Last year, I’ve written a series of articles about a major problem Utah is facing: the Salt Lake is getting less and less Great. If things don’t change soon enough, the most populous part of the state will experience toxic dust clouds and a loss of lake-effect snow, further drying out the place.
While I know CleanTechnica is not the most popular publication out there, I do know that many, many other news media and scientific groups have warned the state of its water problems. Sadly things haven’t changed, and the lake is at a record low again†
Long-term drying
If you look at the satellite view on Google Maps or Google Earth, you can see that the lake has a lot of white ground around it. While all that white ground isn’t from recent drying up (the prehistoric lake was much bigger, but we’ll get to that in a minute), you can see in this video from Google that it’s dried up considerably since the 1980s.
At that time, several years of record drainage and much lower surface populations than today caused the lake to get really, really full. It was higher than at any time since the measurements were first taken in the 1800s, and not only the industry but other property owners on the shores of the lake began to have serious problems with flooding. Interstate 80 was even in danger of being lost by the lake.
A 1987 US Geological Service satellite image showing the Great Salt Lake at its modern maximum. Note the area west of the lake where the pumping station has deposited water to lower levels of the lake.
So the state decided to take action. They spent millions building a pumping station to remove water from the lake and bring it into an adjacent dry basin for evaporation. This started to lower the levels a bit, but then the natural runoff from the mountains decreased and people used more water, and the lake level dropped to safer levels. But the water kept getting lower. And lower. And lower.
At this point, it could be more stabilized and the levels raised to healthier levels, but it would require sacrifice. The lake is at the bottom of an endorheic basin, or a basin in which no water flows to the ocean. All the water comes from regional mountains, which get their water from snowfall.
Between the mountains and the lake are many of Utah’s cities, which require water not only for drinking and farming, but also for their lawns and landscaping. If people take too much of the water, the water level will drop. If people let more water flow into the lake, the water level will rise. So it’s really a matter of using less water and letting more of it ‘wasted’ in the salty lake.
What happens if they let it dry up?
Failure to do so will have serious consequences for the state.
Firstly, there is the problem of the dust on the bottom of the basin. Once it dries, it is easy for wind to pick it up and take it to the cities and mountains. In this NASA satellite image from 2012you’ll see the dried-up remains of prehistoric Lake Bonneville do just this.
Covering much of the state, the prehistoric lake is a much larger version of today’s Great Salt Lake. During the last ice age (or, in more scientific terms, the last ice age), increased snow cover resulted in it being so large and deep that Salt Lake City’s current location was under hundreds of feet of water. Glaciers in the mountains have even calved icebergs into the lake. But the lake found a weak spot at Red Rock Pass in Idaho, and the lake suddenly emptied about 17,000 years ago (possibly due to an earthquake and a tsunami in the lake that destroyed the weak spot).
The most recent episode of a large lake occurred much more recently, with lake levels about 50 feet higher than the modern average. This lake covered much of the white areas you see on Google Maps, and the area where the dust is blowing today.
While parts of the state near the dried-up portions of the larger lake get ice age dust, they don’t get the other stuff that comes from drying up a lake that has coexisted with industry and widespread agriculture. Fertilizers, arsenic and many other things that people don’t want in their lungs all end up in the air.
The other problem of a smaller lake is a feedback loop. Without the larger lake to produce lake-effect snow, there is less water in the rivers, and that results in less water flowing back into the lake. So not only will the problem accelerate to a complete drain, but it will leave the people who have taken too much water from the rivers with less water and less tourism from skiers.
Clean technology can “fill the pump”
The obvious thing that needs to happen is less water consumption, but people need water to live, so we can’t run it all into the lake to refill it to the average modern level. There must be a balance between people and nature.
The best thing we can do is get people in Utah to think about this in terms of an old video Mormons used to show in church: The Pump.
In the short film, a man tries to take a shortcut through the desert and is stranded when his car breaks down. He comes across an abandoned city and sees a small well. He doesn’t get any water when he tries to pump it, but finds a note that says you can run the well’s leather seal and then get water if you pour some water into it first. The note tells the man where to find a bottle of water to do just that.
Instead of giving up some water to get the pump going, the guy just takes the bottle and ends up thirsty in the desert.
The Salt Lake is much the same. Give it some water by leaving some in the rivers, and it will give you some back with snow with the lake effect. Drink all the water in the rivers, and you end up with nothing.
The biggest problem is public order.
Cheap water is good politics, but it also encourages the waste of things that people don’t really need to survive. By charging a lower price for essential water and subsequently higher prices for water than what people need to drink and flush the toilet, you can encourage responsible use.
Another problem the New York Times identified was HOA’s. A man tried to get off his lawn, but then received a letter from his local busybody Karens threatening fines and possible execution. The state legislature could easily fix this by banning HOAs from demanding watered-down and green laws.
With the right pricing and no crazy legal barriers, clean technology can take over. Xeriscaping has long been used in the Southwest to curb water consumption and offers us a great option. Water recycling is another great thing that can save water for the lake (it’s not picky about whether the water is reclaimed). More efficient systems in homes and businesses, such as low-flow toilets or composting toilets, can save even more water. It is also a good idea not to encourage the use of evaporative coolers (“swamp”), like they do here†
But getting people to use more efficient water technology is the biggest problem, and it’s one that needs to tell people more of what they need to hear and less of what they want to hear.
The only alternative are even more wasteful things, such as: a pipeline from the Pacific Ocean to fill the lake with ocean water†
Featured Image: A 1987 US Geological Service satellite image showing the Great Salt Lake at its modern maximum. Note the area west of the lake where the pumping station deposited water to lower levels of the lake (public domain).
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