ear the southern horn of San Francisco Bay, hectares of shallow ponds the color of blood, pumpkin pie, and murky emerald stretch out across crusty salt flats in an aqueous patchwork. The tang of salt air swirls through the autumn air. A flock of seagulls laze on an earthen dyke separating two rectangular pools filled with the Bay's backwater. Scrubby hills stretch beyond one pond's salty banks.
The Cargill food company manages these evaporation ponds, used to produce salt for more than a century. But one day, these ponds could be important for other reasons. The calmness of the scene is belied by vortices of colorful, microscopic algae, churning in the water.
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