California’s Salton Sea Is Emitting Way More Toxic Gas Than We Thought

The largest in California and most polluted lakeThe Salton Sea, releases from hydrogen sulfide, a harmful gas, at rates that considerably exceed state quality standards. Alarming, a new study reveals that California air quality monitoring systems can severely underestimate the quantity of toxic pollution reaches people living near the lake.

Hydrogen sulfide, which smells of rotten eggs, related to a multitude of respiratory and neurological symptoms. The new study, published in the journal Geohealthhighlights the risk that Salton Sea emissions represent to neighboring communities, many of which are mainly Latin or Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian.

“The communities around the Salton Sea are on the front line of worsening the environmental health crisis,” said the study co-author, Mara Freilich, deputy professor at Brown University, in a statement. “Our study shows that hydrogen-sulfur emissions are not only more intense than the previous surveillance captured, but they are systematically underdeveloped-especially when the sensors are placed far from the lake or out of alignment on the prevailing winds.”

THE Salton Sea is located about 160 miles (258 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, just east of Palm Springs and the Coachella valley. He was initially formed by accident in 1905, when the Colorado river violated its irrigation canal. He has neither inputs nor natural exits and is, by the law of the state, mainly supported by agricultural runoff responsible for fertilizer and pesticides. The lake has since become just less environmental disaster. Climate change, drought and reduced water inputs have pushed the water levels from the Salton Sea lower and lower Over the past two decades, increasing the production of the hydrogen sulfide lake and toxic boost.

For the study, researchers from Brown University, UCLA, Loma Linda University and UC Berkeley have teamed up with Alianza Coachella Valley, a local community organization, to examine the causes of hydrogen sulfide emissions from the lake.

To measure the emissions, the researchers used data captured by the South Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) monitors, installed by a local agency, in three places and have placed additional sensors in the lake. The study revealed that between 2013 and 2024, the SCAQMD sensors in three places constantly exceeded California air quality standards. Readings culminated during the summer months and in August for each year from 2013 to 2024, Torres Martinez, the site closest to the lake, had an average of more than 250 hours of readings which exceeded state standards.

But even these frightening measures were probably an underestimation, the authors wrote. An air quality sensor deployed in the shallow waters of the lake detected significantly higher concentrations of hydrogen sulfide, especially when the wind was blowing on the sediments exposed and the shallow waters. This suggests that there may be important and neglected sources of hydrogen sulfide that blows in neighboring communities.

“Our results indicate that a large part of [hydrogen-sulfide] The emissions remain unrecovered, potentially transported in communities without air supervision stations, “wrote the researchers.

Among the many communities of the Salton Sea, only three have air quality surveillance sites.

The problem will probably get worse. The attenuation efforts of the Salton Sea have not followed the water levels in smuggler, wrote the authors of the study, leading to “serious health impacts” in an area which already has high levels of asthma and other pulmonary conditions.