Air Sciences Inc. is collaborating with Brigham Young University graduate student Stephen Tyler on an expert survey examining the public-health implications of receding terminal saline lakes.
Owens Lake, located in eastern California’s Owens Valley, has undergone a remarkable transformation from a once dust-prone landscape to one of the largest and most successful air quality restoration projects in the world. Once an area that generated severe dust (PM10) pollution and health risks for surrounding communities, Owens Lake is now a model for environmental recovery and sustainable management.
Thinking about deserts usually conjures up images of sand and wind—not water. However, in the high desert region in western Nevada, you will find Pyramid Lake. One of the largest natural lakes in the state, this body of water exists entirely within the boundaries of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe’s reservation, which is about 35 miles northeast of Reno.
In our last post on this topic we left off asking the question, “given how much wildland fires change year to year, how do we build an emissions inventory (EI) that is representative of a multi-year period, or a future period?” This is a confounding problem not only for the Regional Haze planning process but for any air quality planning exercise that a regulatory agency engages with.
For centuries, humans used mercury to extract gold or silver. Incredibly dangerous if inhaled directly, mercury also poses an environmental burden when it is released into the atmosphere or ends up in water. Mercury release can have natural (from volcanoes and forest fires) or man-made (anthropogenic) origins (power plants and manufacturing). One anthropogenic source linked to Air Sciences’ work is gold mining in Nevada.