The Center Awards: Environmental Award: Alex Welsh

The Center Awards: Environmental Award: Alex Welsh by Aline SmithsonMay 24, 2025

SALTON CITY, CALIFORNIA: Tilapia beds on the edge of the Salton Sea. A steady influx of Colorado River water flows into the terminal lake in the form of agricultural runoff from surrounding farms. However, because the Salton Sea has no natural outlet and no way to rid itself of solutes leftover from evaporation, the lake has become highly saline over time. Currently, it is roughly twice as salty as the ocean and few species of fish can tolerate the water. Massive fish die-offs have become a common occurrence in the summer months: in 1999, 7.4 million tilapia washed up on the shore in a single day, sending a sulfurous odor that reached Los Angeles 150 miles away. As the lake continues to dry up and rising salinity levels threaten the fate of the remaining fish and migratory birds that feed on them, researchers are concerned that the resulting ecosystem collapse could increase the toxicity of the playa’s emissions, exacerbating the threat to human health in the region.

© Alex Welsh, SALTON CITY, CALIFORNIA: Tilapia beds on the edge of the Salton Sea. A steady influx of Colorado River water flows into the terminal lake in the form of agricultural runoff from surrounding farms. However, because the Salton Sea has no natural outlet and no way to rid itself of solutes leftover from evaporation, the lake has become highly saline over time. Currently, it is roughly twice as salty as the ocean and few species of fish can tolerate the water. Massive fish die-offs have become a common occurrence in the summer months: in 1999, 7.4 million tilapia washed up on the shore in a single day, sending a sulfurous odor that reached Los Angeles 150 miles away. As the lake continues to dry up and rising salinity levels threaten the fate of the remaining fish and migratory birds that feed on them, researchers are concerned that the resulting ecosystem collapse could increase the toxicity of the playa’s emissions, exacerbating the threat to human health in the region.

The CENTER Awards recognize outstanding images, singular or part of a series. The Environmental Award recognizes work focusing on the state of the environment. Topics may include, but are not limited to, conservation, biodiversity, ecology, climate change or other issues concerning the natural world.

Congratulations to Alex Welsh for being selected for CENTER’s Environmental Award recognizing his project, Salton Sea. As California’s largest lake dries up, residents in one of the state’s poorest and most environmentally burdened regions have been breathing its shoreline’s toxic dust for years.

The Award includes Review Santa Fe participation, Publication in LENSCRATCH, Professional Development Seminars access, Inclusion in the printed Program Guide, and Inclusion in the CENTER Winners Gallery & Archive.

JUROR: Alice Gabriner • Consulting Director, The Center for Contemporary Documentation shares her thoughts on the selection:

As this year’s judge of CENTER’s Environmental Award, I reviewed hundreds of photographs across all genres—from artists inspired by the natural world to documentarians capturing its ecological shifts.

The most compelling for me was Alex Welsh’s Salton Sea. His series on California’s largest lake—now drying under climate-driven drought—blends documentary rigor with poetic imagery to turn a local crisis into a global parable.

Welsh brings a strong aesthetic voice and a deft command of color. He weaves sequential frames into a story of loss and resilience. His deep understanding of the issues—and the time he’s devoted to gaining access and building relationships—are evident.

While reviewing the submissions, I gravitated toward work that exhibited the strongest aesthetics and frame-to-frame consistency. Each image deepened the meaning, letting me grasp the photographer’s intent before even reading their statement.

After three years running a nonprofit documenting environmental issues in the U.S., I believe that even in our oversaturated media landscape, we still need images that reveal urgent truths and document our planet’s vulnerability. Alex Welsh’s work on the Salton Sea clearly shows the connections between climate change, ecological crisis, and its consequences for human health.

JUROR BIO: Alice Gabriner is the Consulting Director of The Center for Contemporary Documentation, a non-profit whose mission is to visually document environmental issues in the United States.

For over 30 years, Gabriner was a photo editor at publications including TIME and National Geographic. She freelanced at The New Yorker, The New York Times, Reuters, and Magnum. Her work has been recognized with an Emmy Award in the Outstanding New Approaches Documentary category, four National Magazine awards, World Press Photo awards, multiple editing awards from the University of Missouri, POYi competition, and she was nominated as a Lucie Award Photo Editor of the Year.

She served as Deputy Director of Photography in the Obama White House and is currently a faculty member at The International Center of Photography. Gabriner has curated exhibitions worldwide and has collaborated with photographers on editing for books.

Portrait of Alex Welsh

Salton Sea

As drought fueled by climate change batters the American West, evaporation and a decreased inflow of agricultural runoff from surrounding farms are causing California’s Salton Sea to shrink. Today, the state’s largest and most polluted lake teeters on the brink of ecological collapse. Residents living in its vicinity face the threat of toxic dust. As the soil dries and the winds stir, the lake’s parched shores emit hazardous dust laced with arsenic, selenium and pesticides—remnants of a century’s worth of agricultural runoff. Respiratory illness in the area is already widespread, and in Imperial County, children visit emergency rooms for asthma-related symptoms at double the average statewide rate. The lake’s future now stands at a precipice: protracted drought and reductions in inflow from the overextended Colorado River threaten to accelerate the beleaguered lake’s decline. If the shoreline continues to recede, an estimated 100 tons of lung-damaging dust could blow off its shores daily by 2045.

The circumstances at the Salton Sea represent a microcosm of an alarming global phenomenon: Earth’s largest lakes are drying out. According to a 2023 study published in the journal Science, over half of the planet’s large lakes have diminished in size over the last three decades, and approximately one-quarter of the population worldwide currently resides in the basin of one of these shrinking water bodies. Terminal lakes—landlocked bodies of water that have no drainage like the Salton Sea—are particularly vulnerable to climatic and agronomic stressors. A combination of evaporation and water diversion has caused Lake Chad in Central Africa to shrink by 90%, leaving behind a desert region that is currently one of the largest sources of dust on the planet. Lake Urmia in northwest Iran has diminished to 10% of its former size, and both the Aral Sea in Central Asia and Lake Poopó in Bolivia have completely disappeared.

Expansive and productive farmland surrounds the Salton Sea. Home to a large population of Latinx and Indigenous Mexican agricultural workers, the region is one of the most environmentally burdened and economically disadvantaged in California. My project is a photographic examination of the interrelated environmental and public health crisis unfolding as a result of the shrinking lake, a phenomenon reflective of a larger global reality where pollution, ecological degradation, and climate change compound existing social inequities and force marginalized communities to bear the disproportionate brunt of their negative impacts.

MEDIUM: Photography – Inkjet prints of various sizes.

©Alex Welsh, John Paul Castro, 9, takes his nebulizer to treat his asthma at his home in El Centro. His mother, Cindy Aguilera, who has lived in El Centro for 11 years, has six children ranging from ages 9 to 18, all of whom have asthma. The most recent State of the Air report by the American Lung Association gave Imperial County an “F” due to high levels of particulate pollution in the air. According to a 2024 study published in the journal Environmental Research, nearly one-quarter of children residing near the Salton Sea have asthma.

Alex Welsh (b. 1986) is a freelance photojournalist covering a broad range of assignment work across Southern California. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, he lived and worked in New York City for nine years before relocating to Los Angeles in 2018, where he is currently based. His long-term projects probe societal notions of progress through the examination of entrenched structural inequality. Since 2018, he’s been covering the Salton Sea, creating a visual survey circumnavigating the lake in its entirety, exploring issues around climate change, environmental stewardship, resource extraction and ecological degradation.

Instagram: @alexwelshphoto

CALIPATRIA, CALIFORNIA: Sprawled across the Sonoran Desert, the Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when the Colorado River breached an irrigation canal and flooded an ancient endorheic basin. The 316 square-mile lake has since been maintained largely by agricultural runoff from farms in the Imperial Valley, but it’s shoreline has receded 21,000 acres in the last 15 years and over the next 30 years the lake is projected to shrink by about a third.

© Alex Welsh, CALIPATRIA, CALIFORNIA: Sprawled across the Sonoran Desert, the Salton Sea came into existence in 1905 when the Colorado River broke through an irrigation canal and spilled into an ancient endorheic basin. The 316-square-mile lake has since been primarily maintained by agricultural runoff from surrounding farms. However, the shoreline has receded by 21,000 acres in the last 15 years.

EL CENTRO, CALIFORNIA: Firefighters in El Centro transport a possible COVID-19 patient from their home. In the summer of 2020, Imperial County, just south of the Salton Sea, emerged as a COVID-19 hot spot with the highest death rate in the state. Over the past few years, the communities around the Salton Sea made vulnerable by ecological disaster were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic as well. Studies have linked polluted air, like that present around the Salton Sea, with a higher mortality rate from COVID-19.

© Alex Welsh, EL CENTRO, CALIFORNIA: Firefighters in El Centro transport a possible COVID-19 patient from their home. In the summer of 2020, Imperial County, just south of the Salton Sea, emerged as a COVID-19 hot spot with the highest death rate in the state. Over the past few years, the communities around the Salton Sea made vulnerable by ecological disaster were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic as well. Studies have linked polluted air, like that present around the Salton Sea, with a higher mortality rate from COVID-19.

BOMBAY BEACH, CALIFORNIA: A sign welcoming visitors to Bombay Beach. The shoreline of Bombay Beach, once deemed California’s version of The French Riviera, was destroyed in a series of floods in the 1970’s. As the lake spiraled into ecological disaster, tourists and residents eventually fled. According to 2020 census data, Bombay Beach's population is now only 231.

© Alex Welsh, BOMBAY BEACH, CALIFORNIA: A sign welcoming visitors to Bombay Beach. The shoreline of Bombay Beach, once deemed California’s version of The French Riviera, was destroyed in a series of floods in the 1970’s. As the lake spiraled into ecological disaster, tourists and residents eventually fled. According to 2020 census data, Bombay Beach’s population is now only 231.

THERMAL, CALIFORNIA: Cecilia Cruz bathes her daughter, Daleyda, with bottled water that she preheated beforehand inside the family’s trailer at the Oasis Mobile Home Park in Thermal, California, located a few miles north of the Salton Sea. In 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency found that the park’s drinking water supply was contaminated with arsenic at nearly 10 times the allowable limit and residents have since been warned not to use it for drinking, cooking, bathing, or brushing their teeth. Beyond exposure to the lake’s toxic dust, residents living in the broader region face a myriad of additional environmental health hazards. In the East Coachella Valley, just north of the lake, many residents rely on wells for drinking water that are chronically contaminated with high levels of arsenic.

© Alex Welsh, THERMAL, CALIFORNIA: Cecilia Cruz bathes her daughter, Daleyda, with bottled water that she preheated beforehand inside the family’s trailer at the Oasis Mobile Home Park in Thermal, California, located a few miles north of the Salton Sea. In 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency found that the park’s drinking water supply was contaminated with arsenic at nearly 10 times the allowable limit and residents have since been warned not to use it for drinking, cooking, bathing, or brushing their teeth. Beyond exposure to the lake’s toxic dust, residents living in the broader region face a myriad of additional environmental health hazards. In the East Coachella Valley, just north of the lake, many residents rely on wells for drinking water that are chronically contaminated with high levels of arsenic.

DESERT SHORES, CALIFORNIA: A red algae bloom on the shores of the Salton Sea. In addition to the toxic dust coming off its lakebed, some experts are concerned about the health affects of biological aerosols that develop from bacteria in the lake’s waters. Over the past several decades, fertilizers from farms in the surrounding Imperial Valley dumped into the Salton Sea have accelerated the process of eutrophication in its waters, resulting in a series of massive algae blooms that deplete the lake’s oxygen, killing fish and birds.

© Alex Welsh, DESERT SHORES, CALIFORNIA: A red algae bloom on the shores of the Salton Sea. In addition to the toxic dust coming off its lakebed, some experts are concerned about the health affects of biological aerosols that develop from bacteria in the lake’s waters. Over the past several decades, fertilizers from farms in the surrounding Imperial Valley dumped into the Salton Sea have accelerated the process of eutrophication in its waters, resulting in a series of massive algae blooms that deplete the lake’s oxygen, killing fish and birds.

THERMAL, CALIFORNIA: Attendees at a wedding in Thermal, California. While the population at the lake’s shoreline has plummeted in the past decades, the lithium boom could bring a sizable new work force to the region, potentially doubling the amount of people living in the Salton Sea airshed in the coming years.

© Alex Welsh, THERMAL, CALIFORNIA: Attendees at a wedding in Thermal, California. While the population at the lake’s shoreline has plummeted in the past decades, the lithium boom could bring a sizable new work force to the region, potentially doubling the amount of people living in the Salton Sea airshed in the coming years.

NORTH SHORE, CALIFORNIA: As the Salton Sea’s ecosystem deteriorates, a paradox emerges: aquifers beneath its lakebed contain one of the world’s largest deposits of lithium, a key resource in the production of electric vehicle batteries and a critical component in the fight to combat climate change. Efforts to extract the estimated 18 million metric tons from geothermal brine are already underway. Yet despite its transformative potential, skepticism about the economic benefit and concerns regarding the environmental impact persists among residents. While sourcing the mineral from the lake’s geothermal brine is comparatively less environmentally harmful than other extraction methods, diverting water from agriculture to use in lithium production could further deplete the lake.

© Alex Welsh, NORTH SHORE, CALIFORNIA: As the Salton Sea’s ecosystem deteriorates, a paradox emerges: aquifers beneath its lakebed contain one of the world’s largest deposits of lithium, a key resource in the production of electric vehicle batteries and a critical component in the fight to combat climate change. Efforts to extract the estimated 18 million metric tons from geothermal brine are already underway. Yet despite its transformative potential, skepticism about the economic benefit and concerns regarding the environmental impact persists among residents. While sourcing the mineral from the lake’s geothermal brine is comparatively less environmentally harmful than other extraction methods, diverting water from agriculture to use in lithium production could further deplete the lake.

BRAWLEY, CALIFORNIA: Ricardo and Kathryn Nigos receive nebulizer treatments together in the emergency room of Pioneers Memorial Hospital in Brawley after both suffered asthma attacks that morning. The couple who live in Niland, a town on the southern shore of the Salton Sea, have five kids, all of whom have been diagnosed with asthma. An amalgamation of environmental factors contribute to asthma rates in the county including particulates from pesticides used in farming, smoke from crop burns, and emissions from trucking and cars stalled at the US-Mexico border. As the shoreline of the lake continues to recede, thousands of tons of lung-damaging dust laced with arsenic, selenium and DDT from agricultural runoff into the lake will be added to the county’s already-hazardous air. According to a report by the Pacific Institute, the public health costs in the Imperial Valley could reach $37 billion in the next three decades. Treating chronic respiratory conditions can be particularly expensive. The price tag of an average hospitalization in Imperial County is $16,000.

© Alex Welsh, BRAWLEY, CALIFORNIA: Ricardo and Kathryn Nigos receive nebulizer treatments together in the emergency room of Pioneers Memorial Hospital in Brawley after both suffered asthma attacks that morning. The couple who live in Niland, a town on the southern shore of the Salton Sea, have five kids, all of whom have been diagnosed with asthma. An amalgamation of environmental factors contribute to asthma rates in the county including particulates from pesticides used in farming, smoke from crop burns, and emissions from trucking and cars stalled at the US-Mexico border. As the shoreline of the lake continues to recede, thousands of tons of lung-damaging dust laced with arsenic, selenium and DDT from agricultural runoff into the lake will be added to the county’s already-hazardous air. According to a report by the Pacific Institute, the public health costs in the Imperial Valley could reach $37 billion in the next three decades. Treating chronic respiratory conditions can be particularly expensive. The price tag of an average hospitalization in Imperial County is $16,000.

SALTON CITY, CALIFORNIA: A flooded street after heavy rainfall in Salton City. The Board of Supervisors in Imperial County recently announced they plan to seek federal funds to support the development of the ‘Lithium Valley’ project in hopes to build out the infrastructure to support battery manufacturing in the region. County officials are seeking $50 million to pave roads in the largely rural area where the lithium mining and development is slated to take place.

© Alex Welsh, SALTON CITY, CALIFORNIA: A flooded street after heavy rainfall in Salton City. The Board of Supervisors in Imperial County recently announced they plan to seek federal funds to support the development of the ‘Lithium Valley’ project in hopes to build out the infrastructure to support battery manufacturing in the region. County officials are seeking $50 million to pave roads in the largely rural area where the lithium mining and development is slated to take place.

SALTON CITY, CALIFORNIA: A woman stands in her backyard as a dust storm blows through Salton City, a town on the shore of the lake. A recent study from the University of California Riverside found that the dust coming from the lake’s shores triggered a unique type of inflammatory response in the lungs of mice.

© Alex Welsh, SALTON CITY, CALIFORNIA: A woman stands in her backyard as a dust storm blows through Salton City, a town on the shore of the lake. A recent study from the University of California Riverside found that the dust coming from the lake’s shores triggered a unique type of inflammatory response in the lungs of mice.

BOMBAY BEACH, CALIFORNIA: Geothermal reserves on the lake’s shoreline could contain enough lithium to supply 375 million electric vehicle batteries. The handful of companies involved in developing the extractive processes are projecting they will be able to produce up to 100,000 tons of the precious metal per-year by 2027, potentially generating billions in revenue. But the ‘white gold’ rush for lithium—given the nickname for its silvery-white appearance—is taking place in the backyard of an economically troubled region of the state. Imperial County has the highest unemployment rate in California, and nearly 1 in 4 children live in poverty.

© Alex Welsh, BOMBAY BEACH, CALIFORNIA: Geothermal reserves on the lake’s shoreline could contain enough lithium to supply 375 million electric vehicle batteries. The handful of companies involved in developing the extractive processes are projecting they will be able to produce up to 100,000 tons of the precious metal per year by 2027, potentially generating billions in revenue. But the ‘white gold’ rush for lithium, given the nickname for its silvery-white appearance, is taking place in the backyard of an economically troubled region of the state. According to recent data from California’s Employment Development Department, Imperial County has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state. Nearly a quarter of the county’s children live in poverty.

THERMAL, CALIFORNIA: Hilaria Santiago with her daughters at their old trailer home at the Oasis Mobile Home Park in Thermal, California, located just a few miles north of the Salton Sea. In 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency found that the park’s drinking water supply was contaminated with arsenic at nearly 10 times the allowable limit and residents have since been warned not to use it for drinking, cooking, bathing, or brushing their teeth. Beyond exposure to the lake’s toxic dust, residents living in the broader region face a myriad of other environmental health hazards. In the East Coachella Valley, just north of the lake, many residents rely on wells for drinking water that are chronically contaminated with high levels of arsenic.

© Alex Welsh, THERMAL, CALIFORNIA: Hilaria Santiago with her daughters at their old trailer home at the Oasis Mobile Home Park in Thermal, California, located just a few miles north of the Salton Sea. In 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency found that the park’s drinking water supply was contaminated with arsenic at nearly 10 times the allowable limit and residents have since been warned not to use it for drinking, cooking, bathing, or brushing their teeth. Beyond exposure to the lake’s toxic dust, residents living in the broader region face a myriad of other environmental health hazards. In the East Coachella Valley, just north of the lake, many residents rely on wells for drinking water that are chronically contaminated with high levels of arsenic.

SALTON CITY, CALIFORNIA: New residential homes under construction in Salton City, a few blocks from the shore of the Salton Sea. Originally developed in the 1960s as a resort town, the city never reached fruition following the decline of the lake and was largely abandoned. However, in the past decade, the population has increased slightly due to the booming California housing market. Even with the lake in decline, the town’s population in the 2020 census was up 5,155 from 3,763 in 2010.

© Alex Welsh, SALTON CITY, CALIFORNIA: New residential homes under construction in Salton City, a few blocks from the shore of the Salton Sea. Originally developed in the 1960s as a resort town, the city never reached fruition following the decline of the lake and was largely abandoned. However, in the past decade, the population has increased slightly due to the booming California housing market. Even with the lake in decline, the town’s population in the 2020 census was up 5,155 from 3,763 in 2010.

NORTH SHORE, CALIFORNIA: A sign from an abandoned gas station on the shore of the Salton Sea.

SALTON CITY, CALIFORNIA: Kids hunt for Easter eggs in an empty plot of land in Salton City, California.

SALTON CITY, CALIFORNIA: A sign advertising lots for sale on the shore of the Salton Sea.

COACHELLA, CALIFORNIA: Michelle Dugan, 27, takes a nebulizer treatment wearing a High Frequency Chest Wall Oscillation therapy vest to loosen the mucus in her chest. Dugan has suffered from lifelong asthma that has damaged her lungs so badly she became a candidate for a lung transplant. In 2009, her sister Marie died from a fatal asthma attack in El Centro, California.

© Alex Welsh, COACHELLA, CALIFORNIA: Michelle Dugan, 27, takes a nebulizer treatment wearing a High Frequency Chest Wall Oscillation therapy vest to loosen the mucus in her chest. Dugan has suffered from lifelong asthma that has damaged her lungs so badly she became a candidate for a lung transplant. In 2009, her sister Marie died from a fatal asthma attack in El Centro, California.

Tags: Alex Welsh, Environment