These words aptly describe a scene I encountered in January, some 70 years after the novel was published. Drought gave the impression of a distant memory; the green slopes contrasted with the swift, muddy current of the Salinas. Along River Road I met a pair who had taken a morning walk along the muddy path along the swollen Salinas. The man told me that within the nearly 30 years they’ve lived in town, he has never seen such large Salinas – although he added that the river has had a bigger and more even flow in past many years. “There was once a slaughterhouse here,” he said, pointing to a row of homes by the river. “They bled straight into the river. The water has at all times been red.
As I used to be leaving town on Highway 101, it began to rain, hitting the windshield. In the short intervals between downpours, the land was a misty dreamscape. I stayed on the lift overlooking the river and the large San Ardo oil field. In the gap, a rainbow arched over the Gabilan Range. A couple of months earlier, these hills had been sun-baked and deserted. Now they glowed vivid green, and the river roared, carrying dozens of massive logs in its current.
I used to be hoping to achieve the shore on a bumpy road in an oil field. However, the road was blocked by a barricade and two private security trucks. In one in every of the vehicles, a person leaned back in his seat and looked sleepy.
Just because I’ve driven this stretch of Highway 101 dozens, possibly lots of, of times, I’ve begun to note that there are not any scenic coves that decision attention to the river of the identical name within the valley, no preserves or riverside parks. Typically, the one indication of a river’s presence is a blue squiggle on the GPS map – an abstraction that masks reality, and what’s left of the river is eternally coupled with industry.
I feel the Salinas is neglected, partly since it is inherently a hidden river. It begins as a series of obscure streams, a lot of that are intermittent, flowing through chaparral and low pine forests within the Temblor and Coast Ranges. Its anonymity is enhanced by the undeniable fact that the river is inaccessible for many of its length; it crosses private lands or the outskirts of small and distant towns resembling Chualar, Gonzalez, San Ardo, Soledad, San Miguel.
Founded by Spanish settlers and missionaries within the 18th century, these small farming towns are today embedded in a farming landscape that collectively produces 28 percent of the country’s strawberries, 57 percent of the celery, and 70 percent of the lettuce. Monterey County has also turn into one in every of the nation’s leading grape producers. Every time you are taking a sip of Cabernet or a bite of Caesar salad, there’s a very good probability you are actually drinking from Salinas.
Over the past decade, the shortage of water has caused huge losses to farms and farm staff within the Salinas Valley. Now the issue was that there was an excessive amount of water – or at the very least an excessive amount of and too fast. With 1000’s of acres under water, dozens of farm staff suddenly lost their jobs. Still, I saw dozens of individuals within the fields, laboring their way through the storm. Wearing raincoats, they bent over the muddy rows of berries and vegetables, picking what they may before the flood washed away the crops. Even within the midst of the disaster, the dehumanizing economy of the Salinas Valley won out: the lives of farm staff were clearly valued lower than the crops they cared for. Meanwhile, their very own neighborhoods were hit the toughest by the floods. They were trapped between rising floodwaters and lost wages. Flooding within the Salinas Valley took the best toll of people that could least afford it.
