CARLSBAD - A maintenance worker drowned while working to clean out a golf resort pond Tuesday morning, authorities said.

The incident was reported at 8:30 a.m. at the La Costa Resort and Spa in the 2100 block of Costa Del Mar Road, a NorthComm fire dispatcher said.

Domingo Lorenzo Ramos, 20, an employee with Environmental Water Management in Santa Ana, was clearing dead algae from the pond when the waist-high waders he was wearing apparently filled with water, weighing and pulling him down, said Dean Fryer, a spokesman with The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

"It looks like he may have slipped," Fryer said.

Medical examiner's investigator James Buckley said Ramos is survived by family in Guadalajara, Mexico. An autopsy will be conducted today.

Police Lt. Kelly Cain said Ramos, who was believed to have been on his first day on the job, was standing in the pond on a 3-ft. lip near a ledge that dropped 14-ft., and possibly stepped off into the deep area.

Some of the other workers that Ramos was with jumped into the acre-sized pond to look for him and called 911 when they could not find him in the water, which was described as muddy and filled with weeds, fire Battalion Chief Mike Kennedy said.

"It was not real clear water," he said. "There was limited to no visibility. Once (fire personnel) were a little bit in the water, they really couldn't see."

Fire Department personnel searched for the man and found his body about 40 minutes later in 12 feet to 15 feet of water, Kennedy said. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 9:38 a.m.

None of the other maintenance workers or responding firefighters were injured, he said.

As part of the ongoing Cal-OSHA investigation, the agency will look at factors such as procedures and training, Fryer said.

"Typically the work should be done in a more shallow part of the water, not a deep part," he said, adding that the exact area where the victim was when he fell remained unclear.

Cal-OSHA investigations typically take two to three months, Fryer said.

- Contact staff writer Sarah Wilkins at (760) 740-3524 or swilkins@nctimes.com.