‘The air is toxic’: how an idyllic California lake became a nightmare
Climate crisis in the American West
Here, in California’s far south-east, there’s no escaping the noxious air. The haze that hovers over Imperial [County] is a peculiar blend – incorporating pesticide plumes, exhaust fumes, factory emissions, and something curious: vaporized dust rising from the nearby Salton Sea. … It is California’s largest lake, an ecological oasis, a former mecca for famous vacationers, and a muddy sink for agricultural runoff. For decades, it has been shrinking, exposing a powdery arsenic-, selenium- and DDT-laced shoreline that wafts into the atmosphere.