The Salton Sea is California's largest and most troubled lake. A victim of geography and hard-ball politics, it lies 227 feet below sea level with no outlet and very thirsty neighbors, including a billion dollar farm economy in the bone-dry Imperial Valley, 124 golf courses, and salt laden wetlands hosting a menagerie of wildlife in growing crisis. Gerd covered the story of this strange, sometimes lethal, oft maligned, oddly beautiful and downright weird lake in the Californian desert for National Geographic's February 2005 issue.