Boiling Point: The Salton Sea Lithium Rush
There’s a lithium bonanza happening at the Salton Sea. … The boom started when one of the world’s largest supplies of lithium was discovered one mile below the dying lake. The metal is required to produce electric car batteries and is essential to reducing carbon emissions. Yet lost in the excitement about the money and new jobs that the mining projects could bring are the concerns of the people who live there. The impoverished area — which is more than 80% Latino — already has a childhood asthma rate that is more than twice the national average. The asthma cases have been tied to the toxic dust created as the Salton Sea recedes from lack of water. And some local residents fear that the number of respiratory cases could soar even higher as the lithium mining projects drink up more of the area’s much fought over allocation from the Colorado River.