The once-beautiful Salton Sea is the biggest lake in California, and it teemed with water, fish, and tourists just a few decades ago. However, it has since become the biggest environmental disaster in California’s history, with sulfide smells keeping tourists away.
The Salton Sea in Southern California has been notorious for its pungent odor and environmental
issues.
And today's David Lam has more on the cause and effects of the phenomenon.
The once beautiful Salton Sea, named after the sultan town it has once engulfed, is the
biggest man-made lake in California.
It was once filled with water, fish, and tourism.
Now it's become smellier along with its abandonment.
Ron Malinowski, the caretaker of the nearby Salvation Mountain, shares with NTD how this
lake, resting at 227 feet below sea level, came about.
The Colorado River spillway broke, creating a new river, creating the Salton Sea, but
it was all on salted ground.
But this is not the only time the Salton Sea got covered with water.
It has happened before, too.
Even longer ago, this was all underwater.
The hill that makes Salvation Mountain, that was all underwater at one time.
And so, now today it's a desert.
With the formation of new rivers from the Colorado River spillway, whitewater and Alamo,
combined with agricultural runoff, they keep the lake from drying up.
But since the introduction of fertilizers and farming, they've also found their way
into the lake, contributing to a very high growth in surface algae in the Salton Sea.
Carolyn Hung, doctoral candidate and researcher at UC Riverside, shares the effects of this
high growth.
When these algae, plant matter, they decay, the bacteria would consume it, and along with
that, the oxygen in the water would be consumed during this decay process of the plant matter.
Without oxygen, the sulfate-reducing bacteria goes through an anaerobic metabolism, which
creates sulfide.
This, along with lack of oxygen, was detrimental to the Salton Sea.
The sulfide getting produced is also a toxin to the fish.
And that's why the fish died in mass numbers.
I think in one LA Times article in 1999, it was like 7.9 million fish died in one single
day.
They basically got poisoned by the sulfide release.
The sulfide also led to the rotting smell that many, including Ron, are complaining
about.
But despite the stenching, the released sulfide isn't as harmful as some may think.
I don't think the sulfide release will pose any serious health issues.
With the Salton Sea becoming more of an environmental wasteland, what can we do about it?
I definitely think the government can do something about this in terms of water policy, because
right now, the California State Assembly actually has a legislature written such that
basically designating Salton Sea for agricultural collection.
And that is fine, but the drainage that goes into the lake needs to be treated, but right
now it is not treated.
Efforts to bring back the Salton Sea by the government were taken over two decades ago,
but it has been to no avail.
Sonny Mono, Sonny and Cher, was the mayor of Palm Springs, and he tried to save the
Salton Sea, and he was bringing it back, and it didn't work.
Sometimes you can't fight nature.
Nature does what it does.
The Salton Sea is designated as an agricultural collection site, and because it's a vastly
abandoned place, it remains to be seen whether California will treat the Salton Sea's waters
and potentially revive this beloved miracle in the desert, a once great lake roaring with
life and tourist attractions.
David Lam and Jimmy Ma, Antity News, California.
For more information, visit www.fema.gov.
