STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
Cliff Hurley, El Centro real estate broker and one of four candidates for Second District supervisor, Thursday afternoon unveiled his ideas for decreasing the salinity of the Salton Sea.
The plan would, in effect, redesign the sea. Hurley said he conceived the plan “around 8:30 in the morning yesterday” and has been busily exploring its possibilities ever since. He intends to present it to Rep. John V. Tunney this afternoon at Tunney’s seminar for government officials at Imperial Valley College.
He said he has taken his idea to Robert Carter, general manager of Imperial Irrigation District, who said it would work.
“All I’ve got is an idea,” Hurley said. “Somebody else is going to have to check it out for feasibility, but so far it checks out pretty good.”
The plans is to dredge a deep channel around the present shores of the Salton Sea, and to use the fill material dug from the channel to build a dike around the interior of the sea. Less brackish water would be confined to the outside channel while saltier water would be contained inside the dike.
Water would be transferred from the outer ring to the inner lake as its contents evaporated. The outer channel would serve as a drain from the New and Alamo Rivers.
40 years ago
The state Attorney General’s office has been asked by the Department of Food and Agriculture to mandate “isolation” storage of products of Imperial Valley fields recently treated with pyrethroids.
The request is a result of the use of the compound in Valley cotton last year by 80 Valley growers who subsequently planted other crops following harvest. Most of them planted grain crops.
If the Attorney General decides to accept the injunction affected Valley growers have the option of plowing up their current crops and planting cotton, according to Rex Magee, chief insecticide enforcement officer for the Department of Food and Agriculture.
The Imperial Valley was granted an exemption from Section 18 of the federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act last year. The exemption, granted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, allowed the use of pyrethroid products to help control the bollworm/budworm complex, but only under certain restrictions.
One of the restrictions was that growers using pyrethroids on their cotton fields in 1977 were forbidden to grow anything but cotton on that field for the next 18 months.
30 years ago
SACRAMENTO — Robert Romero, who led the Calipatria to the boys Division V state championship basketball game, has been named to the all state basketball team by Cal-Hi Sports.
Romero joined Mike VanderMolin of Ripon Christian on the Division V list compiled by the respected newsletter.
VanderMolin hit the three-point basket which sent the title game into the first of two overtimes.
While Romero was expected to be on the list, another Valley basketball player was ignored by the newsletter. Calexico guard Kathy Lizarraga, only recently named to the Southern Section’s 2A girls first team, was not included on the all state team compiled by Cal-Hi Sports. Lizarraga, a senior, averaged 26.7 points for the Bulldogs.