It was once a thriving lakeshore; now it's toxic and poisoning residents. Mining lithium might offer a solution.

In the Imperial Valley of southeast California, community members are seeking a solution to the harmful effects of the Salton Sea, reports Jill Johnston and Shohreh Farzan for The Conversation. In addition to emitting a foul smell that permeates neighborhoods, chemical blow-off from the drying lake bed is causing lung problems in children.

Formed in the early 1900s when the Colorado River flooded and breached an irrigation canal, the Salton Sea has been kept afloat by contaminated irrigation runoff from the Imperial Valley's agricultural region, which contains fertilizers, pesticides, salt and toxic metals. What was once a thriving tourist and celebrity attraction in the 1950s is now a toxic, shrinking lake.

“As the lake shrinks, wind blowing across the exposed lake bed kicks up toxic dust left by years of agriculture chemicals and metals washing into the lake,” Johnston and Farzan report. “That dust makes its way into the lungs of the children of the Imperial Valley.” 

Findings show the Imperial Valley children's respiratory health symptoms. (Chart via The Conversation CC, data from Jill Johnston 2024 environmental research, Click to enlarge)

They even found the effects on lung function near the Salton Sea are greater than what studies find in urban California areas by busy roadways.

Their study following 700 elementary school-age children across five northern Imperial Valley cities for several years shows higher rates of air pollution were linked to overall poorer respiratory health and children living closer to the sea had poorer lung function. They also report 1 in 5, or 20% of, children in the Imperial Valley have asthma, which is much higher than the national rate of 5.4-7%.

One solution to the deteriorating quality of life in the Imperial Valley is a well-done lithium extraction facility, community members told Soumya Karlamangla at The New York Times. The Salton Sea sits on top of $500 billion worth of lithium, enough to provide the entire nation’s demand for decades, Karlamangla explains. The U.S. currently imports most of its lithium as it only has one active lithium mine in Nevada.

The Imperial Valley region has crumbling infrastructure and a high unemployment rate. “The lithium companies could collectively create 1,000 construction jobs and 700 permanent operations jobs,” Karlamangla reports.

Residents worry that a lithium extraction will cause the air pollution to worsen and require more use of the community’s depleting fresh water source, especially if not done correctly, Karlamangla reports. Currently, three companies are trying to extract the metal, but lawsuits from environmental groups and broken promises from geothermal and solar industries have slowed the process.

One company expects to commercially extract lithium by 2028, and the California State Legislature authorized a tax on each pound of lithium extracted, giving 80% to Imperial County communities and 20% to the state for Salton Sea restoration efforts, reports Karlamangla.