Salt Evaporator
National Chloride Company of America / Salt Evaporator
12121 Amboy Road (Post Office Box 26)
Amboy, California 92304
Area: Bristol Lake (dry)
Approximately 70 square miles (44,800 acres)
Totally out in the middle of NOWHERE!
Salt evaporation ponds are shallow man-made ponds designed to produce salt from sea water. The seawater is fed into large ponds and water is drawn out through natural evaporation which allows the salt to be subsequently harvested. The ponds also provide a productive resting and feeding ground for more than 70 species of waterbirds, including several endangered species. LOOKS LIKE A DAMN DIRTY JOB!!!
Area looks to be one of the more desolate areas in California ... Bristol Dry Lake ... MOJAVE DESERT!
National Chloride Co. of America - Salt Evaporator Bristol Lake, located in Amboy, California, is a natural basin surrounded by mountains with no outlets. National Chloride Company encompasses 40 square miles of the lake. They have excavated drainage canals out of the lake (40’ wide by 30’ deep x 4-5 miles long - envision spokes on an old wagon wheel.) The canals are designed to drain to the center where the solar ponds are located. Along with the natural water runoff from surrounding mountains, brine from adjacent wells is pumped into the drainage canals to leach the chloride deposits (occurring for thousands of years) out of the lakebed floor.
We discovered the salt evacuators (National Chloride Co. of America) when traveling back to Nevada from a camping trip to Joshua Tree National Park, California.
