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As the Salton Sea shrinks — exposing land that was once underwater to desert winds — one concern has been that increased dust emissions will make already poor air quality worse for nearby residents. A recently published study out of UC Riverside confirms this is already starting to happen. “With drying up of the lake and exposing of the shoreline, we get an additional source of airborne dust,” said UC Riverside associate professor of atmospheric science Roya Bahreini, who led the study. “And exposure to these particles can have health impacts for humans.”

The Municipal Water District of Orange County (MWDOC) is facilitating a water agreement that will bring surplus snowmelt and storm runoff from Northern California to Orange County and give the Groundwater Basin a chance to rebound from historic lows after the drought. Known as a cyclic storage agreement, the arrangement between MWDOC, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and Orange County Water District (OCWD) will recharge the Basin to its highest level since 2007 and ensure the Orange County Basin is healthy enough to stave off another drought.

Randy Brown became the first person to hike the 116-mile perimeter of the Salton Sea in June 2015. Now Brown’s hike, which he completed during 105 to 110-degree weather, and the problems the sea is facing are the subject of a documentary that is set to debut at the Oceanside Film Festival on Monday.The Salton Sea is California’s largest lake. The sea, which is located in both Imperial and Riverside counties, is shrinking and thus exposing the lakebed that turns into dust when the wind blows.

After seven years and about $40 million in legal costs stemming from lawsuits filed by the San Diego County Water Authority, no ruling to date will noticeably change local water bills or address a single important regional water challenge. All ratepayers lose the longer the Water Authority’s fighting drags on. The court process is not entirely over for these initial cases brought against the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the system that provides about 80 percent of San Diego County’s water supply.

Earlier this month, I attended a meeting of the San Diego Conservation Action Committee on California’s plan to make water conservation a way of life, and was disappointed to hear a familiar refrain from our regional water wholesaler, the San Diego County Water Authority: Why is the state asking us to conserve water when we can build our way out of our water supply woes? It was a position that the Water Authority took at the height of one of the worst droughts California has ever seen.