With Great Salt Lake Drying Up, Utah Lege Looks Into Pipeline From Pacific Ocean. Yes Really.
Link to tweet
https://www.wonkette.com/with-great-salt-lake-drying-up-utah-lege-looks-into-pipeline-from-pacific-ocean-yes-really
Utah's Great Salt Lake is, like a lot of western lakes, drying up and shrinking at an alarming rate due to long-lasting drought that's intensified by climate change. Unlike Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the Now Just Adequate Salt Lake is a natural lake, not the result of damming the Colorado River (or damning it, as Ed Abbey used to say), but the calamitous drop in water levels results from similar causes: not enough water coming into the lake from rivers, plus lots of thirsty humans and their agriculture using upstream sources. In late April, state water officials projected the lake will once again hit a new record low water level this year, a good two feet lower than the previous record low level of 4,190 feet, set just in October 2021.
The Deseret News explains,
The projection is based on levels that flow into the lake from its core tributaries, like the Bear, Weber and Jordan rivers. Normally those rivers add about 3 feet of water during the irrigation offseason, while there’s a 2-foot reduction once the irrigation begins. That’s a net gain of about a foot per year.
But this year’s spring runoff is not looking good for the lake. The National Weather Service’s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center announced last week that it adjusted its forecast to project a runoff at 60% of normal. It previously forecast a normal runoff at the start of the year.
Last year, instead of the usual off-season increase of a foot, the lake's level only rose by six inches. And the state's snowpack is far lower than normal due to the drought. Also, fun fact: because of mineral concentrations in the lakebed, the drier the lake gets, the greater the chance of toxic dust blowing into populated areas.
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occur most places, though. Retirees flee northern winters every year to winter in the desert, and many who can't wish they could. Frequent extreme winter events are also a new reality. The existential water problem will have to be solved, of course. Happily, golf's losing popularity for other reasons anyway.
Btw, last century several severe droughts traumatized us in Southern California and to this day we religiously promptly turn off our faucets, etc. Now, near where we have a little vacation place in FL, and maintain a garden on rainfall alone, millions of gallons flow each hour from fresh water springs almost directly into the Gulf of Mexico. Very beautiful, and I never get over it. 
The giant Floridan aquifer is also being depleted as FL's population continues to explode, of course.
