The race is on to strike ‘white gold’ at California’s Salton Sea

By Sammy Roth | Los Angeles Times Link to article

This is the March 18, 2021, edition of Boiling Point, a weekly newsletter about climate change and the environment in California and the American West.

There are few places in California, maybe anywhere, weirder or more wonderful than the Salton Sea.

It’s a sparkling blue oasis in the state’s southeastern corner, framed by harsh desert, jutting mountains and seemingly endless green farm fields. Its modern incarnation was created more than 100 years ago, when the swelling waters of the Colorado River overran an agricultural canal. Now it’s drying up, spewing harmful dust into the Imperial Valley’s already badly polluted air.

There are countless stories to be told around the Salton Sea. To me, one of the most fascinating is about lithium.

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