Joseph Widney - The Environment

The Environment

While stationed at Drum Barracks and in the deserts of Arizona, Widney began a lifelong interest in climatology and conservation. Widney served as chairman of the Los Angeles Meteorological committee for several years. Widney credited white settlement with several improvements in the Southern California climate, including less variation in temperature, milder winds, and increased rainfall. Widney was concerned about conserving water and was one of the first to warn about what later came to be called smog, identifying it as a concern in 1938 (some five years before it was officially recognised in Los Angeles).

Additionally, Widney argued successfully for the setting aside of three great forest areas for the benefit (in a conservation of resources) of generations to come, thus giving impetus to the great work of securing the present water supply for Los Angeles.

As early as January 1873, Widney advocated in print the flooding of the Colorado Desert to re-establish Lake Cahuilla. This marked his first appearance in print after his arrival in California. Widney believed that by diverting the Colorado River into the Salton Sink (where now is the Salton Sea) that this would increase the rainfall in the area, eliminate the deserts of southern California, and create a new Eden in what was renamed the Imperial Valley in about 1901. His creation would stretch from the Delta all the way to Palm Springs, just as Lake Cahuilla once had. The huge body of water would create drastic changes in the climate of Southern California, making it "similar to that of the Hawaiian or Bahamian Islands." His plan was cause for great excitement in the press. Widney's proposals strongly influenced those of Oliver Wozencraft and Arizona Territory Governor General John C. Fremont, who travelled to Washington to convince Congress of the project's potential. George Wharton James' book, The Wonders of the Colorado Desert, published in 1906, introduced the second volume with a whole chapter on Widney's arguments:

In 1873, a Los Angeles booster named JP Widney had proposed that the city create an artificial lake in the nearby Colorado Desert in order to moisten the atmosphere and free the region from the curse of aridity. A mere two decades later, there was more fear that Los Angeles might be blighted by the curse of humidity. In the summer and fall of 1891, heavy rainfall and flooding created the inland sea in question, and with rain continuing for some time, it seemed to be having the effects that Widney had promised. "

However, Widney's proposal was also criticized by Horace Bell in his Reminiscences of a Ranger. According to Lindsay,

A proposal to once again inundate the Salton Trough, by diverting the entire flow of the Colorado River, was made in 1873 by Dr. JP Widney. His scheme was named the "Widney Sea." His proposal lead to a lively discussion in Los Angeles newspapers until Gen. George Stoneman proved the impracticality of such a proposal.

In his 1935 book, The Three Americas, Widney argued that the fabled lost city of Atlantis once existed in the area where the Bahamas are now located. He believed that Atlantis was a large semi-tropical island ("larger than Libya and Asia – "), stretching west of Gibraltar and east of the West Indies, inhabited by peoples from the Americas rather than from Europe. He believed that the Sargasso Sea now covers part of the now submerged Atlantis. He argued that Atlantis was built up originally from the soil washed into the ocean from Africa and South America, and that it eventually subsided because "in the course of the ages the time came when the fissure in the earth's crust could no longer sustain the weight, and Atlantis went down". He also believed that there was a submerged lost continent in the South Pacific Ocean.