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Re:Shrinking Aral Sea by cjensen on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @10:11PM (#10430032)
Mono Lake is smaller than it used to be, but it is growing slowly thanks to legal protections [1].

Owens Lake [2] to the south of Mono Lake is gone. It was larger than Mono Lake. Lake bed salts blown by the wind are pretty toxic, and Los Angeles was required to use some water to reduce dust.

The largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi used to be Tulare Lake [3] in central California. It's gone and the southern San Joaquin Valley no longer drains to the ocean. Salts and other junk is slowly building up.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Audubon_Society_v._Su...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owens_Lake

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake

Re:Shrinking Aral Sea by mc32 on Wednesday October 21, 2015 @10:18PM (#10430057)
On the other hand, the Salton Sea didn't exist before the engineering accident which created it.
Re:Shrinking Aral Sea by greglindahl on Thursday October 22, 2015 @02:37AM (#10430727)
The most recent incarnation was created by an accident, sure. The lake has existed many times in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea#History