Southern California’s Salton Sea was once a , with sunny and people waterskiing on the vast inland lake in the 1950s and ’60s.
Today, those , replaced by a drying and increasingly toxic landscape. As the lake shrinks, wind blowing across the exposed lake bed kicks up toxic dust left by years of agriculture chemicals and metals washing into the lake. That dust makes its way into the lungs of the children of the Imperial Valley.
New research from of at University of Southern California and University of California, Irvine, shows that of children in the region – especially those living closest to the Salton Sea. In fact, the close to the Salton Sea have been greater than what studies find in near busy roadways.
As the lake’s water sources diminish with the region’s Colorado River water use agreements, and this region gains more industrial activity from proposed lithium extraction, air pollution is likely to only worsen.
The problem with the Salton Sea
The Salton Sea – California’s largest inland lake at – has been shrinking for decades due to drought, agricultural water diversion and climate change. Its was created by a carrying water from the Colorado River in the early 1900s. Irrigation runoff from farm fields kept it going. But over the past two decades, , which release large amounts of dust into the air.
The lake sits in one of the hottest and driest parts of California, approximately 150 miles southeast of Los Angeles and at the northern border of the highly productive agricultural region known as the Imperial Valley.
Its water level has been , which carries with it . Those chemicals, salts and metals have concentrated over time in the lake bed sediments, and they get stirred up into the air when the wind blows through.
As the of Colorado River water, Imperial County’s irrigation district agreed in 2003 to every year to support growing urban areas – a plan that went into full effect in 2018. That meant less runoff into the lake. By one estimate, the change was projected to . Satellite images show rapid expansion of exposed lake bed as the water has receded.
The that live just south of the Salton Sea say they in conversations about the lake’s fate. Yet, these communities are facing real health consequences tied directly to regional water policy choices and lack of action to manage this emerging environmental crisis.
Lung damage and slower lung growth
In 2017, we initiated the , cohort study with over 700 elementary school-age children across five northern Imperial Valley cities.
The study was built on a partnership with , a local nonprofit that has been active in addressing community health and environmental concerns in the Imperial Valley region.
Our study followed these children over several years, documenting respiratory health symptoms and lung function measurements, in addition to household, lifestyle and behavioral factors to account for individual differences.
Our aligned with what :
- Among children living in the northern Imperial Valley, nearly 1 in 5 are reported as having asthma – far higher than the .
- Higher rates of air pollution were linked to overall poorer reported , such as wheezing and coughing, among all children. That indicates that while asthmatic children were more sensitive, nonasthmatic children experienced significant health impacts as well.
- Our work has also begun to show that higher levels of dust exposure, especially among those children living closer to the sea, are linked to , as well as reductions in children’s lung growth over time. Reduced lung function increases the risk for chronic respiratory disease, such as COPD, or more frequent respiratory infections, such as pneumonia, as adults.
These findings are concerning because lung damage, poor lung function and respiratory illness in early life may into adulthood.
Children’s , and lung function continues to mature throughout adolescence, making children more susceptible than adults to the adverse impacts of air pollution.
Children also have than adults, as well as larger lung surface area relative to their body size, resulting in higher doses of pollution per breath. And since children often spend more time outdoors than many adults and tend to engage in more physical activity, that may increase their exposure to outdoor air pollution.
Looking ahead
For years, community members have and poor respiratory health among children and residents.
While questions remain about the longer-term impacts of worsening air quality related to the drying Salton Sea, our study adds scientific backing to residents’ experiences. This evidence matters as communities and organizations like Comité Cívico del Valle push for projects that can that gets into the air, expand education on asthma management and increase access to health care services.
The kids in the AIRE study were just starting elementary school when they joined. Now in high school, this generation has grown up near the Salton Sea. Many have .
From everything we have seen in the results of our studies involving the children living in communities along the Salton Sea, we believe the protection of local air quality is critical for the health of children in the Imperial Valley, and their health should be in the forefront of planning for future water changes, extraction projects and other development near the Salton Sea.
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