Over two decades of the western megadrought, water diversions from rivers that feed the lake have increased in order to support farms and thirsty, growing cities.
The Great Salt Lake is roughly 8-9 feet lower than it should be. A snowy winter recently has helped lake levels some.
Lucky? Maybe one small bright spot in an otherwise grim story of a looming ecological disaster. The lake doesn't really stink anymore because it's drying ... and dying. Once a week they hike out to try to collect brine fly larva samples, with the idea that they could keep some alive in their lab back in the city should more water re-enter the lake in the near future.
The big unknown is how bad dust storms could get from a dried up lake bed. There is precedent. Along California's Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains, years of water diversions from the Owens River by the city of Los Angeles caused downstream saline Owens Lake to dry up. Dust storms from that lake bed became theIn Utah, the Great Salt Lake is more than seven times larger than the historic footprint of Owens Lake.
Researchers have found higher rates of asthma and cardiovascular disease in neighborhoods like these. Oneeven showed that students in schools here scored lower on tests during bad air days.
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