A Terminal Case? Shrinking Inland Seas Expose Salty Particulates and More

Lookie here, it's my latest feature for EHP. Clocking in at around 3,500 words, it's an in-depth look at the causes and effects of shrinking saline or terminal lakes around the world, with particular focus on Southern California's Salton Sea and Utah's Great Salt Lake as illuminating case studies. 

Here are the first two grafs:

The headlines are alarming. Phrases like “environmental disaster,” “toxic nightmare,” “ecological collapse,” and “lost cause” have appeared in publications from the Palm Springs Desert Sun¹ to the United Kingdom’s Guardian² to describe the ongoing decline of the Salton Sea, California’s largest lake. Elsewhere in the American West, Utah’s shrinking Great Salt Lake has been likened to an “environmental nuclear bomb” by The New York Times,³ while other national publications have heralded its impending demise or warned of “toxic arsenic-laced dust.”^4,5

The Salton Sea and Great Salt Lake face distinct challenges and have different potential fixes. But together, they highlight a much broader trend that may pose public health threats in locations around the globe: dust blowing from the beds of drying terminal lakes.

Read the full article here.