Salton Sea is just a small part of area pollution, report says

Funding to address the issue should focus on indoor air quality, researchers suggest.

- BY NIAMH ORDNER

CALIFORNIA has spent $49 million for dust suppression around the Salton Sea.

For years, millions of dollars have poured into controlling dust that wafts off the exposed lake shoreline of the Salton Sea, hoping to solve a serious air pollution problem in the Coachella and Imperial valleys.

But a new report finds that the dusty shoreline is responsible for only a small percentage of the pollution, prompting some researchers to emphasize that cleaner air inside people’s homes, workplaces and schools could be more important in addressing the asthma and respiratory disease that plague the area.

“My big takeaway is that there’s so many different sources that what we really need to do is pivot away from source control to start protecting people where they're exposed,” said Michael Cohen, a senior researcher at the Pacific Institute and lead author of the report.

Released Thursday, the report draws on data from local, state and federal agencies and finds that dust from the expanding dry shore of the Salton Sea accounts for less than 1% of total small particle pollution in the region.