Salton Sea is emitting foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide gas, triggering health concerns

[Zorro]

On scorching days when winds blow across the California desert, the Salton Sea regularly gives off a stench of decay resembling rotten eggs.

New research has found that the shrinking lake is emitting the foul-smelling gas hydrogen sulfide more frequently and at higher levels than previously measured.

The findings document how the odors from the Salton Sea add to the air quality problems and health concerns in communities near the lake, where windblown dust drifts from exposed stretches of lakebed and where people suffer from high rates of asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

“The communities around the Salton Sea are on the front lines of a worsening environmental health crisis,” said Mara Freilich, a co-author of the study and assistant professor in Brown University’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences.

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2025-06-10/salton-sea-odor-hydrogen-sulfide

[EYESORE 9001]

1. I once had a job which entailed using hydrogen sulfide as a calibration gas

Even though the gas contained only 400 ppm, it was still gag-inducing.

[VMA131Marine]

3. 100ppm H2S is the threshold for immediate danger.

[EYESORE 9001]

4. Sorry, I mistyped. Make that 40 ppm.

Still made me nauseous. Glad I only had to do it once a week.

[VMA131Marine]

2. Hydrogen Sulfide is also highly toxic to animals

when inhaled.

[Srkdqltr]

5. You think folks should move away? Of course its their business, live there and suffer.

[LauraInLA]

7. There's a lot of farming close by. Farmers were not happy some of "their" irrigation water is now going to reclaiming

dry lakebed.

[LauraInLA]

6. They recently started a project to add water to reclaim some of the dry lake bed.

[Lionel Mandrake]

8. The LA Times article mentions the source of the problem:

Hydrogen sulfide is released as a byproduct of decaying algae and other organic material in the lake, where accumulating fertilizers and other nutrients from agricultural runoff and wastewater feed the growth of algae.

Maybe the farmers can fix the problem, or maybe not.

H2S is insidious. After people are exposed to it for a long time, they can no longer smell it They think the air is clean, but the H2S is continuing to poison them.