Climate change and a population boom could dry up the Great Salt Lake in 5 years

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For the Great Salt Lake to survive, Utah leaders must stop water diversion and enforce tougher restrictions. A recent report predicted it will completely dry in five years.

The Great Salt Lake is roughly 8-9 feet lower than it should be. A snowy winter recently has helped lake levels some.The Great Salt Lake is roughly 8-9 feet lower than it should be. A snowy winter recently has helped lake levels some.Trekking along the shoreline of the Great Salt Lake — the largest remaining saltwater lake in the western hemisphere — can feel eerie and lonely.

Lucky? Maybe one small bright spot in an otherwise grim story of a looming ecological disaster. The lake doesn't really stink anymore because it's drying ... and dying. Once a week they hike out to try to collect brine fly larva samples, with the idea that they could keep some alive in their lab back in the city should more water re-enter the lake in the near future.

"If the lake bed dries up, and we're having winds blowing dust storms into our neighborhood, the heavy metals are going to land right on top of this neighborhood," says Turner Bitton, a community activist in Glendale, a traditionally working class neighborhood in Salt Lake City's west valley. The majority of Utah's 3.3 million population lives near the lake, just to the east along the Wasatch Mountains. The lake is about nine feet lower than normal. And locals are already complaining of dust storms. Moench counted more than a dozen in the past year - when a decade ago there were none.

 

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How much water becomes “produced water” as a biproduct of all the oil and gas production in Utah? Produced water can never be used again, never returned to the water table. Seriously, stop ignoring that elephant in the room.

Wow, we're really fucked, aren't we

It's not a large jump to go from Great Salt Lake to Great Salt Lick.

Can we just make sure we don't let them get a large enough foothold elsewhere to make another whole state miserable with their faith-baaed legislation?

Remember when Al Gore said that New York would be under water by the year 2000? I’m starting to doubt these doomsday predictions 😂

One word: permaculture If you need to reduce or stop irrigation, farms need to turn to permaculture. And yes, there is even desert permaculture. WHY is that never mentioned in any of this reporting or policy-making? SaltLakeCity GreatSaltLake drought

So? Harvest the salt and make a national park. Since it was an inland sea once, be nice to see the fossils. Haven’t lakes been drying up and forming throughout all of geologic time, most while humans did not inhabit the planet?

GovCox any ideas? Or should we just pray about it while choking on arsenic dust?

As God intended

Remember when they banned aerosol hairspray to save the planet from ozone holes?👉🤡

Which rules govern? Any examples of what needs to change?

Maybe if we sacrifice Utah, other state will start to take this stuff seriously?

Omg.

The Owen's Valley should be an object lesson for Utah. A dry lake bed will mean toxic dust blowing across the state.

Human overpopulation

utahrens

Stop letting 2 million illegals in every year, Then you don't have to worry about the population boom.

😬

Kinda shitty living in the end-times... The planet will keep on spinnin', but humanity really seems dead set on making this rock totally uninhabitable for ourselves. Good run, everyone...kinda.

Climate change happens. There isn't a freaking thing humans can do to change it. It's laughable.

Will Salt Lake City just be called city?

Utah Republican politicians have no intention of saving the GSL despite their words.

Utah Republicans don't like it when government intervenes with their comfort. So let's make sure that when it does dry up we are not offering their churches bailout money to move.

Well then why don’t you stop Nestle from draining it

too dry up there and the lake will be hard to save.

What will happen to Beauty Lab !?! heathergay29

I remember reading in Scholastic Weekly Reader in the 80's that we'd be out of gasoline by the year 2000, too, scary how accurate these 'reports' are.

Super easy fix Stop issuing building permits in CA NV AZ NM CO UT

Climate change and drought are separate problems. Drought occurs in cold climates as well. This winters rain in the west will help

Nothing lasts forever, humans included

Al Gore said the poles would be free of ice by 2014. NPR still believes this.

Is the great salt lake necessary for anything to survive? I really don’t know and am interested.

Where will the Mormon women wash their dresses?

I’m sure the free market will figure this out, right Utah Republicans?

Utah wants to grow. They want a 5/6 congressional seat in the house. The lake cannot compete with growth. The lake is dead.

Too many people using a limited resource. Happening all over the world today, because economists think that constant growth is necessary ...

What is going on with the Chinese satellite hanging out over Montana and why hasn't NPR mentioned it?

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