At 19 feet below its average natural level since 1850, the lake is in uncharted territory. It has lost 73% of its water and 60% of its surface area. Our unsustainable water use is desiccating habitat, exposing toxic dust, and driving salinity to levels incompatible with the lake’s food webs. The lake’s drop has accelerated since 2020, with an average deficit of 1.2 million acre-feet per year. If this loss rate continues, the lake as we know it is on track to disappear in five years.
Napkin math indicates that a 100 mile pipeline to the Snake River for emergency water diversion would cost around $100,000,000 just for sufficient PVC pipe, not accounting for any...
Napkin math indicates that a 100 mile pipeline to the Snake River for emergency water diversion would cost around $100,000,000 just for sufficient PVC pipe, not accounting for any clean-up/sterilization prior to discharge into the lake, nor for construction or operations costs. @Loire you’re probably better at installed costs than I am. Are those figures reasonable?
Genuine question: at what point does a local eco system become unfixable, and you just have to give up and let nature take its course? I see lots of people taking out low-head damns and weirs, and...
Genuine question: at what point does a local eco system become unfixable, and you just have to give up and let nature take its course?
I see lots of people taking out low-head damns and weirs, and fixing industrially controlled rivers by fixing the riparian systems, and those projects seem to work quite well. But in those systems you start with something that's sort of working but not nearly as good as it can be, and you're letting nature do its thing by taking out the man-man artificialities.
But this lake? I mean, it's fucked. Without nuclear powered desalination and massive pipes crossing states there's no hope, is there?
It's "unfixable" as long as people divert so much of the water that used to flow into it. As stated in the article, with a 50% reduction in agricultural diversion the lake would start to refill,...
It's "unfixable" as long as people divert so much of the water that used to flow into it. As stated in the article, with a 50% reduction in agricultural diversion the lake would start to refill, even with the current dry weather.
SLC already suffers from the "inversion" in the valley. Add in toxic dust from the remains of the lake...Yikes.
From the article:
Well, they’re getting lots of precip right now, so this all mist be some conspiracy, right?
Good to see byu on board though.
Napkin math indicates that a 100 mile pipeline to the Snake River for emergency water diversion would cost around $100,000,000 just for sufficient PVC pipe, not accounting for any clean-up/sterilization prior to discharge into the lake, nor for construction or operations costs. @Loire you’re probably better at installed costs than I am. Are those figures reasonable?
Genuine question: at what point does a local eco system become unfixable, and you just have to give up and let nature take its course?
I see lots of people taking out low-head damns and weirs, and fixing industrially controlled rivers by fixing the riparian systems, and those projects seem to work quite well. But in those systems you start with something that's sort of working but not nearly as good as it can be, and you're letting nature do its thing by taking out the man-man artificialities.
But this lake? I mean, it's fucked. Without nuclear powered desalination and massive pipes crossing states there's no hope, is there?
It's "unfixable" as long as people divert so much of the water that used to flow into it. As stated in the article, with a 50% reduction in agricultural diversion the lake would start to refill, even with the current dry weather.