STOCKTON-

If you take a close look at Stockton Waterfront, the water is fluorescent green and swirling with algae.

Many are staying away from the area, not because the water is green, but because it stinks.

“Garbage,” longtime resident Gary Trujillo, who remembers the algae from swimming as a child, said Tuesday. “That’s what it would smell like to me. “Garbage.”

Others say it smells like dead fish.

Professor Nena Hewitt, a microbiologist at the University of the Pacific, says the algae is here because of a number of factors.

It’s the nearby farmland, the summer’s heat and the state’s drought.

The smelly goop is being scooped up by Municipal Utilities, according to the city. The State Water Resources Control Board says algae blooms are natural.

As summer winds down and temperatures drop, the algae should start disappearing.