[HN Gopher] Toxic Salton Sea dust triggers changes in lung micro...
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Toxic Salton Sea dust triggers changes in lung microbiome after
just one week
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 92 points
Date : 2025-11-07 16:52 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| jorts wrote:
| Not surprising. I have a friend who grew up in El Centro and had
| asthma his whole childhood. Shortly after moving, he never had
| respiratory issues.
| yabones wrote:
| No wonder the lake is drying up with so much irrigation for
| agriculture, and an absurd number of golf courses in a very small
| area.
|
| https://www.google.ca/maps/@33.6867973,-116.2608676,25994m
|
| It's clear to me as an outsider that California has serious water
| sustainability problems. I mean, how long can this last?
| bri3d wrote:
| The Salton Sea is drying up due to _decreased_ agricultural
| water consumption in the area; it was formed by agricultural
| run-off, which is why it's so toxic, and now there's less
| runoff to fill it up.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > it was formed by agricultural run-off,
|
| No, its lifespan was _extended_ by agricultural runoff
| offsetting the natural drying out which would have otherwise
| occurred after the event which formed it was corrected, but
| it was _formed_ by a breach in an irrigation canal that
| occurred in 1905 and wasn 't repaired until 1907.
| bri3d wrote:
| Whoops... it was formed by agricultural run-in!
|
| Regardless, it's sort of a bad example of "humans are the
| virus" type thinking, since it both lived and died by
| agriculture.
|
| If you really dig into the story there is an interesting
| commentary about the horrible Western US water rights
| compacts system and the continuing inability for US states,
| especially in the West, to accurately price water
| consumption in a way that makes consumers sensitive to
| inefficient water use. But even then, in the case of the
| Salton Sea, the system actually did work: inefficient
| agricultural use was "improved" when San Diego called for
| more water and farmers were forced to be more efficient.
| Perhaps in an ideal world those farms would never have
| existed at all.
| SalmonSnarker wrote:
| > it's sort of a bad example of "humans are the virus"
| type thinking, since it both lived and died by
| agriculture.
|
| from "Islands of Abandonment":
|
| > As I get further out, my feet sink deeper into the
| thin, grey sand. When I look closer, I see it is not sand
| at all, but the dry bones of fish, pounded into shards,
| and the tiny, skull-like husks of barnacles. This is a
| foul place. The air is thick with brine and guano and
| decomposition. Even now, in the violet dusk, the heat is
| oppressive. But as I cross the crystallised flats, the
| water gleams into view, an impossible sea in the middle
| of the desert.
|
| > It is a poison lake whispering sweet nothings. It
| promises cool succour, quenched thirst. Despite what I
| know of this shimmering mirage - despite the stink and
| the rot and the waste that surrounds it, despite the
| staring eyes of the dead and desiccating fish that litter
| its shrinking shores, despite the absence of vegetation -
| I can't help but quicken my pace. I stumble through
| sucking mud towards this false vision, on and on until
| the muck is over my feet, and up to my ankles, and I am
| shin-deep in a warm broth that, when stirred, releases a
| draught so stagnant I can taste it.
|
| surely not a place to be proud of.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Seems like an excellent example of "humans are the virus"
| to me. Human error created an _entire lake_ and then
| human inefficiency sustained it (for a while). Now the
| end product of all of that human activity is poisoning
| the air around it.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| I'm not sure the Salton is the best example of that. It's not a
| permanent fixture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea
|
| It seems it's presently only still here because of previous
| inefficient irrigation (from the Colorado River) and that
| farmers restricting their water usage is actually leading to
| the Salton's decline.
| yabones wrote:
| Ah, interesting. Much more complicated than I'd think,
| especially as somebody not from those parts.
|
| https://xkcd.com/1739/ - but with "terraforming"
| burch45 wrote:
| Not just inefficient, it was a large scale industrial
| accident. A canal wall was breached and not repaired for two
| years and the runoff all collected in this low lying area.
| It's a very odd place to visit now though for marketing
| reasons they tried to make it into a resort destination
| before it became a place you can only tolerate for a very
| short time.
| mlmonkey wrote:
| I was visiting Palm Springs one year, late summer. I had
| assumed that since it was in the middle of the desert, that
| water use would be regulated.
|
| But as I drove around over there, I was shocked to see massive
| lawns being watered in the middle of the day, and large amounts
| of water just flowing out from these lawns into the drains.
| Sometimes the giant sprinklers were watering the sidewalks and
| roads too.
|
| What a waste of water! Speaking to a local, they claimed that
| due to some old water rights agreement, Palm Springs gets its
| water for really cheap and there is no incentive to conserve
| it. Sad state of affairs.
| rurp wrote:
| The whole system is a mess. As wasteful as it can be, all
| residential use is only a small fraction of water consumption
| in this region. An order of magnitude more is used to grow
| water intensive crops in the SW deserts, and those farmers
| are only paying on average 1/10th the price per gallon for
| that same water as people pay for their home use. In many
| cases the farmers are incentivized to _not_ be more water
| efficient, because the old water rights can be use it or lose
| it. They are essentially being paid to waste obscene amounts
| of water.
|
| Municipal use and waste get the most attention because they
| are by far the most visible use, but most policies there are
| just tinkering around the edges and hardly move the overall
| numbers.
| desert-dweller wrote:
| Not Palm Springs but close enough, reporting in for the
| curious. I've been wastelanding for a few years now in an
| unincorporated rural township, lucky to be close to allegedly
| sweet aquifers, but the utility is definitely mismanaged to
| the extent that it's pretty doubtful if anyone really knows
| how much water there is. Gold-mining interests are not far
| away (hello arsenic?), lithium interests are probably looking
| for an angle. I'm no geologist but maybe an endorheic basin
| that collects the sweet stuff is good for that too. Anyone
| think any of this water is being tested with a dismantled
| EPA?
|
| Anyway a water bill is about $40/month up to 8000 gallons, $3
| extra per 1000g overage. About half of the base rate is
| claimed as "upgrade surcharge". Since it's practically
| unlimited for free, does that sound right to anyone? The
| neighbors seem to be feral ghouls about 200 years old, they
| definitely don't care much about any poisons or the town
| drying up and blowing away, so they are always YOLOing a
| honking great deluge of whatever juice is still left into all
| different kinds of stupid inappropriate leafy greens but fuck
| it, you know? The pentagon is looking to restart nuclear
| testing in the backyard anyway so those of who still aren't
| irradiated yet can look forward to that!
| broof wrote:
| This makes me incredibly concerned for the great salt lake
| dexwiz wrote:
| Saw a joke theory saying that why Real Housewives of SLC has
| gotten so crazy recently is that the salt lake drying up has
| increased heavy metal content in the air and lowering IQ in the
| region.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >Saw a joke theory saying that why Real Housewives of SLC has
| gotten so crazy recently is that the salt lake drying up has
| increased heavy metal content in the air and lowering IQ in
| the region.
|
| Which itself is a joke about accountability if you think
| about it.
| DANmode wrote:
| Arsenic is a joke?
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| Real life lore did a great video about it recently. It's
| inevitable at current water usage.
| culi wrote:
| The dead sea is even more concerning imo. Such an incredible
| history and unique ecology being lost so rapidly. It's the
| deepest hypersaline lake in the world but it's being drained at
| an appalling rate
|
| https://www.haaretz.com/0000017f-ea1a-dea7-adff-fbfb7cbf0000
| slicktux wrote:
| I watched a documentary a while back on the Salton Sea. It
| touched on the local residents that live in the area and how the
| dust affected the children. There were even plans of tapping into
| Mexico's Laguna Salada to help keep the Salton Sea from drying
| up.
|
| Although it's not a natural sea and its full of chemicals from
| agricultural run off the residents that live in the area are
| suffering from the dust and fears of great dust clouds plumbing
| and going west to San Diego were also insensitives from keeping
| the hazardous Salton Sea from drying up.
|
| Beautiful place to visit...just not during summer when it smells
| from all the Dead Sea life.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Sea-Monk... I mean brine shrimp! Nice smell.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| Toxic Salton Sea dust triggers changes in MICE lung microbiome
| after just one week.
|
| I really wish this would be included in the headline in such
| stories.
|
| Is there a repository somewhere that measures the number of
| studies on mice that go on to successful human trials or
| verification.
|
| With the prominence of studies on mice, I think most humans
| trials Started on mice.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > With the prominence of studies on mice, I think most humans
| trials started on mice
|
| they did
| tejtm wrote:
| researchers note: burning man provides an annual cohort of
| ethically sourced samples
| cjflog wrote:
| burning man dust is definitely an irritant (alkaline), but
| salton sea dust seems to contain many additional contaminants
| (pesticides, metals, biologicals)
| seattle_spring wrote:
| Salt Lake City is also at risk of this happening with the Great
| Salt Lake if it continues to shrink and dry up.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/10/us/utah-great-salt-lake-dust-...
| dogman144 wrote:
| Already happening depending on if you live downwind of the
| dried up parts.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Palace of the Brine.
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| I wonder if there's some way of terraforming the area so trees
| can grow? There has to be some combination of soil amendments and
| plant species that can thrive in that environment?
| dogman144 wrote:
| Terraforming the area, so to speak, caused it to be how it is
| today.
| ghc wrote:
| With less than 3 inches of rainfall per year, I don't think
| plant-based terraforming is really a sustainable option.
| culi wrote:
| Geoff Lawton, the heir to the "permaculture" legacy, has a
| project in Jordan called "Greening the Desert" in one of the
| most arid regions of the country.
|
| How scalable the techniques are is one matter but I think the
| results speak for themselves in proving what's possible with
| careful (read: high labor input) management.
|
| https://www.greeningthedesertproject.org/about-us/
| lizknope wrote:
| Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea narrated by John Waters
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TjGAWxL23c
|
| I watched this 20 years ago. It's a really interesting and funny
| documentary about the Salton Sea and the area around it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagues_%26_Pleasures_on_the_S...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Wild. It's _that_ John Waters. Surprised he 's narrating
| something Californian.
| im3w1l wrote:
| So two natural questions is it possible to deal with the dust
| either at the source, by collecting the dust somehow and treating
| it? Or perhaps it would be possible for people to to not get it
| inside homes and workplaces with appropriate hvac systems?
| dogman144 wrote:
| Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner, worth a read!
|
| Salton sea features heavily, and you'll learn the whole American
| West is on as fragile a water setup with similar health, civil
| and economic problems to follow as what this Salton sea example,
| but imagine it applying LA-wide, central Oregon-wide, Salt Lake
| valley-wide.
|
| Water issues out west will be a major issue of USA's next 70
| years. Very scary stuff.
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