In one of California’s poorest corners, jagged rocks rise like Godzilla’s scales along a muddy lakeshore. The glassy Obsidian Butte forms the remains of an all-knowing snake called Arse-weeuv, according to the Quechan tribe, which has inhabited this land since long before colonization. When the snake burned in a ceremony, its smoke infused the mountains with ancestral knowledge.
The butte lies on the southern edge of the bluish-green Salton Sea in an expanse of thousands of acres that California wants to dot with clean energy power plants, wastewater facilities, data centers, battery factories and more. The plan would transform Imperial Valley, a sunken desert landscape bordering Mexico and Arizona where the Colorado River is drained by canals to grow vegetables for millions of Americans.
