It says that it is currently 7.0 feet below the minimum healthy water level and that the healthy water level is 4198 feet.
I bet that will confuse a lot of people who will think that means the lake should be at least 4198 feet deep and it is 7 feet below that. Being 0.17% low doesn't seem like a major problem.
Apparently though lake levels are measured relative to sea level, and Utah is around 4200 feet above sea level.
The Great Salt Lake is only about 15 feet deep when at its normal level, so 7 feet below minimum safe level is quite low.
Worse: The topography there is really flat. Every foot of lake elevation is a massive change in the surface area of the lake. I don't know the exact numbers, but it would not surprise me if there were a mile of change in lakeshore location for a foot of change of lake elevation.
Not sure about miles/foot, but an interesting example is the (newest) Great Saltair. At one point it was flooded over, now it’s about a mile and a half from the water.
If you look at a satellite image of the Great Salt Lake [1], it looks like there's a digital seam/glitch between the north and the south half of the lake. In reality, a railroad was built through the middle of the lake in 1904, separating the water. The salinity of the north half has since become toxic to all organisms except some algae and cyanobacteria.
I think the should get the local sports teams involved. Put a little heat map down the side of the Jazz's jerseys. (I mocked this up on Twitter a few years back).
I live next to the lake (saw the remnants of it today on my bike ride).
My grandparents lived north of Salt Lake City, close enough that I’ve been there at least half a dozen times over several decades. Last time I did,I drove across a bridge with no water under it to an island that was fully connected to the mainland by dry land. It was very melancholy to reflect on how the natural world I grew up with is disappearing.
I remember I was gunna drive out to see Spiral Jetty, but it's not a jetty right now, so what's the point, you know? And it's not like it's close to the shore or anything -- it's a mile away
Joel Ferry, the executive director of Utah's DNR retooled state laws to allow water right leasing and promoted HB187 which allows you to hold water rights without developing them.
He also happens to be a large shareholder in Bear River Canal Company and has been going around quietly buying up water rights from smaller canals and municipalities.
Grow The Flow is closely aligned with Great Salt Lake Rising (ran by the son of Mitt Romney), who plan to solve the issue ahead of the 2034 Olympics by buying up water rights from private owners. They committed $100 million of their own money, but got it matched with $300 million in state funds and a $1 billion budget line item from the Trump administration.
Be wary of environmentalism that is being driven by the wealthiest families in the state.
I crave an industrial megaproject to solve this. Specifically: A pipeline from the ocean. But alas, only China has a social structure capable of getting projects of this scale done anymore. So I guess I'll keep tracking the AQI and keeping my kids indoors when it's bad.
I always like the idea of megaprojects and several Utah legislators suggested this. It's kind of a dumb idea, though, when you think about it because the vast majority of Utah's diverted water is going towards farming alfalfa to feed livestock, so we could much more easily solve the problem by just importing these end products from a region that is better suited to their production than a desert.
Or even better eliminating or at least reducing animal agriculture that aside from the ethical, health and global warming concerns, is a massive user of local resources relative to the non animal resources.
The environmental cost of building a pipeline 750 miles across the country and then expending all of the energy needed to pump that water would completely outweigh any benefits.
You also don't need ocean water. Salt doesn't evaporate. It's still there. The water could be sourced from anywhere.
They could just buy up water rights from farmers and other heavy users and divert the water in the direction of the lake. A million times easier.
It would probably be better in the long run if we all drove less and walked more, then built a 1,000 mile aqueduct from the ocean to (and I can't believe I'm typing this) replenish the Great Salt Lake.
I'm trying to figure out how driving less and walking more would result in the Great Salt Lake getting an extra million acre feet of water into it per year.
One might argue that would accelerate the collapse of the Great Salt Lake because the vast majority of diverted water is used for agriculture and increasing everyone's caloric requirements would result in more agriculture.
Driving cars releases tons of CO2 into the atmosphere (per car). There are 300 million cars on the road in the States. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.
75% of U.S. adults are considered overweight, I would think that walking would first help this problem, as well as be a catalyst to other beneficial habits, including eating less meat and more vegetables, which would further reduce the amount of CO2 released from agriculture, as well as slim people's waistlines.
Ok, but this isn't climate change driven problem. Climate change will keep making this problem harder to manage, but the problem is excessive diversions of water feeding the Great Salt Lake. If climate change were solved tomorrow, this would still be a problem.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be working on climate change, but the solution for this problem must be much sooner and more local than a giant worldwide effort.
There have been some ideas to do this from the Salton Sea to the Gulf of California in Mexico but that is about 125 miles and would still cost billions.
I think the idea is a huge waste, but the Utah State Legislature already considered exactly this in 2022 (building a massive pipeline to the Pacific Ocean).
I bet that will confuse a lot of people who will think that means the lake should be at least 4198 feet deep and it is 7 feet below that. Being 0.17% low doesn't seem like a major problem.
Apparently though lake levels are measured relative to sea level, and Utah is around 4200 feet above sea level.
The Great Salt Lake is only about 15 feet deep when at its normal level, so 7 feet below minimum safe level is quite low.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltair_(Utah)
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@41.1985997,-112.4903027,201762m...
I live next to the lake (saw the remnants of it today on my bike ride).
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2022/06/26/spiral-jetty-baromete...
Joel Ferry, the executive director of Utah's DNR retooled state laws to allow water right leasing and promoted HB187 which allows you to hold water rights without developing them.
He also happens to be a large shareholder in Bear River Canal Company and has been going around quietly buying up water rights from smaller canals and municipalities.
Grow The Flow is closely aligned with Great Salt Lake Rising (ran by the son of Mitt Romney), who plan to solve the issue ahead of the 2034 Olympics by buying up water rights from private owners. They committed $100 million of their own money, but got it matched with $300 million in state funds and a $1 billion budget line item from the Trump administration.
Be wary of environmentalism that is being driven by the wealthiest families in the state.
The environmental cost of building a pipeline 750 miles across the country and then expending all of the energy needed to pump that water would completely outweigh any benefits.
You also don't need ocean water. Salt doesn't evaporate. It's still there. The water could be sourced from anywhere.
They could just buy up water rights from farmers and other heavy users and divert the water in the direction of the lake. A million times easier.
One might argue that would accelerate the collapse of the Great Salt Lake because the vast majority of diverted water is used for agriculture and increasing everyone's caloric requirements would result in more agriculture.
75% of U.S. adults are considered overweight, I would think that walking would first help this problem, as well as be a catalyst to other beneficial habits, including eating less meat and more vegetables, which would further reduce the amount of CO2 released from agriculture, as well as slim people's waistlines.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be working on climate change, but the solution for this problem must be much sooner and more local than a giant worldwide effort.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2022/05/19/utah-legi... (archived non-paywall version: http://archive.today/GzuUD)