About five times a year we fly a small private plane from Arizona to California and back, and our route often takes us just to the north of the Salton Sea (HCN, 3/03/08). We've often wondered what it's like on the ground. Now we know, and we don't need to land to see it for ourselves. It sounds as if it's an environmental problem with potential for greater future harm to both people and wildlife.

Is there not some way to harvest the salt, but save the water and put it back into the lake? We've seen the big man-made salt beds on the west coast of Baja, for example, where front loaders shovel the salt into trucks and barges for shipment. Salt is apparently a needed commodity. Could they not build similar salt beds next to the Salton Sea? And salvage some of the water by funneling it back to the lake? Or what about building a roof over the salt beds to condense the water and funnel it back to the lake while also harvesting the salt?

Janet L. Gore
Phoenix, Arizona