Saving the ailing Salton Sea
Bruce Wilcox, environmental manager with the Imperial Irrigation District, looks toward the dry lake bottom of the Salton Sea at what’s known as Red Hill Marina. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Bruce Wilcox, environmental manager with the Imperial Irrigation District scoops up a mud-algae sample from the hot bubbling sulfur mud pots on the southeast shore of the Salton Sea. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
After 2017, the risk of the Salton Sea’s receding increases further after water delivery from the Imperial Irrigation District ends. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Steam rises from a geothermal electric generating plant on the southeast shore of the Salton Sea. Extracting geothermal energy requires drilling wells to tap into the Earth’s heat and water. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
A flock of Cattle Egrets takes flight near a geothermal electric generating plant on the shore of the Salton Sea. Migratory birds and water fowl use the sea. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
A pair of Ruddy Ducks pass a Great Blue Heron that waits for fish in a man-made marsh pond on the shore of the Salton Sea. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
A mature Snowy Egret, left, and a young Egret taking flight from a fresh-water canal near the Salton Sea. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
A Snowy Egret is illuminated by the late-afternoon sun near the southeast shore of the Salton Sea. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
White pelicans, black cormorants and gulls take flight in a marshy area of the Salton Sea. The sea attracts hundreds of species of shore birds and migratory water fowl each year. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Wild ducks fly in formation over the Salton Sea. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Steam rises from geothermal power-generating plants on the shore of the Salton Sea. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)