When Undark senior contributor Fletcher Reveley set out to write a feature on the Salton Sea in southern California, he was expecting something relatively straightforward: A story about a group of scientists who, using their expertise and data, were questioning an ongoing restoration project at the troubled lake. What he ultimately found after several months of investigation, though, was a case of sprawling governmental neglect that spans decades and has risked the health of hundreds of thousands of people.
The situation at the Salton Sea, once a 1950s tourist destination, is dire. Dust storms regularly build in the region, barreling across the parched landscape. For many residents who live by the vast lake, the dust isn’t just a nuisance—it’s life-threatening. In 2022, for instance, after a particularly bad storm, the Air Quality Index hit 659, higher even than the numbers in New York City during last summer’s wildfires.
It’s no ordinary dust. The Salton Sea is relentlessly shrinking, leaving behind a lakebed laced with agrochemicals, heavy metals, and microbes. When the dust kicks up, the roughly 650,000 people who live in the lake’s airshed breathe it all in. Asthma rates are skyrocketing, particularly among young children like 6-year-old Luna and 3-year-old Frederick Morales, who regularly land in the ER after dust storms. In recent years, two children who suffered from asthma died.
As Reveley reports, for decades, scientists have warned the State of California of the looming health and environmental crisis. But their efforts were rebuffed. Although plenty of words have been written on the Salton Sea over the years, none have uncovered the level of neglect and short-sightedness of state officials that Reveley accomplishes in his longform narrative.
At the heart of this story is a fight that is playing out across the world: The battle for water rights. As Reveley writes, for years, a California water board—the Imperial Irrigation District—has allowed the annual transfer of 300,000 acre-feet of water from the Salton Sea to other southern California water districts, mainly the San Diego County Water Authority, with no plan to help refill the lake. (In San Diego, residents used about 200,000 acre-feet just to water their lawns.) Experts have repeatedly shown how the receding water would expose dangerous lakebed, yet the water transfers continue.
In his narrative, Reveley draws a poignant account of the health struggles of the Morales family (along with Luna and Frederick, both parents have severe asthma), which he weaves expertly with the stories of the many scientists who have long pushed the state for a better solution for the Salton Sea.
