Dust Storms An Increasing Problem Around The Salton Sea

Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, October 1, 2025…

• Around the Salton Sea, dust storms have become an increasing problem, sparking dozens of public health studies. But many Imperial Valley residents have grown weary of repeated studies that all basically say the same thing: that the air quality is bad and getting worse. One group of scientists is trying to focus on solutions instead. 
• National Parks are once again caught up in the middle of the federal government shutdown. During the last shutdown – for more than 30 days in 2018 and 2019 – parks that remained open were unstaffed, leading to widespread vandalism and environmental damage.

The Race To Understand The Salton Sea’s Dust Storms

Amato Evan was in the desert when the dust storm arrived. Evan was near Ocotillo Wells, in the western foothills of the Imperial Valley. The winds approached from the West as the sun was setting, stirring up the powdery soil. Suddenly, the dust was all around them. Evan tried to keep an eye on the ground, but he could barely see where he was going. His heart raced.

Evan had prepared for this moment. As a professor of atmospheric sciences at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, he researches the physics of dust storms for a living. He’d traveled to the Imperial Valley in mid-May to study the storm’s activity. Even still, he was nervous. “The visibility was so bad,” Evan recalled in an interview with KPBS later that week. “I’m like, ‘Oh man … I might just have to stop and wait a couple hours.’”

At least eight major dust storms have erupted in the Imperial Valley and the neighboring Coachella Valley since the turn of the century, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Half of those storms have taken place in just the last five years. The events, also known as haboobs, can make travel hazardous and cause accidents or leave people stranded in remote areas. They can also carry harmful particles that burrow deep into the lungs.

For more than a decade, scientists like Evan have been trying to better understand the health impacts of these storms. Researchers have examined the density of particles in the air, asthma rates in nearby towns and increased strain on the region’s fragile health care system. But many Imperial Valley residents have grown weary of studies that all seem to reach basically the same conclusion — that the impacts of dust storms are bad and getting worse. Instead, some advocates have urged researchers to look beyond merely diagnosing problems and develop projects that could make a material difference on what it means to live and work in the Valley.

‘Going to Be Chaos’: Advocates Alarmed By Last-Minute National Parks Shutdown Plans

The federal government shut down at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, after Congress failed to pass stop-gap government funding by Tuesday’s deadline.

And with hours to go, the National Park Service shared a last-minute contingency plan that would keep many park sites open but without full staffing. According to an internal NPS memo obtained by KQED, national park sites that can be made physically inaccessible to the public will be closed off. But all other NPS sites, including those with roads and trails that are accessible to the public, will now remain open according to the memo.

An expanded version of the NPS plan was posted online later Tuesday, with an estimate that over 9,000 staff nationwide — out of a total NPS workforce of 14,500 — are expected to be furloughed in the event of a shutdown.

The shutdown will see federal workers around the country — including NPS staff — go without pay, with those employees deemed “essential” required to work through the period regardless. Under the NPS shutdown plan posted online, just over 5,000 NPS staff would be categorized as essential.

Advocates for America’s national parks have expressed alarm at the last-minute nature of this planning for park closures. Superintendents were only informed during a meeting late Tuesday afternoon about which sites would remain open — followed by the email memo shortly after — according to Jesse Chakrin, executive director of the Fund for People in Parks, an advocacy group that works with small or lesser-known parks in the West. Chakrin said this is the tightest turnaround for shutdown planning he’s seen by a large margin. “They’re asking for each park unit to make a plan, including staffing numbers and associated costs for a shutdown, which is happening in hours,” he said.