Part 170: Living in the Coachella Valley – First Impressions of the California Desert

Published May 3, 2025.

May 04, 2025

Photo of an ocotillo plant used medicinally by indigeous people for many generations above La Quinta, CA in the Santa Rosa Mountains by author (GoPro Hero 11 Black).

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

Fleeing Los Angeles wasn’t the first plan or even the second; rather, it was by necessity. If you go past San Bernardino and Riverside, you’ll get to the Coachella Valley through the San Gorgonio Pass, which is undoubtedly the most populated part of the California Desert, which encompasses the Mojave, Great Basin, and Colorado Desert. An extension of the Sonoran Desert, the Colorado is the pathway through which U.S. Interstate 10 passes on its way out over the Arizona border to Phoenix. The fourth-longest interstate in the country, it’s the vital pathway for America’s supply chain, graced by an endless passthrough of semi-trucks carrying the goods that stock the shelves of so much of the American heartland. The busy 10 Freeway completely bisects the Coachella Valley, with Highway 111 spurring off at the windmills before Highway 62 spurs north toward the Morongo Pass up to Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, and Twentynine Palms.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve been out this desert way, but like so many Angelenos who have transformed the latter area in recent years before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic with a resulting increase in property values. The area in many ways represents the last and biggest extension inland to the east of the suburban sprawl that stretches fairly uninterrupted along the California Coast from San Diego through Los Angeles to Santa Barbara. Hemmed in by the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains to the west and southwest, San Gorgonio to the northwest, marvelous Joshua Tree National Park to the east, and the Salton Sea to the south, the Coachella Valley is its own media market. With its own cultural identity, the area represents perhaps the grandest ambitions of Southern California suburban development to resist aridity.

The City of Palm Springs, long a favorite destination of many, anchors the Coachella Valley with an international airport that sees steady traffic during the tourist season that stretches from winter into spring before broiling summer temperatures arrive. Other municipalities include Desert Hot Springs at the northern end of the Coachella Valley; Indio, toward the southern end, host of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (or simply Coachella); and Stagecoach, country music’s version. Rancho Mirage glistens at center next to grittier Cathedral City, both of which are to the north of Palm Desert, with El Paseo, a desert version of luxury living, and La Quinta, which features a lovely “cove” nestled into the mountains. Unincorporated areas such as Sky Valley and Thousand Palms are to the north of the 10 freeway. The area is home to a relatively modest population estimated at 460,800, a nine-fold increase from the 1950 census.

In recent months much has been made of the flight of Canadian snowbirds from the area after the threat of President Donald Trump to turn their country into the 51st state. Thankfully, Trump owns no properties here. Less has been made of the City of Coachella at the far southern end of the Coachella Valley, which is heavily Latino with a 90% Spanish-speaking population. The area features a total of 9 different federally recognized tribes of the Cahuilla people. The ancient lake named for these people once seasonally formed and covered an area far exceeding the Salton Sea all the way up through the Coachella Valley basin that would flood. The modern Lake Cahuilla under Riverside County Parks is a mere fragment of the ancient lake’s span.

Recently, on March 6, more than 200 people filled the lecture hall at the modern Rancho Mirage Library to learn about water in the Coachella Valley from Oscar Ortiz, Education Director for Friends of the Desert Mountains and an Indio City Councilmember. Telling the environmental history of a land transformed, Ortiz with a smile on his face parlayed with the audience, eager to learn more about how the Coachella Valley has gone from the brink of tapping out its vast underwater aquifer. Ortiz was first elected in 2018 and has served as mayor. In 2023, Ortiz was interviewed by Kent Black of Desert Magazine, telling the story of how he arrived in Indio as the son of a farmworker and a housekeeper as a 3-year-old before going on to attend Stanford University, where he completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry. Perhaps most concerning to Ortiz was the retreat of the Salton Sea, which has in part fueled dust problems.

Extensive projects are underway to remediate this issue, which, at least according to some, was exacerbated by Hurricane Hilary in 2023, which released even more dirt that fuels sandstorms. This winter into spring there have been several major dust events, which appear in the Apple Weather app like huge air quality nightmare blobs with cellular walls of AQI in excess of 500. The particulate, known as PM10, is fine enough to seep into homes through the windows and coats motor vehicles and living lungs with exceptional stickiness. Writing in CalMatters in 2024 about the problem, journalist Alejandra Reyes-Velarde notes that “The Coachella Valley Association of Government spends more than $760,000 a year on street sweeping as part of the state’s plan for cleaning up PM10, according to a 2022 contract effective through 2025.”

The dust is a problem, driving up high asthma rates particularly in the communities along the shore of the Salton Sea, which, although hardly the only source, represents perhaps the biggest future threat. The Salton Sea North Lake Pilot Demonstration Project, budgeted at $19.25 million, is a demonstration restoration project underway for the “construction at the north end of the Salton Sea consisting of approximately 70 acres of total habitat.” The new Salton Sea Conservancy, pushed forward by California State Senator Steve Padilla, promises to meet a “10-year blueprint for building 30,000 acres of wildlife habitat and dust suppression projects.” Backed by a combined total of $480 million in State and Federal spending, as noted in CalMatters by journalist Deborah Brennan, the ambitious plan is tempered only by competing plans for lithium mining along the eastern shore and the reality of nature's unpredictability.

In the greater region stretching from Imperial County to San Bernardino County across Riverside County, which contains the Coachella Valley itself, the environmental impacts aren’t equally distributed. Those who can afford to are able to employ technology such as dust shutters and air controls to reduce their exposure. The same is true for the impacts of lithium mining, essential for the production of electric car batteries, on Salton Sea communities. Brennan quotes Silvia Paz, Executive Director of Alianza Coachella Valley, who penned her own CalMatters piece arguing that “A united and recognized Salton Sea region is the key to ensuring our communities benefit from new climate investments and major industrial development.” The Trump administration appears to be continuing the Biden administration's plan for a $1.3 billion loan to back the planned development through the Energy Department.

As reported in the Desert Sun by journalist Janet Wilson, the lithium deposit is “about a mile and a half beneath the Salton Sea and northern Imperial County,” and to extract it, EnergySource would build a new facility to pump up “boiling brine” using a “geothermal power plan next door.” In a region previously transformed by the energy industry with both wind and solar technologies, this latest development apparently isn’t off-radar for Elon Musk, who abandoned his own efforts in the area in 2016. The owner of Tesla and leader of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency was recently described by Trump as being among those “kissing my a**” and also being “so terrific.” It’s unknown if Trump has discussed the Salton Sea lithium project with Musk, who has faced increasing scrutiny over potential conflicts of interest.

Politics didn’t come up in Ortiz’s talks despite increasing posturing from Trump over California’s water supply, which included unplanned releases of freshwater inundating farmland further north. The Salton Sea was famously created by accident from the Colorado River and doesn’t function environmentally like ancient Lake Cahuilla, which provided a bounty of life. In fact, famously the body of water has experienced mass die-offs and now has a seriously toxic algae problem. Habitat creation is great, but what the Salton Sea needs most it’s unlikely to get; a new supply of fresh, clean, unpolluted water. The Colorado itself is notoriously diminishing and doesn’t flow all the way to the Sea of Cortez. Short of a massive geoengineering project, it’s unclear if habitat restoration alone can solve the environmental challenges of the Salton Sea.

The degree of unpredictability involved is significant, especially with a changing crisis and increasing frequency of disasters. Alarmingly, the San Andreas Fault runs directly through the region, which recently experienced a 5.2 earthquake. The text message came through to my phone before the earth began to shake beneath my apartment. Whether the lithium mining operation could be shielded from such an event is unknown, but the potential for an earthquake to damage a facility and for lithium to catch fire independently, as recently happened near Salinas, California, along Monterey Bay, is disconcerting. Following that event, the California Public Utilities Commission moved to strengthen battery storage rules by developing emergency plans. Toxic metals were spewed for miles, entering the ecosystem from the Moss Landing site.

With a projected 600,000 tons of lithium annually projected, enough for 375 million electric car batteries, the question of where all this material would go and how it would be transported is vital for the future of the Coachella Valley. Nor is it clear that lithium dollars would be reinvested into the Salton Sea Region, much less the California Desert more broadly, which has more deposits of rare earth minerals, the new globally hot commodity. Powering our electronics around the world, such resources are the future currency, more valuable than oil and perhaps ultimately even gold or silver. The loss of habitat, including Joshua trees and other rare plants, from development and wildfire threatens the natural heritage of the Golden State. As reported in the Los Angeles Times by journalist Alex Wigglesworth, an Australian company is at odds with the National Park Service deep in Mojave at the Colosseum Mine near the Nevada border.

Should California, already the fruit and vegetable basket of the nation, also be the car battery and electronics mart of the future? Life goes on in the Coachella Valley amidst much posturing over whether the past lessons of extractive economy should be ignored in favor of profit. Undoubtedly, there has to be a reduction in carbon emissions, but is this the right path? Whether local officials band together to protect the California Desert from overdevelopment remains to be seen in the political new normal. The greater Coachella Valley is already quite prosperous, with home-building continuing at a strong pace and a diverse local culture with a sustainability mindset already. In the north of Palm Desert, new developments are rising, and undoubtedly the population will continue to increase. The ancient lake bed is being built over.

All politics may be local, but the national picture isn’t far away. Recently several thousand gathered at Palm Springs City Hall as part of the “Hands-Off” protest. Several trucks with Trump MAGA supporters circled, drawing ire from the largely white and significantly LGBTQ crowd eager to express frustration with President Trump over his autocratic moves. Other protests have occurred further to the north near Joshua Tree over cuts to the Park Service in particular. The April 5 Palm Springs protest was so big it even made news in Los Angeles. Local Republican Congressman Ken Calvert, in office for 28 years, drew particular ire from the assembled masses, with cars neatly parked for many blocks around near the airport. Calvert’s district includes only part of the Coachella Valley. Democratic Congressman Raul Ruiz, a native of Zacatecas, Mexico, represents the remainder of the area and has been in office since 2012.

The sometimes seemingly split identity of the area is in some ways uniquely Californian, and in other ways it mirrors similar patterns of unequal development common in other parts of the state. Yet compared to so many other areas, the affordability of the Coachella Valley can be refreshing, with a strong economic base around tourism that continues to be quite seasonally affected. Along with featuring unquestionably one of the mildest winters in America, the boiling hot summers are a real factor. Affecting industries such as construction and agriculture as well, the luxurious climate is tempered by hundred-degree-plus spans that only promise to get hotter.

On July 5, 2024, the thermometer hit 124 Fahrenheit, a new record. Then again on October 2, 2024, a sweltering 117-degree heat wave settled in. Thankfully, Coachella this year was only largely plagued by traffic, but on the first weekend, 90-degree temperatures alone doubled hospitalizations at nearby John F. Kennedy Memorial. The Hollywood Reporter headlined the debacle as “dehumanizing,” and organizer Goldenvoice had to apologize for 12-hour wait times. Widely considered the most prestigious music industry event around, it draws guests from afar.

High above the festival in La Quinta Cove, I hiked almost to within sight of the Bear Creek Oasis amidst the ocotillo plantsthat take 60-100 years to mature. This year's bloom has been muted by a lack of rainfall. Slowly night began to fall, making the blue palo verde trees with yellow flowers even more beautiful in the darkness. My legs were tired, and I was out of water with a single orange left in my pack. Life was good, and the lights of civilization shimmered beyond the sandy wash. For many years now I’ve treasured nights in the desert when the skies clear and the stars are visible. Soon enough, I made it back to the car, and the orange was soon gone. Life went on in the Coachella Valley, and the night turned slowly to a glorious sunrise yet again.

Link: Oh, Canada, wait! Tourists, dollars are fleeing Palm Springs due to Trump provocations

Link: Lecture: Water in the Coachella Valley

Link: Q&A with Indio Mayor Oscar Ortiz

Link: Danger in the dust: Coachella Valley residents struggle to breathe

Link: The Salton Sea North Lake Pilot Demonstration Project

Link: The Salton Sea is California’s most imperiled lake. Can a new conservancy turn back the tide?

Link: Will Trump support California’s ‘Lithium Valley’? Local officials see signs of hope

Link: Trump Says ‘Internet People’ Are ‘Kissing My Ass’ in Bizarre School Speech

Link: Elon Musk’s Doge conflicts of interest worth $2.37bn, Senate report says

Link: 5.2-magnitude earthquake strikes San Diego area, jolting Southern California near San Andreas system fault

Link: California PUC approves battery storage safety rules

Link: U.S. Department of Energy confirms California’s Salton Sea region rich in lithium