California Gov. Jerry Brown has requested $80 in his new budget for dust mitigation and habitat restoration at the Salton Sea, Jesse Marx and Sammy Roth report:

That’s less than the $150 million local officials wanted, but still far more than the state has ever allocated for restoration projects at the dying lake. The money would come from the $7.5-billion water bond that voters approved in 2014, also known as Proposition 1.

The $80 million would help local agencies complete two plans to address the looming health and environmental consequences of the lake’s slow decline, which is expected to accelerate in 2018 when Colorado River flows are cut off. Those plans involve building a series of wetlands and canals to ring the current shoreline, surrounding a smaller, saltier center lake.

The problems of the Salton Sea are one of the critical unresolved loose bits in long term adaptation to water scarcity on the Colorado River.