… The area where [Samantha Arthur] stands was underwater three years ago. More polluted shoreline is exposed every day. But behind her, areas planted with salt brush and other native bushes and grasses painted an autumn palette of dun brown, silvery gray and light green. Dust emissions along select edges of the rapidly dwindling lake — about 1,320 acres in the Tule Wash area near Salton City — have now been slashed by 90%, according to Arthur, deputy water secretary for the state natural resources agency, and other elated officials.  They’re tracking data from nearly two dozen gawky looking, instrument-laden monitors placed both downwind and upwind of the aggressive straw bale and native planting program along the western shoreline. Now that they’ve figured out what works, officials say they can replicate the efforts again and again. … But a coalition of researchers and environmental justice groups charged last week that those measures and more rudimentary ones by the Imperial Irrigation District are too little, too late, and will be “obsolete” before they are finally completed.