Salad Bowl of the World · Episode 1 of 14 · 19 min
The Upside-Down River
Most of the lettuce Americans eat grows in a single fault-bounded trough on California's Central Coast, watered by a river that runs dry on top and flows underground. The episode starts with the ground itself: granite carried north on the Pacific plate, stacked aquifers sealed by marine clay, a submarine canyon a mile deep, and the fog that makes the valley ideal for cool-season crops. These set the constraints the rest of the series follows.
Who's who
- Anne B. FisherAuthor of The Salinas: Upside-Down River (1945), which fixed the phrase
- John Steinbeck+4 more episodesNovelist whose East of Eden opens with the valley's geography
Where it happens
- Salinas Valley, California+7 more episodesFault-bounded trough on the Central Coast; the Salad Bowl
- Salinas River, California+2 more episodesRoughly 170 miles, flowing north-northwest, dry on top in summer
- Monterey Submarine Canyon, CaliforniaDrops a mile deep just off Moss Landing
- Gabilan Range, CaliforniaGranite mountains east of the valley; Pinnacles perched on it
- Santa Lucia Range, California+1 more episodeSteep western wall of the valley; casts a rain shadow
- Monterey Bay, California+1 more episodeCold water that feeds the valley's summer fog
Timeline
- c. 21,000 years agoAt the Last Glacial Maximum the shelf around Monterey Canyon is dry land crossed by river channels.
- 1909Winter storms shift the Salinas River's mouth to its present position south of Moss Landing.
- 1945Anne B. Fisher publishes The Salinas: Upside-Down River.
- 1946The State Department of Public Works publishes Bulletin 52, the first formal report of seawater intrusion.
- 1947Radio call letters KSBW are chosen to spell "Salad Bowl of the World."
- 2026USGS publishes a hydrologic model showing groundwater supplies about 95 percent of the valley's water.
Still debated
Sources give the river's length anywhere from 150 to 184 miles, and it is not settled that the Monterey Canyon is the drowned outlet of a Central Valley river. Seawater intrusion was observed in the 1930s but formally reported in 1946.
