SALTON CITY, Calif.— The Salton Sea is one of the largest lakes in California, and it teemed with water, fish, and tourists just a few decades ago. However, over the last three decades, the body of water has become a major ecological challenge, with sulfide smells now keeping tourists away.
Resting at 227 feet below sea level, the area’s unique location and surrounding topography led to a cycle in which the lake formed, dried out, and reformed. However, decades-long drought conditions and modern agricultural development in the surrounding valleys have reduced freshwater inflows while making the lake a sink for agricultural runoff, including artificial fertilizers and pesticides. While this runoff keeps the lake from drying up completely, the chemicals have created a persistent sulfide smell and surface algae growth.
“Because the Salton Sea is shallowing rapidly, the late overturns mix a lot more often than is used to, which is why the sulfide smell is now more persistent. It starts in the spring and persists all through the summer,” Caroline Hung, a doctoral candidate and researcher at the Lyons Biogeochemistry Lab at UC Riverside, told NTD, a sister media of The Epoch Times. She said that as algae matter decays, bacteria that consume the decay reduce oxygen levels in the water.
The lack of oxygen causes the sulfate-reducing bacteria to go through an anaerobic metabolism that produces hydrogen sulfide, methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen. Hydrogen sulfide is known for being a colorless gas that smells similar to rotten eggs. “The sulfide getting produced is also toxic to the fish, and that’s why the fish died in mass numbers,” Hung said.
According to the Salton Sea Authority, algae-eating tilapia and indigenous pupfish are probably the only fish species still living in the lake. While sulfide release does not pose any serious health issues, Hung said treating the drainage water to remove fertilizers and chemical runoff could reduce algae blooms and smell. Since the 1990s, the federal government and local California leaders have made efforts to restore the Salton Sea, but “sometimes you can’t fight nature.
Nature does what it does,” Ron Malinowski, caretaker of the Salvation Mountain project, told NTD. The late singer, actor, and congressman Sonny Bono led early efforts to raise national awareness about the emerging ecological concerns with agricultural runoff flowing into the lake. “[Sonny] tried to save the Salton Sea, and he was bringing it back, and it didn’t work,” said Malinowski.
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