COVID COUNTY CALIFORNIA

How Imperial’s Decades-Old Woes Set It Up for Pandemic Failure

Ralph Walker is sitting in a dull-green lawn chair in the shade. It is 102 degrees but feels like 111 in the unforgiving Calipatria sun. He wipes sweat from his brow with a rag and starts shaping his hair with a wooden pick he pulls from one of his many pockets. When he smiles, his eyes disappear into the wrinkles of his freckled face.

“I’ve been a resident here for, I would say, 70 years. 16th of this month I’ll be 70 years old,” Walker says. His voice is slow and soft. “It’s a poor little town, I think it’s poor.”  

Calipatria is, in fact, a poor little town. It hosts less than 8,000 residents, more than half of which call Calipatria State Prison home. The houses are old, the roads cracked and pothole ridden. It sits in the center of Imperial County, the poorest county in California.

And during the pandemic, Imperial boasted another unfortunate superlative: highest COVID-19 mortality rate in the state.  At 419 deaths per 100,000 residents, Imperial’s COVID mortality rate is well above double the state’s. As for case rate, Imperial has had 18,920 cases per 100,000 people compared to California’s statewide rate of 11,819. Though one could conclude that Imperial’s higher mortality rate is a product of its higher case rate, simple algebra leads to a different conclusion.

To understand whether a population is disproportionately dying of a disease, one must analyze case fatality rate, the proportion of people with that disease who die. By dividing mortality rate by case rate, the figures mentioned earlier can be used to find the CFR. California’s CFR is about 1.46%, but Imperial’s is 2.21%. Though the difference may seem small, that disparity means that someone in Imperial with COVID-19 is 51% likelier to die than the average Californian with the virus.

Imperial has a history of respiratory disease. It has one of the highest rates of asthma-related hospitalization of children in California. A 2019 study found that 22.4% of children in the county had been diagnosed with asthma, far above the national average of 8% and California’s rate of 9.4%. In 2015, flu and pneumonia mortality rates were more than twice that of the state. While California saw 15.1 deaths per 100,000 residents, Imperial experienced 33.2. Experts believe Imperial’s problems come from the air. The American Lung Association gives the county a grade of F for both Ozone and Particle Pollution.

Walker remembers the people he’s seen get sick and die in Imperial. Asthma, pneumonia, cancers, diseases he did not know the name of, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if this valley caused that,” he says. Walker has always lived in Calipatria, and he says that the town has not changed in seven decades. That is, except for the air. “The pollution is really, really bad here. I remember when I was a little boy, I could see Mt. Signal from my house, but as time rolled by, I could stand in my backyard, and I can’t even see Mt. Signal anymore.” 

The pollution in Imperial is hard to miss. A thick haze of dust picked up by valley winds is suspended almost permanently. Smoke and exhaust from Mexicali factories drift and settle into Imperial Valley. Those fumes contribute to what is a larger phenomenon of higher COVID-19 mortality rates along the US-Mexico border. Pesticides used in farming soak the earth, food, and water.  

Imperial County depends on agriculture. A bird’s eye view reveals farmland stretching out for miles in all directions. To the south, the spinach and potato fields pass through El Centro and crawl toward the Mexico border. To the north, they veer into the Salton Sea, the largest lake in California, the lowest in North America, and a once idyllic getaway destination frequented by Sinatra and Reagan.  

Today, the Salton Sea is a rotting dead thing. Algal blooms and dead fish give the inland sea its characteristic sulfuric odor. The lake’s shoreline has been receding for decades, but in 2003, a historic water transfer agreement worsened the problem. As more of the pesticide and chemical-laden lakebed is exposed to desert winds, the more toxic chemicals are swept up and added to the already polluted ecosystem.  

Generations of agricultural runoff have fed the Salton Sea. Generations of runoff waste have settled on its floor. In 1976, Walker worked as a hydrographer, monitoring the water in the Salton Sea and nearby streams, for Imperial Irrigation District. He was new on the job, excited to get to work with the water in the area. It’s been fifty years. He does not remember the name of his work partner, but he does remember the filth and grime of the water.

The lake’s slow death has long been connected to health problems in the area, but in the age of COVID, the Salton Sea’s impact on local lungs should be re-examined. According to a Harvard study, exposure to the kind of fine particulate matter pollution found in Imperial is linked to higher COVID-19 mortality. Some of that fine particulate matter is a product of the dying sea.

All available evidence suggests pollution from the lakebed is among the factors contributing to Imperial’s high mortality rate. Local activists and county officials have drafted plans to address the sea’s demise, but a lack of funding and will has stalled progress for over a decade.

Today, restoration efforts have officially begun. More than $200 million is being invested in curbing the lake’s drying-out. But for those that have lived around the putrid stench of lake death for decades, these efforts may be too late. For many still, those plans have yet to make themselves visible.

Walker coughs into his elbow. “The pollution here, in this small farming community…they could do something about it,” Walker says, “but yet, they don’t.”