Dead Pools And Toxic Dust: Great Salt Lake, And Lake Powell Drying Up, And Causing Real Problems.

Satellite view of Great Salt Lake in Utah. The 
lighter areas around the lake used to be under
water, but now are dry lakebed areas that 
blow potentially toxic dust into
populated areas east of the lake. 

Here in Vermont, we might be complaining about brown lawns, low water in our rivers and worries about our wells as our drought settles in. 

But a mega-drought out west is creating challenges far worse than ours.  

We have two examples, both involving large but badly shrinking lakes.

The Great Salt Lake is so low that dust blowing off now dry lakebeds are creating health hazards for those living nearby. 

And Lake Powell, an immense reservoir in the Southwest is getting so low that some worry it might not be able to provide crucial water supplies and hydroelectric power to millions.

GREAT SALT LAKE

The Great Salt Lake is at near record lows, exposing expanses of flat, formerly submerged lake beds which were once part of this lake. 

An area encompassing 120 square miles that was once under salty water is now dusty playa, which is a word for dry lake bed. 

Gusty winds stir up the dust and blow it into fast-growing neighborhoods near Salt Lake City.  The Wasatch Front, which encompasses the city's metropolitan area, has a population of about 2.6 million.

The dust blowing into many of those neighborhoods likely contains dangerous substances, such as arsenic and lead. 

Studies have shown these and other substances in the Great Salt Lake dust can cause cancer or cardiovascular disease, but no comprehensive research has been done on how all this is affecting people who live in the region.

Similar salt lakes that have largely dried up in other locations in the world, like the Aral Sea in central Asia and Lake Urmia in Iran have resulted in health problems in populations nearby that have been exposed to dust blowing off those lakes. 

The Great Salt Lake has no outlet. How deep it gets depends on how much water flows into it, and how much evaporates in Utah's hot summers. The lake has always gone up and down, but since the 1980s the trend has been downward. 

Part of the decline is due to the rising population and increased water usage for industry, farming, construction and people moving to the area. Utah is one of the fastest growing states.

Climate change has a role, too. Big droughts have allowed the lake to slip to such low levels.  Some scientists say this is regions worst drought in 1,200 years.

As the Washington Post explains, the state legislature passed several laws aimed at conserving water. Public opinion polls indicate Utahans firmly back those conservation efforts. 

But the lake won't turn around anytime soon, if at all. So the dust will keep blowing into populated areas. 

There's not a significant monitoring program along the Great Salt Lake to assess what's in the dust blowing off the playa and how dangerous it is. 

WaPo again:

"The counties near the lake have six federally regulated air quality monitors that track lake dust. The monitors don't routinely look at the composition of the dust.

While the EPA said it has no plans to monitor the lake dust on a federal level, Marisa Lubeck, an agency spokesperson, added that it 'supports Utah's leadership in actively monitoring and conducting research to understand dust from the Great Salt Lake and its potential impacts."

So for now, nobody in Utah knows how much bad stuff their breathing from the now- Not As Great Salt Lake blows dust into some of Utah's fastest growing cities, towns and neighborhoods.

LAKE POWELL 

This lake on the Utah-Arizona border has been plagued by low water levels for a number of years now, thanks to that mega-drought in the West and pressure from increased water usage by a growing population.

It's now at its lowest level in three years, which is forcing boat launches to close and raising fears about water supplies and hydroelectric power. generation.  

Per USA Today

Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border remains very
low, and if it continues dropping, water and electrical 
supplies could be at risk for millions of people.

 "There's a chance that Lake Powell's water level could fall to an elevation that would force the stoppage of power generation at the Glen Canyon Dam, which would affect electricity supply to millions of people in many states."  

Things could get extremely dire for millions of people if the water level gets too much lower. USA Today again:

".....another concern is the chance that Lake Powell could reach so-called 'dead pool' status by December, 2026. That is the level at which a dam can no longer release water downstream.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Department of the Interior, if dead pool is reached at Lake Powell, residents of seven western states,  - Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California, - could see power blackouts and water shortages."

Both Lake Powell and Lake Mead, another critical reservoir in the West are only at one third of their capacity.

We've been here before. In 2022, the reservoirs were only 25 percent full, but a couple of wet winters allowed water levels in both lakes to rise slightly, preventing an immediate crisis.

But the lake levels are falling again, and there's no guarantee a wet winter will save things again.  Climate change, with its drought and added heat, are evaporating water faster than it can go into the reservoirs.  

Recent research suggests that climate change has altered a complex relationship between the atmosphere and the Pacific Ocean. This reconfigured atmospheric dance between air and ocean encourages drought in the Southwest. 

That's only part of the problem. Even if the region miraculously cooled off and got wetter, overuse and a rising population are keeping the Lakes Powell and Mead from stabilizing and adding capacity. 

Opinion is mixed as to whether Lake Powell will hit "dead pool" within the next year or two or not. But now is the time to start thinking about alternatives in the region, in case water and power supplies are eventually disrupted.  

Great Salt Lake Is Miraculously Great Again, But How Long Will That Last?

The Great Salt Lake in Utah, in danger of 
drying up, got a reprieve this winter as runoff
from heavy snows have replenished the
lake. At least for now. 

 Back in January, I told you that the Great Salt Lake in Utah was in trouble. It was at record low levels, and some feared it could dry up entirely. 

The good news now is that big lake has gotten a reprieve. At least for now.  

Utah had a stormy winter.  Snow really piled up, in some places to record levels in the state's mountains. Now that snow has started to melt, and some of that runoff is flowing toward and into the Great Salt Lake. 

As a result, the lake its back from its near death. 

In November, the lake was at its lowest level on record, and it had lost 70 percent of its water since 1850.

Since then the water in the Great Salt Lake has risen by about three feet. Most of that came from winter rain and snow dumped directly from the sky into the lake, or its immediate shore. 

This means that more water from melting mountain snow should add more water to the lake.  The statewide average snowpack was 30 inches last week, which is the most on record. The previous record was 28.2 inches in 1952.  

As the Washington Post reported earlier this month, the Great Salt Lake is still about six feet below the minimum it needs for the lake's overall ecological and economic health. 

When all that snow melts in the Utah mountains it could boost lake levels by another three or four feet, which would bring it up to a range that's pretty good.  

That doesn't mean the lake is permanently cured. This year might have been a one-off. The West's long-running drought could always return. And western droughts are worse because of the hotter weather brought on by climate change. 

Large amounts of water that would go into the Great Salt Lake is diverted for home and agricultural use. The lake will need lots of conservation and good water management by humans to keep its ecological balance going. 

If the Great Salt Lake is ever allowed to dry up, a huge ecosystem and critical stop for migratory birds would be destroyed. Dust from the lake bed, containing such lovely substances as arsenic and mercury, would blow into populated areas. 

The Great Salt Lake is great again, but how long will it last? 

The Great Salt Lake Ain't So Great Anymore. Will It Disappear Entirely?

Imagery shows how much the Great Salt Lake in Utah 
shrunk between 1988 and 2021,

The Great Salt Lake in Utah is the largest salt lake in the western hemisphere. 

For now.  

Then again, believe it not, it might actually entirely disappear within five years. 

As HuffPost and many other media outlets recently reported, the Great Salt Lake in Utah has been at record lows for two years in a row. 

A new scientific report tells us this trend could make the lake fade away by the end of this decade, if not before. 

According to HuffPost:

"The lake has been steadily shrinking because so much water from the rivers and streams that feed it is being redirected for human use. This is exacerbated by the climate change-fueled mega-drought that has been parching the U.S. West for years, with less rain and snow entering the water system."

The Great Salt Lake might be big in area, as it normally covers 1,600 to 2,000 square miles. The only lakes in the United States are the five Great Lakes. 

However, the Great Salt Lake is not so great when it comes to depth. On average, it's only 14 feet deep with a maximum of 35 feet. That means there's not all that much water there that can evaporate. 

Water levels can fall dramatically during dry years and rise during wet years. When snowpack melts in the spring, the lake usually rises about 2 feet. In years with above-average snowpack, it can go up 3 to 4 feet. In 2022 and 2021, the elevation only went up about 1 foot because of the poor snowpack.

The problem now is the persistent western mega-drought. The Great Salt Lake might be seeing a minor reprieve this winter, as some of the moisture from those huge California storms are making it to the Great Salt Lake watershed. 

But not much. The latest U.S. Drought Monitor, released Thursday, still has virtually all of Utah in drought, and the area around the Great Salt Lake in severe to extreme drought. 

The mega drought in the West won't disappear even if the rest of this winter proves to be wet.   If that were the only thing to consider, that would be bad enough. But us humans, as usual, are making things worse. 

The Washington Post noted that more than 70 percent of the Utah's water use goes towards growing crops to feed livestock. 

The lake has lost about 40 billion gallons of water since 2020, and conservation measures now in place aren't good enough to replace that huge amount of water, WaPo tells us. 

A recently released report by researchers from Brigham Young University said Utah and nearby states need to curb water consumption by a third to a half.  That's a pretty tall order. But such cuts, if successful, would allow 2.5 million acre feet of water to flow from streams and rivers right into the lake over the next couple of years. 

It looks as if people have been taken the Utah lake for granted. "Over the last three years the report says, the lake has received less than a third of its normal stream flow because so much water has been diverted for other purposes. In 2022, its surface sank to a record low, ten feet below what is the minimum healthy level.

Since there's so much less fresh water flowing into the Great Salt Lake, the water that's there is getting even saltier. 

Great Salt Lake's unique ecosystem makes it an important resource for migratory birds. An estimated 10 million birds depend on the lake's brine shrimp and flies. It's also an essential breeding ground for pelicans

As the Washington Post reports,  if those conservation measures aren't taken the Great Salt Lake ecosystem would collapse.  The lake is becoming too salty for even those brine shrimp and flies.  So what do all those millions of birds get for lunch and dinner at the lake? Little or nothing, if this trend continues.  

If you don't give a crap about the brine shrimp and pelicans, consider this. All that salt and sediment at the bottom of the lake contains really, really bad things like arsenic and mercury. While the Mr. Yuck stuff is under water, it's not a huge danger to a lot of people. 

But if the Great Salt Lake disappears, the sediment will dry out into sand and dust. Then Utah's notoriously gusty winds will blow all that stuff into the noses of the 1.25 million or so people in the Salt Lake City metro area.

On the political side, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said his administration won't let the Great Salt Lake

As reported by the Standard-Examiner of Ogden, Utah:

"'I'm telling people: On my watch we are not allowing the lake to go dry. We will do whatever it taes to make sure that doesn't happen,' he said.......

The governor said water conservation and the Great Salt Lake are among his top priorities to tackle with lawmakers in the 2023 legislative session that begins next week. He is supporting bills and spending around water conservation measures. 

As part of his $28 billion budget, Gov. Cox would like to see incentives offered to get agriculture producers - the state's top water user - to switch to new technologies that allow them to grow crops with less water. He has also proposed money to pay farmers not to grow crops and let the water go downstream, to purchase water rights for the lake itself and expanding cloud seeding.

'You will see additional water going into the lake. You're literally going to see releases from other reservoir systems into the lake. It's never happened before,' he said. 'You're going to see water rights going to the lake.'"

 Well, we'll see.