The Floods, the Farms, and the River That Roared Back

These phrases aptly describe the scene I encountered in January, some 70 years after the novel’s publication. Drought appeared a distant reminiscence; the inexperienced hillsides contrasted with the Salinas’ swift, muddy present. Alongside River Street, I met a pair taking their morning stroll on a muddy path alongside the swollen Salinas. Within the practically 30 years they’ve lived on the town, the person advised me, he has by no means seen the Salinas so massive—although, he added, in a long time previous, the river did carry a bigger and extra constant movement. “There was a slaughterhouse proper right here,” he stated, gesturing to a row of riverside properties. “They’d discharge blood straight into the river. The water was at all times purple.”

As I headed out of city on Freeway 101, the rain began up, battering the windshield. Within the transient breaks between downpours, the land morphed right into a foggy dreamscape. I finished at a pullout overlooking the river and the large San Ardo oilfield. A rainbow arched over the Gabilan Vary within the distance. Just a few months earlier, these hills have been sun-blistered and desolate. Now they glowed a vivid inexperienced, and the river ran with a roar, carrying dozens of large logs in its present.

I hoped to achieve the water’s edge by the use of a potholed oilfield street. However a barricade and two non-public safety vehicles blocked the way in which. Inside one of many autos, a person lounged again in his seat, seemingly asleep.

It’s solely as a result of I’ve pushed this stretch of Freeway 101 dozens, maybe tons of, of occasions that I’ve begun to note that there aren’t any scenic pullouts to attract consideration to the valley’s namesake river, no preserves or riverside parks. Normally, the one signal a river is there in any respect is a blue squiggle on a GPS map—an abstraction that masks the fact, which is that what stays of the river is eternally yoked to business.

The Salinas is uncared for, I feel, partly as a result of it’s by nature a furtive river. It begins as a collection of obscure streams, lots of that are intermittent, coursing by the chaparral and low-elevation pine forests of the Temblor and Coast ranges. Its anonymity is enhanced by the truth that the river is, for many of its size, inaccessible; it cuts throughout non-public property or alongside the margins of small and out-of-the approach cities corresponding to Chualar, Gonzalez, San Ardo, Soledad, San Miguel.

These small agricultural cities, based by Spanish settlers and missionaries within the 18th century, are right now ensconced in an agricultural panorama that collectively produces 28 p.c of the nation’s strawberries, 57 p.c of its celery, and 70 p.c of its lettuce. Monterey County has additionally grow to be one of many nation’s main producers of wine grapes. Anytime you’re taking a sip of cabernet or take a chew of Caesar salad, there’s likelihood you’re, in essence, consuming from the Salinas.

For the final decade, the shortage of water has exacted a mighty toll on the farms and farmworkers of the Salinas Valley. Now the issue was an excessive amount of water—or at the very least an excessive amount of of it, too shortly. With 1000’s of acres underwater, scores of farmworkers have been instantly out of labor. Nonetheless, I noticed dozens out within the fields, toiling by the storm. Clad in rainslickers, they hunched over muddy rows of berries and greens, accumulating what they may earlier than the floodwaters washed the harvest away. Even in a disaster, the dehumanizing economics of the Salinas Valley prevailed: The lives of the farmworkers have been clearly valued lower than the crops they tended. In the meantime, their very own neighborhoods have been those most impacted by the floods. They have been trapped between rising floodwaters and misplaced wages. The flooding of the Salinas Valley took the best toll on the individuals who may least afford it.