Salton Sea Rotten Egg Smell Discourages Visitors, Attracts New Economic Development

A once beautiful lake teeming with water, fish, and tourists has become California’s smelliest environmental challenge.

A Salton City sign on the beach in Salton City on Aug. 8, 2024. Jimmy Ma/NTD

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.

According to the Imperial Irrigation District, which serves the Imperial Valley, a breach in an irrigation inlet in the Colorado River in 1905 led to a spill that flooded a highly saline area and formed the Salton Sea. Over the century, the body of water became home to fish and migratory birds.

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.

Caroline Hung, a doctoral candidate and researcher at the Lyons Biogeochemistry Lab at UC Riverside, speaks to NTD via online interview on Aug. 7, 2024. Jimmy Ma/NTD

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.

The Salton Sea seen from Bombay Beach, Calif., on Aug. 7, 2024. Jimmy Ma/NTD

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.

In 1998, Congress passed a bill to conduct a study and create a project aimed at reducing and stabilizing salt levels and restoring wildlife while maintaining the Salton Sea as a reservoir for irrigation drainage.

On the state level, California lawmakers have identified potential economic opportunities near the lake. In 2020, legislators passed and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1657, which established a 14-member commission to assess the feasibility of establishing lithium extraction businesses near the Salton Sea.

The push for economic development continues today with the introduction of Assembly Bill 2757, which proposes creating the Southeast California Economic Region to facilitate state and federal collaboration in communities impacted by the extraction of lithium and other minerals from the Salton Sea. The State Senate Appropriations Committee passed AB 2757 on Aug. 15, but the bill still needs Newsom’s signature before becoming law.