving right into a burning field.
This is like the... Imperial County is like one of the only
[ERNIE QUINTERO
VBS.TV]
few places that still burns fields, where it's legal
to still burn fields.
Everyone, everywhere else, it's been like outlawed.
They have to pick certain days when they burn the fields,
because they don't usually burn when it's windy,
so it won't carry out through the valley, but today it's really windy.
So, I don't know what the fuck's going on.
I...
This has gotta be really bad for our air quality, because...
I'm sure there're still pesticides in the field, getting burned up,
going up in the air.
We're in Imperial Valley, and it's a valley, because we're...
surrounded all by mountains.
And all the air just gets trapped in here.
In Imperial County, without a doubt, the farming community
[ERIC REYES
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
INSTITUTE FOR SOCIO-ECONOMIC JUSTICE]
have not thought in the best interest of our community, environmentally.
People say we're burning, we make the air polluted.
[HECTOR ZEDEJAS
LOCAL FARMER]
Well, if we don't grow food,
what are you going to eat?
The Imperial Valley is unique in a lot of ways, in that it has
the desert area. You would think it's a desert plain, in a lot of ways,
and it is. It really does offer a lot of opportunities.
But the biggest opportunities you see, just visually,
the Salton Sea and river,
where you think that would be great opportunities,
are the worst for human use.
We as a people have contaminated this area
so poorly that we cannot drive it in a very positive way.
[TOXIC
IMPERIAL VALLEY]
My name's Ernie, and I live in Imperial Valley, California.
I travel a lot with bands; I play in a few bands.
I like to skate,
and there's like a lot of cool stuff to skate out here in the desert.
And when I'm at home, not touring or traveling, I love cooking.
Have you had real Mexican homemade food before?
I live in a really, really unique part of the United States.
We're two hours east of San Diego,
we're at the Mexican border,
we got... we're next to Arizona,
we got desert, we got the sand dunes.
My favorite thing to do is go to the Salton Sea,
which is like the biggest body of water in California.
It's polluted, but it's still really beautiful to look at.
Another of my favorites is Slab City.
This kind of off the grid area, you could just bring a tent
or a camper and just live free on top of these cement slabs.
And I love it out there. You can go skateboarding there,
there's an empty pool, hang out with the locals,
which are really, really nice folks.
And the reason why I ended up here is because we're so close to the border,
and both my parents were born in Mexicali, Mexico,
which is right over the border from us.
So, they came up here to find a better life.
So, my earliest memories are like working in the fields as a kid.
Like seriously, over here, there's like no conditions for
anyone to live out here.
But some settlers came out here in the early 1900s.
They tapped into the Colorado River and they created a series of canals,
and they were able to grow all this farmland,
and that's what sustains Imperial Valley.
We supply so many agricultural products to the rest of the country.
We have excellent cows here.
The secret to badass carne asada is the marination process.
But the one secret ingredient that most people don't even know
is: orange juice.
It will give it more of that extra tangy kind of taste.
The reason why Imperial Valley looks so apocalyptic is because,
like we're in like the southeastern part of California,
where there's a lot of desert weirdness.
You see how they come up right when the fire starts?
[GLAMUS SAND DUNES
IMPERIAL VALLEY, CA]
We're in Glamus, Glamus Sand Dunes,
[GLAMUS SAND DUNES
IMPERIAL VALLEY, CA]
which is like the eastern part of Imperial Valley.
It's kind of a mellow day.
It's a Sunday, most people have already gone.
But a lot of time during the holiday weekends, there's just shit loads
upon shit loads of racers.
You could see the dust just all fly up in the air.
Like, you can see it like way from a distance.
It looks just like a cloud of dirt.
Did you hear that?
They had some like Korn fucking blasting in his radio.
Well, a lot of these dudes who come out here are just like bro dudes
with like their expensive motor gear.
They're cool, but the only thing that sucks is they all drink Coors Light.
Are you guys like dune closure, or you want to keep 'em open?
If you're for the dune closures, I need to take you that way
[TIM SMITH
DUNE BUGGY RIDER]
about a half mile. I need your shovel, Chris.
- To dig a hole?
Yeah.
- Are they trying to close down the dunes, or what?
They've got dune closures. They want to save the box turtle over here...
Over 60% of it's closed down right now.
[CHRIS SMITH
DUNE BUGGY RIDER]
One volcano has more carbon dioxide in it
than all of mankind in existence.
So, in the scheme of things, does that really effect global warming?
But I don't believe in global warming.
I believe it's a cyclic nature of our Earth.
I don't believe that there's any impact on it, personally.
I believe that the things on Earth are here for man's use,
human's use, while we are here on this Earth.
And through proper care and use of it, it should be open to us.
I don't do drugs, I don't do anything! Adrenaline is my high in the world.
Come out and dune hard, play, enjoy the day.
You know, it takes lots of horsepower to do it.
And we love the smell of fuel.
The effects is, look around you.
I mean, there's about 90,000 dollars in toys right here in front of you
that we've bought, purchased, parts, buggies, the whole thing.
And so the effect that it has on the economy here in America is huge!
The effect that it has on the environment, I think,
is an acceptable effect.
It is the enjoyment and the use that we have on this Earth.
This was God's creation, I mean, this was here.
We're just out using it.
You are looking at a remarkable idea,
an idea that has intrigued and attracted and literally thrilled
thousands upon thousands of men, women and children.
And you, my friends, are about to witness this idea become a reality.
For this is the story of the miracle sea in the desert,
the Salton Sea,
where the air is incredibly clear and the sun is warm.
Three hundred and eighty-five square miles of open water,
formed by accident in 1905 when the Colorado River ran wild
over manmade dikes.
A sea in the desert.
The Salton Sea was once one of the premier fishing sites
in the whole western United States.
People would come from all over the States to fish there.
And it's also a key flyway squatter spot for birds migrating north.
And all the pesticides that have been dumped in there from our valley
and from our farming,
which is what runs the economic engine through the years of the Imperial Valley,
has been driven into the Salton Sea.
We've had cases of botulism,
of the birds dying from eating things from the Salton Sea.
So, yeah, anyone who would swim and eat the fish from the Salton Sea
is either crazy or maybe just got out of the psychiatric ward
because therefore, they don't understand the human impact.
My name is Sonia Herbert and I'm owner of the Pirate's Alley,
[SONIA HERBERT
OWNER, PIRATE'S ALLEY]
here in Bombay Beach
on the Salton Sea.
This is the land that time forgot.
It was a great place to come.
And somehow, the newspapers started coming out with articles
about: the water's contaminated, the fish are no good,
and people started not coming here.
I think it's perfectly safe for people to get in the water.
If it wasn't, I would tell you so, and I wouldn't be swimming in it.
Do people still fish and eat the fish if they catch it?
- Yes, they do.
Yeah.
- So, it's good to eat?
Yeah, and it's good. You smoke it, it's great.
Cool.
- Tilapia's very good eating fish.
And I have no problem with eating fish out of the sea.
Terry, let me see one of your BB gun beads.
No.
- I'll try!
Those are too small.
Yeah, me and him used to go out on boats and stuff.
Until our boat--
- Until the water got polluted.
And then we sunk.
Yeah and then our boat sunk and stuff.
One part's green now and one part's brown.
I used to go fishing out there every day and catch fish.
- Me and him used to.
Yeah, but...
- At the same time, but 'til...
We started seeing the pollution-
- Cause they started putting...
They put sewage from down there...
- Oi
They put oil and stuff.
- And cow fat and stuff.
And it started getting all polluted. Everyone used to be...it used to be nice.
And stuff.
Yeah, it's already pumped and stuff.
It's already pumped!
- I'm gonna shoot it at the same time.
No, it's already loaded. Just aim at it.
He shot it!
He shot it.
Take an extra pump.
You did 10, I did 11 right there.
I shot the bottom of it, though.
When I first come down here in 1972,
there used to be anywhere between 600 to 800 boats out there on that water,
catching corvina.
Over the years, it just took a dump.
The new river comes out of Mexicali.
And they want the United States to build a sewage plant
to run the water up here.
But we're getting all their stuff out of Mexicali.
In here.
It's all going in this water.
This water's seven times more saltier than the Pacific Ocean.
There's a salt mine under water, there's a sulphur mine,
there's a train under water.
There's umpteen planes from during World War II
'cause this used to be a bombing range.
So...
You get here, you get hungover and you can't get out of here.
And...
It's like Death Row.
Yeah...
Hey Norm, have you seen Stevie Wonder's wife?
Neither has he.
What does man seek?
Whatever it is, it's here at Salton City.
Here is all that you and your family,
your children and your children's children will want.
In sports, in relaxation,
in pleasure, in health,
in security.
Yes!
And invest in a glowing, prosperous future.
This is the birth of a city.
And investment in the future.
The future is now.
And you,
you have been present at the birth of a city.
We're about to enter what they call over here "Sunken City."
Which was part of the Salton Sea, like over-flooded and took over
like, cars and trailers.
Now it's just empty and ruins of it.
I'm not sure how to describe this first viewing.
But it's like, what the fuck?
So, the reason why some of it's like...
It's like slowly evaporating because there are water wars out here in the desert.
Like, LA and San Diego want our water.
So, they're taking some of it and it's causing it to evaporate.
A lot of the shore's getting exposed, which is polluted.
And the high winds tend to take it all throughout the valley
and just make this toxic dust bowl.
But we actually need it,
the Salton Sea, because...
Thousands of birds migrate through here
and they need it to drink water or eat fish.
'Cause like, most of the lakes in California are all dried up.
So, the connection between the Salton Sea and Mexico
would have to be the New River.
That's what brings it all together.
The New River flows from Mexico, goes through the desert
and pours into here.
Basically, Salton Sea is a hole
that gets filled in, that stays afloat with water from the New River.
Even when it enters the Salton Sea,
it's still the most polluted river in North America.
We're right alongside the New River.
Where it pours into the Salton Sea.
You see the Salton Sea right over there?
The New River is an open sewer line for Mexicali residents.
Which is very unregulated,
very third world country the way they set up their sewer system.
Any time the sewer system of Mexicali has problems,
they have open runs into the river,
therefore it just dumps raw sewage straight into the New River,
which is then carried north into Calexico.
You can go down and ask the people and they're breathing this
and they're living next to it.
And when all the instances of it...
There was one resident whose wife,
they had the house very nearest to the New River in Calexico.
His wife died of having mushrooms growing on her lungs.
You'll see the foam coming in as you come in from Mexicali.
You'll see the foam, industrial waste
and all the solvents and so on that are just there
&nb