The scientists are saying this is a huge environmental disaster in the making, but I’m sure the Mormons are in denial, right?

Utahns in the know say Utah is having a wetter winter than surrounding states, so there's your answer!

Utah has always been special...

And even if the GSL evaporated away, it's part of the plan.

Yes. They are very good at praying for "moisture."

Like it's about "moisture" and rain. It's about who gets to tap off the water and why, and about out of control real estate development.

Funny, Idaho, which some Utahns visit for lottery tickets, is at 150% of annual precipitation. Utah might not be that special.?

Yes, the lake is disappearing. It’s down 20 feet from its peak in the 1980s. If you are a bird trying to eat brine shrimp or brine flies, this is a real problem. The water is too salty for the brine shrimp to survive.

I am a little skeptical of claims that there will be dust storms with toxic metals in the dust. Roughly half of the lakebed is already exposed, and I’m not seeing any dust storms. If you consider the entire west desert between SLC and Wendover, that is all former lakebed, and I don’t see dust storms there either.

They always point to the owens Valley in California as the horrible example of what could happen, but it doesn’t appear to me that the same soil conditions exist here that exist there.

Also, most of the potential dust is from silt brought in by the Jordan and Bear rivers. That silt is going to stay wet for a very long time, as long as those rivers continue to bring water to the lake. And, the river silt is not going to have toxic metals in it.

The lake level is a real problem, but I am suspicious some of the problems are being exaggerated.

Most of the water diverted from the lake is going to agriculture. The oldest, most senior water rights have first priority on the water. And guess who owns much of the oldest water rights in the valley?

Yep, the LDS Church.

The only things that can't be
used as clickbait are things
we probably should be learning.


Go ahead, prove me wrong...

BOJ:

Yes the dust from the lake is worse. Don't deny it. It really is. And yes that dust is full of the concentrated salts and toxic minerals like selenium, lead, arsenic, magnesium chloride, zirconium chloride, etc. It is an ecological disaster waiting to happen. The GSL wetlands are/were the major stopping off point in bird migration twice a year. If the brine shrimp and flies disappear, there will be no food source for the birds. They may disappear as well.

A corrollary to this will be when the salt cap over the lake bed in the areas to the west and SW of the lake disappear as well, THEN the dust will really get bad.

And rather than look at the remains of the Owens Lake, look at the ARAL Sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. I have been over in that area. It has already gone through what the GSL is moving towards. And that area is an ecological disaster.

Also go google the Kesterton Ponds in CA and see what happened there when the BoR screwed up in the 70s.

I don't know enough about the Great Salt Lick to say anything substantial about it but did want to comment on the Aral Sea.

The Aral is indeed an environmental disaster. A big part of that is over-consumption of water, so there is a clear parallel with the GSL. That said, the USSR dumped radioactive and industrial waste there for many decades. The result is therefore worse tha the desertification that is occurring in northern Utah.

This from the BBC.

There used to be an island in the Aral Sea called Vozrozhdeniya. As the water level fell, that island grew ten-fold and is now a peninsula protruding into what's left of the water.

The whole region is terribly polluted, with some industrial waste plus runoff of pesticides and other carcinogens produced collaterally on the cotton farms that emptied the rivers. But there's worse: Vozrozhdeniya was the site of Soviet chemical and biological weapons testing for many decades.

In 1971 a researcher at the facility wandered into a brown haze and, a few days later, fell dead from an antibiotic strain of smallpox; a dozen others were likewise infected. A year later two fisherman were found floating in the sea, killed by the plague. Then, in 1979 105 people died from an anthrax leak; and in May 1988, 50,000 antelope fell dead within a single hour. No one knows why.

Even in the 21st century "the site flourished into a living nightmare, where anthrax, smallpox and the plague hung in great clouds over the land, and exotic diseases such as tularemia, brucellosis, and typhus rained down and seeped into the sandy soil." When a research team went there over a decade ago, it had to wear hazmat suits and gas masks--and within a quarter of an hour the filters on their masks were exhausted and needed replacement. One thing those and subsequent visitors have observed is that there are no birds or insects on the peninsula. It is quiet as the grave.

So while the Great Salt Lick may become a major public health problem, it will almost certainly not be as bad as the Aral Sea, where an afternoon breeze can within an hour's time kill tens of thousands of living creatures.





https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170926-the-deadly-germ-warfare-island-abandoned-by-the-soviets

Kesterton Ponds seems to be all about selenium . . .  Like the GSL, the ponds were a final destination for runoff, and the concentration of selenium was found to be harming the wildlife.

"Knowledge of the fate of selenium in (waterways) ... is essential as these environments are important nursery habitats for marine life, and selenium has been shown to cause fish and bird mortality and sublethal effects including edema, chromosomal aberrations, and reproductive success.

"Understanding selenium cycling allows risk assessment to be undertaken and appropriate action to protect resident organisms."

Selenium is considered a necessity, but too much of a good thing is bad.  Selenium is pretty much in all our topsoil, and erosion can carry it into lakes and estuaries, where it becomes concentrated out of proportion to its natural occurrence.  You need it, but don't overdo it, which the GSL has now done, damn it!

Salt Lake always had shitty air quality. I remember the inversions in the winter. They were horrible.

The whole southwestern US has been a disaster just waiting to happen. Too many people and too little water and poor water management. It’s an area of the world best avoided because water wars are coming.

I wrote a college paper on the future water wars in 1985.

There is no shortage of water on a planet that’s 71% water.
There’s just a shortage of will.

Well, drinking water, anyway. Most of the water on this planet is salt water and can't be used as drinking water.

Hopefully the whole city will disappear along with it.

Just Salt Lake City?

How about, starting north of the city...:

Harrisville
Ogden
Riverdale
Roy
Clearfield
Syracuse
Layton
Kaysville
Farmington
Centerville
Bountiful
North Salt Lake
Magna
West valley City
Murray
West Jordan
South Jordan

I'm sure I've left some out.  Do you want those to go, too?

I foresee you being an angry ghawd!  Your spirit kids are going to toe the line, damn it!

Brigham City. BKP is incensed!

It's the only sense he's ever had.

Maybe this is Mother Nature’s way of telling Mormons, this is NOT the place!

It's symbolic of the church drying up, and the toxic aftermath.

unconventional Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The scientists are saying this is a huge
> environmental disaster in the making, but I’m
> sure the Mormons are in denial, right?


Mormons aren't the salt like of the earth.

If they don't think, can't see, won't listen, don't pay attention, don't hear about it from the blind & dumb profit, perhaps not.

It's been pretty big new these past few decades. Especially the past few years, it's been getting quite a bit of news coverage. Even many non Mormons haven't been paying attention.

It's happening

What should/ can be done?

> I'm sure the Mormons are in denial, right?


If it doesn't dry up, it will be a blessing. If it does, then it will be a test of faith, or mormon persecution. Or both.

So it all works out from a TBM perspective. ;)

The Mormon CULT should just hold a special fast so God doesn’t smite them by turning SL,UT into Toxic Dustbowl Ghost-town, TDG,UT



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2023 12:50PM by schrodingerscat.

Will great salt lake become another carson sink ?

To be renamed Big Salt Lake

To be renamed "Great Salt Lick."

It's a mirage

Major press has picked this up for the last month. CNN, the network stations, HuffPost, NYT, etc. etc. It's becoming very dangerous. Early laws stated that residential customers can only take what agriculture doesn't use. Moreover, SL and Utah valleys have been over-building for decades. And I'll tell you this, developers don't/won't care about having hundreds more new homes and condos sucking up scarce water. A major developer is the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They're also the ones who own the oldest water rights which are traded and leased at top dollar. Entire towns get their water from the church. Shoot, North Las Vegas buys its residential water from the LDS church.

In short, we're screwed. That is to say, Utahns are screwed. Try breathing selenium, mercury, cadmium, and arsenic for the next few years. And property values? Don't know 'bout that. But I bet the prices drop dramatically.

I pointed out above that there is actually precious little evidence to back up these claims of toxic dust storms. Yes, all those metals exist in the salt pan. That doesn’t mean they will be spread around in dust storms. There is already plenty of exposed lakebed. No toxic dust storms. That should be creating a little cognitive dissonance.

This (toxic dust storms) could be the liberal equivalent of the conservative panic over critical race theory.

There are plenty of important reasons to keep a baseline amount of water in the lake. I don’t think the data actually supports the toxic dust scenario. True, there are too many particulates in the air, but that was true 40 years ago when the lake level was at its peak.

Show me the data of increasing levels of airborne selenium etc. without data, it is only a just-so story

But many of us have already seen this with dried up Lake Owens off US-395 near one of the entrances of Death Valley. In the 1920's, Los Angeles surreptitiously bought miles of property from LA up to the Owens River, which fed the lake, and piping it off to LA, drying up the lake. I was raised in the greater area, and used to pass it occasionally I only saw it after LA had drained it, and by that time it looked like Roger's Dry Lake, where they used to land the space shuttle. Right after drying up, the lake began giving off arsenic, selenium, etc., blowing in the are and causing all kinds of lung ailments among the citizens of the three small towns around the lake. Now almost no one lives there. It became just too dangerous. Lately, however, LA had to begin giving back some of the water so that the lake would fill. Don't know how that is going. Can't be the same. Owens Lake used to have spas and other recreational areas that attracted vacationers from LA. The lake used to have fish, and had a system of ferries between the towns. The area is essentially ruined, despite the water trickling into the lake again. I don't think that the poisonous heavy metals and stuff is far-fetched at all.

Actually, it turns that the water theft began in 1913.

They should make a movie about that.

Lesser Salt Lake

Hah!

Great Cheshire Lake

https://flic.kr/p/ok7E8W

Out weather can get pretty wild in Northern Utah, especially around the GSL. I was on the causeway to Antelope Island and watched as this windstorm blew across the lake between Fremont Island and the Promontory Peninsula, and then as it headed south, snapping phone poles, and creating havoc before it finally dissipated. To be honest, I was getting pretty worried about the downdraft winds, even though I was about five to six miles away on 7/14/2015.

Courtesy of occasional lake photographer, Great Salt Lake Images (AKA Cuz X on RfM)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/2023 06:07PM by cuzx.

Wow. That's a treasure trove of photos, cuzx.

Thanks for sharing them.

I’ve spent literally hundreds of hours visiting the GSL since 2003; photography and hiking were a great pastime, especially after my shelf broke in the summer of 2003. TBH, I’ve done a LOT LESS in this regard since relocating a few more miles to the north and with my wife getting so sick.

I'm sorry to hear about your wife's illness. It's no wonder you haven't had the time or interest to do as much photography as in the past.

It’s pretty impressive to watch a dust storm blow across the dry lakebed of Farmington Bay, a small segment of GSL, from the causeway to Antelope Island, on 8/5/2015. It’s not so fun to drive through a dust storm, which I’ve also done on occasion.

CuzX

https://www.flickr.com/gp/hiker56/706UifHU0N

I heard some faithful locals saying they saw flocks of seagulls barfing water into the lake to fill it up.

jj


Update: I had a dream set in the distant future. Two people were looking out over a dry lake bed surrounded by ruins. One asked the other, "Is this where all the people died from toxic dust storms?" The other answered, "Yup. This is the place."

jumping javelina Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Update: I had a dream set in the distant future.
> Two people were looking out over a dry lake bed
> surrounded by ruins. One asked the other, "Is this
> where all the people died from toxic dust storms?"
> The other answered, "Yup. This is the place."

Wow!! What a dream, JJ!

I returned to Utah, just east of the GSL, thirty years ago and spent a LOT of time in and around the lake from 2003-2021. Mostly, I’ve tried to share what impressive places the GSL in general, and Antelope Island State Park, in particular, are for hiking, mountain biking, kayaking, and sailing. I do miss the higher lake levels we had about twelve years ago.

https://flic.kr/p/J1YtLe



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/2023 11:02PM by cuzx.

cuzx Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> jumping javelina Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Update: I had a dream set in the distant
> future.
> > Two people were looking out over a dry lake bed
> > surrounded by ruins. One asked the other, "Is
> this

> Wow!! What a dream, JJ!
>
> I returned to Utah, just east of the GSL, thirty
> years ago and spent a LOT of time in and around
> the lake from 2003-2021. Mostly, I’ve tried to
> share what impressive places the GSL in general,
> and Antelope Island State Park, in particular, are
> for hiking, mountain biking, kayaking, and
> sailing. I do miss the higher lake levels we had
> about twelve years ago.
>
> https://flic.kr/p/J1YtLe

All that’s missing are adequate Nudist or Clothing-Optional areas…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/18/salt-lake-city-mayor-erin-mendenhall-utah-great-lake-decline-climate-crisis

This has been a problem for years now.

Add in moving the Prison to the shores of the lake - a toxic sump blowing poison into the cells to sicken offenders and workers both.

Not just the prison but businesses of various types. Nothing like breathing in the toxic mess along the lake.

Then the air pollution which will stack up against the McMansions built on the lake terraces on the East Bench - maybe it is a case of chickens coming home to roost?

How close was Geneva Steel?

Was there a clean-up of (toxic) wastes ?

given things in Ew-tah, I could easily see state government not getting involved…



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2023 08:39PM by GNPE.