Well, we seem to know why the Salton Sea sickens people

The findings are tentative, and are definitely needing — and getting — more research.

But, and this is a surprise to me, too — it's NOT, at least not directly, agrichemical related, as in it's not herbicides or pesticides causing this.

Rather, what causes asthma-like, but not actually asthmatic, symptoms in people living around the sea?

Researcher David Lo says it appears to be a bacterially-generated toxin, and that it's one that is likely produced at other evaporating inland endoheic lakes.

Now, it may be indirectly agriculture related, in that, like algae blooms, the bacterium producing the toxin may feed on phosphorus from excess fertilizer runoff.

Lo said it's bad enough that he thinks people in the worst spots, as in, Brawley, should wear N95 masks. Having been to Bombay Beach, on the shore, and the Bono NWR near Brawley, in the past year, I'll keep that in mind.