SALT LAKE CITY – The silvery blue waters of the Great Salt Lake stretch across the Utah desert and covered an area almost the size of Delaware for much of history. But the largest natural lake west of the Mississippi has been shrinking for years. And a drought sweeping the American West could make this year the worst yet.
The receding water is already affecting the nesting site of pelicans, one of the millions of birds that depend on the lake. Sailboats were lifted out of the water to keep them from getting stuck in the mud. If the seabed becomes drier, dust containing arsenic could be released into the air that millions of people breathe.
“We’ve talked about the lake as a flatline many times,” said Lynn de Freitas, executive director of Friends of the Great Salt Lake.
The level of the lake is expected to hit a 170-year low this year. It comes because the drought is preparing the western United States for a brutal forest fire season and coping with the already low reservoirs. The Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, has asked people to reduce lawn irrigation and “pray for rain”.
For the Great Salt Lake, however, it’s just the latest challenge. For years people have been diverting water from rivers that flow into the lake in order to irrigate plants and supply houses. Because the lake is shallow – about 35 feet at its deepest point – less water quickly leads to receding shorelines.
The remaining water spans part of northern Utah, with highways on one end and secluded land on the other. A resort – long closed – once attracted sun worshipers who floated like corks in the extra salty water. Picnic tables that were once a short walk from the waterfront are now a 10-minute walk away.
Robert Atkinson, 91, remembers that vacation spot and the feeling of weightlessness in the water. When he returned this year to fly over the lake in a motorized paraglider, he found that that had changed.
“It’s a lot flatter than I would have expected,” he said.
The waves have been replaced with dry, gravelly sea bed that has grown to 750 square miles. Winds can kick dust from the dry lake bed, which is infused with naturally occurring arsenic, said Kevin Perry, an atmospheric scientist with the University of Utah.
It blows through a region that already has some of the dirtiest winter air in the country due to seasonal geographic conditions that include inter-mountain pollution.
Perry warns of what happened at Owens Lake, California, which was pumped dry to feed thirsty Los Angeles and created a bowl of dust that cost millions of dollars to seal. The Great Salt Lake is much larger and closer to a populated area, Perry said.
Fortunately, much of the bed of Utah’s vast lake has a crust that makes it difficult to stir dust. Perry is researching how long the protective crust lasts and how dangerous the arsenic in the soil could be for humans.
This year is prepared to be particularly grim. Utah is one of the driest states in the country, and most of the water comes from snow. The snowpack was below normal last winter and the ground was dry, which meant that much of the melted snow that flowed down the mountains was seeping into the ground.
For most years, the Great Salt Lake gains up to 2 feet from the runoff in the spring. That year it was only 6 inches, Perry said.
“We have never had a lake level in April as low as this year,” he said.
A more exposed lake floor also means more people have ventured onto the crust, including all-terrain vehicles damaging it, said Great Salt Lake coordinator Laura Vernon.
“The longer the drought lasts, the more salt crust will be weathered and more dust will get into the air because there is less of that protective crust,” she said.
The swirling dust could also speed up the melting of Utah’s snow, according to research by McKenzie Skiles, a snow hydrologist at the University of Utah. Their study showed that dust from a storm made the snow so much darker that it melted a week earlier than expected. While much of this dust came from other sources, expansion of the arid seabed raises concerns about changes in the state’s multi-billion dollar ski industry.
“Nobody wants to ski on dirty snow,” she said.
While the lake’s vast waters are too salty for most creatures with the exception of artichokes, for sailors like Marilyn Ross, 65, it’s a tranquil paradise with panoramas of distant peaks.
“If you get out on this lake it’s better than going to a psychiatrist, it’s really very comforting,” she said.
But this year the little red boat called Promiscuous, which she and her husband have been sailing for more than 20 years, was lifted out of the water with a giant crane just at the start of the season. The record-low sea levels were expected to leave the boats stuck in the mud instead of sliding over the waves. Low water kept the other main port closed for years.
“Some people don’t think we’ll ever come back in,” said Ross.
Brine shrimp support a $ 57 million fish feed industry in Utah, but less water in the years to come could make the salinity too high for even these tiny creatures to survive.
“We are really coming at a critical time for the Great Salt Lake,” said Jaimi Butler, coordinator for the Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster College in Salt Lake City. She studies the American white pelican, one of the largest birds in North America.
They flock to Gunnison Island, a remote outpost in the lake where up to 20% of the bird population nest, with male and female birds working together to watch the eggs at all times.
“Mom goes fishing and dad stays in the nest,” said Butler.
But the sinking lake level has exposed a land bridge to the island that allows foxes and coyotes to hunt for rodents and other food. The activity frightens the shy birds, used to a quiet place to raise their young, so they flee from the nests and let seagulls eat the eggs and juveniles.
Pelicans aren’t the only birds that depend on the lake. It’s a stopover for many species to feed on their journey south.
A study from Utah State University found that diverting water from rivers flowing into it would need to be reduced by 30% to maintain lake levels. But for the state with the fastest growing population in the country, solving the problem will require a fundamental change in the distribution of water and the perception of the lake, which in some places has a strong smell, produces purified sewage and is home to billions of salt flies.
“There are many people who believe that every drop that flows into the Great Salt Flat is wasted,” Perry said. “That’s the perspective I’m trying to change. The lake also has needs. And they are not hit. “
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