From SDSU Foundation

January 15, 1999

Contact: Stephanie Boyd

(619) 594-8761 or (619) 594-8762

 

New SDSU Project Aims to Save the Salton Sea

 

New research efforts were launched today that target saving the Salton Sea from extinction, according to SDSU Foundation. Scientists from San Diego State University will lead the Salton Sea restoration program using federal grants totaling nearly one million dollars. The largest lake in California is currently plagued with high salinity, nutrient levels and diseases that are killing fish and birds there. The ultimate goal of the project is to provide sound scientific information that will offer solutions to the Sea's critical environmental problems.

Funded by the Salton Sea Authority and Environmental Protection Agency, scientists at SDSU will obtain new information on the Sea's algae, invertebrates and fish. This will be incorporated into a report to Congress by December 1999. The report is expected to lead to decisions that will reverse the lake's dying environment in compliance with the Salton Sea Restoration Act.

The program is part of a reconnaissance effort to characterize key components of the ecosystem and provide an on-line and published database for scientific use. This effort will provide the first comprehensive analysis of the Sea's ecology since the 1950s.

"A major goal of the program is to inventory the species present in the system and to determine seasonal changes in their abundance from one part of the lake to another," said Dr. Stuart Hurlbert, Center for Inland Waters and Department of Biology at SDSU. The project also will investigate the distribution, growth rates and reproductive biology of fish in the Sea.

"Some algae species are toxic and may be contributing to the massive fish and bird die-offs that have become a frequent occurrence at the Sea," he said. "The health of these fish populations is important not only to the Sea's popular sport fishing, but to the tens of thousands of fish-eating birds that live there."

SDSU Foundation is the largest auxiliary in the CSU system receiving more than 92.7 million dollars in grants and contracts from federal, state, local, and corporate sources in FY 1997-1998.

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