New IMAX Film And Theater Highlight Effort To Save Great Salt Lake

18.01.2024 - 20:55 / forbes.com

Utah’s iconic Great Salt Lake is drying up which will have catastrophic consequences if something isn’t done soon, so state officials are taking unprecedented steps to head off what some are calling an environmental disaster on the order of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Since Brigham Young and early Latter-day Saint pioneers first arrived at Great Salt Lake, the natural wonder that once spanned 1,700-square miles has dropped nearly 50 percent. The largest saline lake in the Western Hemisphere is in steady decline and on the brink of disappearing.

The question many are asking is will it share the fate of other of the world’s great saltwater bodies—The Dead Sea of Jordan, the Aral Sea of Kazakhstan, The Salton Sea and Owens Lake of California, Lake Poopo in Bolivia, Lake Urmia in Iran, and others that are all disappearing (or have already disappeared)?

Of nine saline lakes found in the American West, more than half have withered from 50 to 95 percent of their earliest recorded levels. None is more important than Great Salt Lake, and the struggle to save it is emblematic of the growing demand for water across the globe. The world’s human population has nearly doubled since 1980 and with that growth has come exponential demand for water. For Great Salt Lake and all the people and wildlife that benefit from it, the clock is ticking.

Great Salt Lake and the businesses that depend on it are the economic driver sustaining much of Utah’s health and wealth. Direct industries derived from the lake, including commercial fishing, mining and recreation bring in more than $1 billion a year in net economic output. The lake also provides the key moisture that drives the state’s world renowned billion-dollar ski industry and supports other forms of outdoor recreation, creating a massive economic driver for the state. Most importantly the Great Salt Lake makes life in much of Utah possible. As the lake disappears and its dry bed is exposed, air quality will continue to degrade with an increase in dust clouds.

Over the course of more than a century of documentation, researchers have been able to account for an 11-foot drop in lake levels due to urban development, much of which has occurred in recent decades as Utah has grown. That might not sound like a lot when you think of most lakes, but the Great Salt Lake is not like others. Its lakebed is shallow, averaging just 15 feet and recording a maximum depth of only 33 feet. Roughly 50 percent of the lakebed is now dry, exposing the lake’s naturally occurring arsenic and mercury, two well-known carcinogens.

Beyond the lake as a sustainable economic driver, it is one of the most important migratory bird habitats found in the western United States. The lake is home to most of