Look up Friends of Great Salt Lake and you will find a lot of information on the lake and how productive it really is. From a major Brine Shrimping location to the sale of "Sea Monkeys" from the lake to a worldwide important migratory bird habitat - it is very important.
The Great Salt Lake is disappearing. There are several factors. One is the drought. The other is the non-stop proliferation of subdivisions from Brigham City to Nephi, sucking up all the water that used to find its way to the lake. Antelope and Stansbury are no longer islands. Is there a metaphor for the church in there somewhere?
For me it is tragic. I used to have a boat out there (hence my user name). All the boats are being now removed by state mandate.
I used to be a denizen of K dock, but sold my boat about 20 years ago, fearing a layoff was coming, and money might be more useful than fiberglass.
It has been sad to see the marina increasingly limited, and now completely unusable. Lake Bonneville will eventually come back, but not anywhere close to in my lifetime, and perhaps not in the lifetime of the human race. In geologic deep time, our building a metro area on a former lake bed will just be a blip in time.
I envision the Church Office Building just barely poking out above the water some day. :)
Brother Of Jerry Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I envision the Church Office Building just barely > poking out above the water some day. :)
Well then there will be a place for the dove to rest before heading back to the ark.
To be specific, the Union Pacific route across the great salt lake causeway is the former Southern Pacific overland route from Ogden to California and it is a very busy mainline. The Union Pacific route around the south side of the lake is the former Western Pacific mainline trackage and is little used except for Amtrak.
Actually the causeway did help keep the lake from shrinking, by lowering the amount of evaporation out of the NW arm of the lake. There are no streams flowing into the lake there - the NW arm only loses lake water.
The evaporation from the northwest part of the lake is desired by industry since it concentrates the minerals in the water and makes for more profitable magnesium extraction.
Two thoughts. First, so much for the millions spent on massive pumps to lower the lake level some years ago when it was over flowing. The Dead Sea, which it is likened to, is also in a state of decline.