The Wall Street Journal | By: Jim Carlton | September 13, 2017:
With a population expected to reach 5 million by 2050, state officials are looking at siphoning water from a river that feeds Great Salt Lake, but critics worry the plan will damage the environment and fragile wetlands.
Mormon pioneers believed they’d found a promised land when they arrived at the Great Salt Lake here 170 years ago and began building their community. Since then, that body of water has shrunk to a depth of about 14 feet—nearly half its former average. Under a controversial engineering plan, the lake would recede even further.
State engineers want to siphon off some of the river water that flows into the lake and use it for the Salt Lake City area’s booming population. Proponents say the plan, which calls for lapping up a fifth of Bear River’s current unused flow, is essential for meeting the region’s needs.
But critics note that the diversion would cause the lake to drop by almost a foot, according to state estimates, eventually exposing 30 square miles of lake bed and potentially worsening the dust storms that regularly blanket the region and ruining a fragile wetlands habitat.
The debate echoes concerns heard in many other arid parts of the world.
In the Middle East, diversion of the Jordan and other rivers that feed the Dead Sea has shriveled the famous body of saltwater and its once robust tourism. The Aral Sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan has shrunk to about 10% of its original size after diversions.
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