An editorial in today's Los Angeles Times makes the case for saving the Salton Sea. In addition to the hazards of releasing dust from the lake's bottom onto Southern California, the editorial notes the importance of the Salton Sea to wildlife:

Besides, as odd as it may seem, the accidental lake has become a main stop for migrating birds on the Pacific Flyway, which extends from Alaska to the tip of South America. It is for those birds, perhaps, a substitute for Tulare Lake, now virtually forgotten but once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi, between Bakersfield and Fresno, before farmers began diverting its waters for agriculture — at just about the same time farmers further south were inadvertently creating the Salton Sea.