Most of the narrative about California ’s drought focalise on the state ’s Central Valley , where the nonexistent snowpack from the Sierras is threatening the economic energy of the region . But the other , lesser told tale is playing out in the southeast corner of the res publica , where the lack of water is in reality poison local resident .
In this week ’s New Yorker , Dana Goodyear visits the Salton Sea , a massive humans - made lake ( the magnanimous in the state ) formed from an engineering accident in 1905 . Its clear weewee and desert climate once transformed it into a popular resort for LA ’s elite . But two things happened in the last half - hundred : The Colorado River was diverted for local agriculture , leaving the lake to shrink . And the growing numeral of farms are sending their runoff of pesticides and fertilizers into the sea , twist it into a toxic puddle . A drouth , as you might opine , is making the sea retreat even quicker .
But the real problem is the dust :
The valley is eighty per cent Latino and mostly pathetic . It also has the land ’s highest rate of asthma attack - touch on hospitalization for minor . The Imperial Valley Child Asthma Program is the only free asthma - training program in the county , and it go on an average budget of a hundred and forty - six thousand dollars a year . Fulton told me that in the preceding few years there has been an increase in referrals from the Ithiel Town adjacent to the Salton Sea . ( At one school , in the seaside townsfolk of Calipatria , sixty - five youngster are ominous . ) “ We already have an unmet pauperism , ” she said . “ What are we hold out to do when the Salton Sea dry out out ? ” She is thinking of her clients , and she is thinking of herself . Her husband has asthma , her old daughter has asthma , and , after twenty - five years in the vale , she has it , too . “ The consequence of the sea is a bomb calorimeter , ” she said . “ It ’s a ogre coming to get us all . ”
Much has been written about the Salton Sea , and about the Colorado River , of course , but Goodyear ’s thesis is quite persuasive . In a signified , the Salton Sea is a peep into the future : This is what will happen when the state runs dry .
[ New Yorker ]
AP Photo / Lenny Ignelzi
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newsworthiness from the futurity , drive home to your nowadays .
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