RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The Salton Sea has been shrinking for decades, killing off fish species and making life for residents like Nancy Del Castillo very difficult.
“It is going to be good for me to see water all the time, and we don’t have anymore, we don’t have water anymore,” said Castillo while standing above what used to be the Salton Sea shoreline.
Castillo said her family used to love spending time together on the shore of the Salton Sea.
“The kids, they say oh we are going to the beach but we don’t have a beach anymore. You can see we can’t enter anymore,” said Castillo.
Changing weather patterns, droughts and competing water demands have led to the rapid shrinking of the Salton Sea and have left large areas of the lake bed exposed.
Dr. Emma Aronson is a professor of environmental microbiology at the University of California, Riverside. For years, her team has been collecting and studying dust from the dried-up lake bed to find out how it is impacting residents’ lungs.
“The Salton Sea region has been becoming incredibly prone to dust storms, and daily dust exposure is causing problems for people’s health,” said Aronson.
Recently, her team was able to determine that the Salton Sea dust has an impact on our lung microbiome.
“You might be more susceptible to a bacterial disease in your lungs. You might be more susceptible to a respiratory illness because of that exposure,” said Aronson, adding that the lung microbiome is not well understood but is considered important to our overall health.
Castillo said that during the 10 years she has lived in Salton City, both of her children were diagnosed with asthma.
According to a UC Riverside study published in 2022, communities surrounding the Salton Sea have higher rates of childhood asthma compared to the rest of the state.
“My son, he was 100% healthy, and he started getting problems after 6 years old,” said Castillo.
Yasuko Hirata is a student at UC Riverside and lives in Imperial County. She said her daughter suffers from severe asthma.
Hirata has been working alongside Aronson because she said she believes the dust from the Salton Sea region is having a direct impact on her family’s health.
“She has to use a nebulizer, and so on days when it is really bad, we can tell,” said Hirata.
Aronson noted that funding for this research has ended. She said the findings are so dramatic that it’s important that the research continues.
“I think it is very timely to begin to understand what effects the dust is having on people’s health,” she said.
Castillo has been equipped with a homemade air filter by UC Riverside. She said she even drives hours away to Mexico to get herbal medicine to address her respiratory symptoms. She doesn’t believe she should have to live like this.
”When people ask us, ‘Why don’t you just move?’ It is because it’s not that easy,” said Castillo. “Our kids live here, our neighbors own their own property, their own houses. We just need someone to come and fix this.”
She said that despite the deterioration she has witnessed in her community, she cares deeply about it. She said she’s going to continue to be an outspoken member of the community, fighting for change.
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