Due to complex water rights laws, increasing salinity, and agricultural pollution, the Salton Sea – California’s largest lake – is an impending environmental catastrophe that threatens the entire Coachella Valley, the Imperial Valley, and the wider state. The communities KDI works with in the Eastern Coachella Valley are among those who stand to be increasingly worse-off physically, economically, and socially, if effective solutions to the environmental challenges presented by the Sea are not implemented quickly.

In 2017, KDI is launching a 3-year campaign in partnership with Building Healthy Communities and residents of the Eastern Coachella Valley that will shine a light on the relationship between residents and the Sea, and especially the challenges this relationship entails.

The campaign will bring together citizen science, resident-led action research, storytelling, and resident-led journalism, culminating in physical interventions to mitigate the environmental injustices presented by the Sea. This first-hand quantitative and qualitative research will be used as an advocacy tool to shape long-term planning at the Sea and ensure that the residents who are most impacted by the Sea are also most involved in designing its future.