Those words aptly describe the scene I encountered in January, about 70 years after the novel was published. Drought seems a distant memory; The verdant hillsides contrast with the swift, muddy waters of the Salinas. Along River Road, I met a couple taking a morning walk on the muddy path along the rising Salinas. The man told me that in the nearly 30 years they lived in the town, he had never seen the Salinas River so large – although, he added, decades ago, the river had had such a large flow. and more stable. “There used to be a slaughterhouse right here,” he said, pointing to a row of houses by the river. “They will pour their blood directly into the river. Water is always red.”
As I headed out of town on Highway 101, it started to rain, hitting the windshield. During the brief breaks between downpours, the land transforms into a dreamy, misty landscape. I stopped at a harbor overlooking the river and the massive San Ardo oil field. A rainbow bends over the Gabilan Range in the distance. A few months earlier, these hills were sunburned and desolate. Now they glowed a vivid blue, and the river rumbled, carrying dozens of large logs with it.
I hope to reach the water’s edge by the pothole-filled oilfield road. But a barricade and two private security vans blocked the way. Inside one of the cars, a man was sprawled out on a chair, apparently asleep.
It’s just because I’ve driven this stretch of Highway 101 dozens, perhaps hundreds of times, that I’m beginning to notice that there’s no beautiful sight to draw attention to the valley’s eponymous river, no protected area. riverside park or reserve. Often, the only sign of a river’s existence is a blue zigzag line on a GPS map—an abstraction that masks the reality, which is what remains of the river is permanently attached to it. with industry.
Salinas is forgotten, I think, in part because it is a stealthy river by its very nature. It began as a series of little-known streams, many of them discontinuous, flowing through the low-altitude and chaparral pine forests of the Temblor and Coast ranges. Its anonymity is enhanced by the fact that most of the river’s length is inaccessible; it cuts across private property or along the margins of small and off-street towns like Chualar, Gonzalez, San Ardo, Soledad, San Miguel.
These small farming towns, founded by Spanish settlers and missionaries in the 18th century, are today enveloped in an agricultural landscape, which collectively produces 28% of strawberries, 57% of the nation’s celery and 70% of lettuce. Monterey County has also become one of the nation’s leading wine grape producers. Whenever you take a sip of cabernet or take a bite of a Caesar salad, you’re essentially drinking wine from Salinas.
Over the past decade, water shortages have taken a toll on farms and workers in the Salinas Valley. Now the problem is too much water – or at least too much water, too fast. With thousands of acres underwater, a lot of farm workers suddenly lost their jobs. However, I still see dozens of people in the fields, struggling through the storm. Wearing raincoats, they crouched over muddy rows of berries and vegetables, gathering what they could before the floodwaters washed away their crops. Even in a disaster, the dehumanizing economy of the Salinas Valley prevailed: The lives of farmers were clearly valued less than the crops they cared for. Meanwhile, their neighborhoods are the ones hardest hit by the floods. They are caught between rising floodwaters and lost wages. The flooding in the Salinas Valley took its toll on those least able to afford it.
