Newly released on DVD, Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea is no bad-taste epic, but still it benefits greatly from knowing, sardonic voiceover by John Waters — an expert in human folly. The film offers a crash course in the history of California’s Salton Sea, the inadvertent result of an irrigation project gone wrong in the water-starved American West. Once touted as a tourist mecca, the erstwhile resort is known today for the ruins of resort architecture, massive fish die-offs, and an overwhelming stench.
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