CBS and 60 minutes on the collapse of the Great Salt Lake ecosystem
While the Utah legislature tries to sneak through mining and industrial development in our neighborhoods, a local environmental disaster sits primarily unaddressed – Great Salt Lake. The issues with the lake were featured on CBS News this week. “Utah’s Great Salt Lake doesn’t look so “great” these days. This place where tourists once bobbed up and down like corks in water far saltier than the ocean is now quite literally turning to dust,” they opened the segment.
The latest scientific report warns that the lake is on track to dry up within 5 years if water use isn’t cut by up to 50%. With numbers that drastic, the focus needs to be on the primary use of water diverted from the lake – agriculture. Up to 70% of water diversions from Great Salt Lake go to agriculture.
The CBS coverage talks about three of the biggest dangers of Great Salt Lake drying up:
- Air quality – Arsenic is the most widespread element in the lakebed soil. 2.5 million residents are at risk from long term exposure. Other heavy metals like mercury are even more toxic.
- Ecosystem – As salt levels change and habitat is exposed, brine shrimp and brine flies are quickly disappearing, risking the migratory pattern of 10 million birds.
- Industry – Great Salt Lake is a major supplier of jobs along the Wasatch Front. Without its lake effect snow, the ski and snowboard industry will be diminished. Mining and agriculture from the lake’s resources supply jobs, as well as Utah’s $10 to $60 million/year brine shrimp industry.
CBS’ Lee Cowen met with the Pollution Control Office for the Great Basin, in charge of mitigating a similar disaster that happened with Owen’s Lake in California. He says when the lake dried up, air quality was 100 times, or more, over the federal standards, and it costs around $2.5 billion a year to mitigate the dust. Great Salt Lake is 12 times larger than Owen’s Lake.