The Cabazon and Twenty-Nine Palms tribes have joined together to create an air-quality monitoring station in Indio to keep residents better informed about their health. Air quality is a concern in the Coachella Valley, where high levels of smog from Los Angeles hovers and toxic dust rises from the nearby Salton Sea as the water recedes.

For the tribes, that (the Salton Sea) was the driving factor to start looking at developing an air-quality monitoring program,” said Shawn Muir, environmental coordinator for the Twenty-Nine Palms Tribal EPA.

The Salton Sea is about 20 minutes by car from Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians tribal land.