Like much of the West and SouthWest, lakes are fast disappearing due to a combination of human overuse and climate change led megadroughts. The Great Salt Lake is fast disappearing and we are left with few extremely expensive options for how to reverse course. The good news is that Utah politicians look to be focusing heavily on how to solve this huge problem. From the article…
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Like the rest of the West, Utah has a water problem. But megadrought and overconsumption aren’t just threats to wildlife, agriculture and industry here. A disappearing Great Salt Lake could poison the lungs of more than 2.5 million people.
When lake levels hit historic lows in recent months, 800 square miles of lakebed were exposed – soil that holds centuries of natural and manmade toxins like mercury, arsenic and selenium. As that mud turns to dust and swirls to join some of the worst winter air pollution in the nation, scientists warn that the massive body of water could evaporate into a system of lifeless finger lakes within five years, on its way to becoming the Great Toxic Dustbowl.
The thing is, a lesson on this was learned at Salton Sea in California. It is better to keep water in the lake in the first place, instead of allowing it to dry up then spend hundreds of millions of dollars fixing the problem.
Utah is high plains desert, yet the cities are stuffed with nice green lawns. And there is very little water water use enforcement.
But the greater folly of Utah’s water management: more and more water is being diverted into agriculture, but Utah is the second dryest state in the country.
It’s madness.
The solutions are few at this point- radically reduce consumption- especially by farmers, and/or pump immense amounts of water from the Pacific Ocean- but that seems unfathomably expensive and also…its salt water…while they need fresh water.
It can be traced back to Mormons arriving in that area and then essentially transforming it from a desert into farm country- which it was never meant to be.
I do wonder when the first area in the West will ultimately prove uninhabitable even with extremely expensive water projects. At some point it seems like whole swaths of the US will be forced to migrate. The only question in my mind is when. Humans are pretty crafty at delaying the inevitable tho.
I still don’t understand why we, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, don’t have desalination plants providing water to the west, southwest, and mountain west.
Let alone the cloud seeding that @SixFoot talks about
$$$$$ and energy costs. But yeah- we will likely ramp this technology up…I just don’t see it solving the crisis. The water it would produce would be very expensive…even before piping it 500 miles away uphill to places like Utah.
Someone has to pay for that cost- either taxpayers in those states, or by the federal government in the form of ongoing deficit spending. States live by budgets that cannot include deficit spending. That leaves the Feds.
By the time the Federal government gets to this we may be too late in terms of the effect of the droughts and dried up aquifers and lakes.
Btw, water consumption is much to blame for the current condition of the lake. A toxic dust bowl would definitely decrease water consumption in that area.
“Drought” is a trigger word for useful idiots to start railing on about climate change (campaigning for increased government power and revenue) rather than seeking simple, logical solutions through decades-old tech.
Why would anyone with power and money want to make your life better when it means less power and money for them?
Cloud seeding is instant, cheap, easy, and more effective at combating droughts. It would also fill Lake Meade all the way up by the time a single desalination plant could be built.
Cloud seeding is even more iffy in terms of bringing immense amounts of water to drought riven regions at a reasonable cost. But yeah, we likely need to go for a mix of solutions including de-sal and cloud seeding to add to massive conservation.
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Experts who have studied cloud seeding point out that it is no panacea, given it doesn’t solve the systemic causes of drought and can be tricky to implement – only certain clouds in certain weather conditions can be seeded with nascent rain and there’s no guarantee it will break a drought even if successful.
“I don’t think cloud seeding will solve the problem but it can help,” said Katja Friedrich, a University of Colorado researcher who has studied the issue. “It needs to be part of a broader water plan that involves conserving water efficiently, we can’t just focus on one thing. Also there is a question whether you will be able to do it in a changing climate – you need cold temperatures and once it gets too warm you aren’t able to do the cloud seeding.”
You’ve probably never even been given a pat on the back for being so dedicated to presenting non-solutions that do nothing but increase power and revenue for the government. All you do is argue against actual answers. Very sad.
Cost has gone down quite a bit for de-sal over the last 20 years so hopefully that will continue but cost is key to examining solutions. Honestly I think the Federal government will deficit spend into the trillions to save the West if needs be.
