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Dr. Cheney is attempting to answer the following question: What can we learn from the residents about their experience in living with asthma, and can this help us understand the disease?

There are very few hospitals in the area around the Salton Sea--only two in Imperial County and three in the Coachella Valley.

• In 2003, the Imperial Irrigation District signed the Quantification Settlement Agreement, in which they transferred the water from agricultural runoff that formerly fed the Salton Sea to supply municipalities in Southern California. The agreement kept water flowing into the lake until 2018 in order to give time to come up with ways to mitigate environmental effects of the lake's desiccation. These solutions have not materialized.
• UCR scientists are collecting dust for microbial analysis

• Increased salinity
• Waterfowl dieoffs
• Desiccation produces toxic dust that blows
• Childhood asthma and other respiratory conditions
• 15% of Imperial County residents have asthma
• wind-blown dust can act as a pathway for microbes, fungi, and viruses to enter lungs by attaching to dust particles
• Municipal sewage from Mexicali
• Waste from prisons

The "Disparities in Environmental Exposures and Health Impacts" project has four goals:

1. To establish a community advisory board to provide local stakeholder input;
2. To identify spatial patterns and trends in population exposure and in pollutant transport;
3. To distribute particle collectors at sites that represent the range of sources of particulate matter and to identify the elemental and biological composition of particles;
4. To use environmental chamber exposure studies to develop a protocol for monitoring pulmonary inflammation impacts of aerosol particulates identified from the particle collectors.

• The state of California is responsible for implementing and paying for environmental mitigation projects
• The Colorado River flows through multiple states and countries--all have a stake in extra-local actions

New and Alamo Rivers - transboundary movement

• Investors who left in the first half of the 20th century
• Residents who remained in the area (highly Latinx)
• Labor exploitation, especially of immigrants through programs like the Bracero program
• Indigenous groups - especially the Torres Martinez, 40% of whose land is underneath the Salton Sea
• Agriculture
• Historically not identified as an unwanted land use, which allowed farmers to get away with more than other industries

How are Data Gaps Worked Around:

Sarnia, and the surrounding area around chemical valley, have 9 air monitoring stations in which air pollutants are monitored from the nearby petrochemical complex. Until 2017, only data from one of these stations (the one on Christina Street in downtown Sarnia) was publicly available. This created a gap in accessiblility of important data for sarnia and the nearby AFN residents. In September 2015, the Clean Air Sarnia and Area group launched as a "community advisory panel made up of representatives from the public, government, First Nations, and industry, who are dedicated to providing the community with a clear understanding of ambient air quality in the Sarnia area." This group works to improve air quality in Sarnia by making information about air quality publicly available and by making recommendations to relevant authorities. In 2018, this group launched the website: https://reporting.cleanairsarniaandarea.com/ (also uploaded as an artifact) which allows public to access data from the air quality monitoring stations and understand how air quality compares to Ontario's standards. This site works to fill the gap of publicly available air quality data in Sarnia.

This report from Ecojustice shows a decline in air pollution compared to Ecojustice's first report released in 2007 for the area around Chemical Valley, yet Sarnia industries continue "to release far more pollution, and in particular far more SO2 , than comparable U.S. refineries." One contributor to the continued excessive emissions is Ontario's lagging air quality standards. The report notes that "Ontario’s AAQC and air quality standards are lagging behind current science on the health impacts of air pollutants, which may put the health of residents at risk." The report highlights pollutants where Ontario's standard is above the national standard or where Ontario has no standard at all. Additionally, Sarnia's benzene emissions are exempt from Ontario's health-based standard for this chemical and are instead regulated by  "an industry technical-based standard" allowing benzene levels to be far higher than the health-based standard. The lagging, lack of, or exemption from regulation undercut efforts in monitoring and reducing emissions to a "safe" level as what is considered "safe" by standards is out of line with what is considered "safe" by health and other standards.