Saving the ailing Salton Sea

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)