That word aptly describes the scene I encountered in January, some 70 years after the novel’s publication. The drought seemed like a distant memory. The green hillsides contrasted with the fast, muddy currents of Salinas. I met a couple taking a morning walk on the muddy trails along the swollen Salinas, along the River Road. In the nearly 30 years they have lived in the town, he told me he had never seen the Salina River so big. “There was a slaughterhouse here,” he said, pointing to the houses along the river. “They threw their blood straight into the river. The water is always red.”
As I was about to exit Route 101, it started to rain and hit the windshield. In short breaks between downpours, the land turned into a foggy dreamscape. We stopped at a drawer overlooking the river and the massive San Aldo oil field. A rainbow over the distant Gabilan Mountains. A few months ago these hills were desolate in the sun. Now they were bright green, and the river roared with dozens of huge logs.
I wanted to reach the waterside through the pothole-filled oil field road. However, a barricade and his two private security trucks blocked the road. In one car, a man sat down in his seat and appeared to be asleep.
Having driven this Highway 101 dozens, perhaps hundreds of times, there is no scenic drawer to draw attention to the canyon’s namesake river, nor the reserves and riverside parks. I started noticing that it wasn’t. Usually the only indication of a river’s existence is a blue wavy line on the GPS map. This is an abstraction that masks the reality that what remains of the river is forever bound by industry.
I think the Salinas River is neglected partly because it is a hidden river by its nature. It begins as a series of obscure streams, many of which are intermittent, passing through the chaparral and low-lying pine forests of the Temblor and Coast Mountains. Its anonymity is enhanced by the fact that most of the length of the river is inaccessible. It traverses private land and runs along the edges of small, remote towns such as Chuaral, Gonzales, San Aldo, Soledad and San Miguel.
Founded by Spanish settlers and missionaries in the 18th century, these small farming towns are now surrounded by agricultural landscapes that collectively produce 28% of the country’s strawberries, 57% of celery and 70% of lettuce. . Monterey County is also one of the nation’s leading producers of wine grapes. Any time you take a sip of Cabernet or eat a Caesar he salad, you’re likely essentially drinking from Salinas.
Over the past decade, water shortages have taken a toll on Salinas Valley farms and farm workers. The problem here was too much water, or at least too much, or too fast.On thousands of acres of seabed, dozens of farm workers suddenly lost their jobs. Still, I saw dozens of people struggling in the fields through the storm. I collected as much as I could before it was washed away. Even during the catastrophe, the dehumanizing economics of the Salinas Valley prevailed. Farm workers’ lives were clearly worth less than the crops they cared for. On the other hand, it was their own areas that were most affected by the floods. They were trapped between rising waters and lost wages. The floods in the Salinas Valley have done the most damage to those who can’t afford it.
