In what the Houston Chronicle is calling a “damning” white paper, scientists from Utah State University have detailed how the Great Salt Lake has been harmed by human intervention since the 19th century.
In the paper, scientists point out that the diversion of rivers running into the lake over the past 150 years has resulted in reduced water levels of 11 feet, “exposing much of the lake bed.” This dropping of the water level has occurred despite fluctuations that would normally occur during droughts and flooding.
Interestingly, in the very first Green Thumbs Up feature in Digital Journal in November 2015, it was pointed out that man has chosen to alter the environment to conform to our wants and needs when building our cities. And this is most evident when we look at cities across the globe that have been built at the expense of diverting natural water courses.
As the study explains, there are no water rights to protect Utah’s Great Salt Lake, so when water was needed upstream, rivers feeding into the lake were diverted as the population grew. Climate reconstructions show that there hasn’t been a dramatic decrease in the natural water supply to the lake in the last 150 years.
This leaves only one explanation for the 50 percent decrease in the water level in the great Salt Lake. People have been using that diverted water to feed their lawns, irrigate crops and all the other things we humans use water for. The scientists point out the importance of the study: “Although water conservation has reduced urban per capita use by 18 percent, overall municipal water use has increased by 5 percent because of our growing population. To significantly reduce water use, a balanced conservation ethic needs to consider all uses, including agriculture, which consumes 63 percent of the water in the Great Salt Lake Basin.”
The study, titled “Impacts of Water Development on Great Salt Lake and the Wasatch Front,” came out the same day that Senate Bill 80 was heard by the Utah House Revenue and Taxation Committee. Basically, the bill would take taxpayer money set aside for transportation projects and transfer it over to be set aside for three water infrastructure projects.
One of the three water infrastructure projects plans to divert more water out of the Bear River, further reducing the amount of water reaching the lake and further reducing the lake’s volume. “It would be used as part of a solution to help meet the needs of a growing population,” says Josh Palmer, a spokesperson for the Utah Division of Water Resources. “The water from Utah’s allocation was once projected to be needed in 2015, but due to conservation, agricultural conversions and other efficiency projects, it’s now not projected to be needed until 2040 or beyond.”
The depletion of the waters of the Great Salt Lake gives us a picture of what is to come unless better conservation efforts are enacted. All we have to do is look at Owen’s Lake in California. The lake held a significant amount of water until 1913 when much of the Owen’s River feeding the lake was diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Today, the desiccated lake is the biggest sources of dust pollution in the United States.
