Terminal waters like Owens and Mono lakes in California or the Great Salt Lake in Utah rise and fall, responding to the rhythms of their climate. There have been periods in prehistory that they have dried completely for a spell. But fill them with water, and they come alive again.
The dust is kicking up on the Great Salt Lake s ever-expanding dry lakebed, raising fears about the air millions breathe along the Wasatch Front. Just a few states away, however, Los Angeles has spent decades figuring out how to get a handle a very similar problem.
Mono Lake’s advocates successfully argued that protecting natural public resources held equal importance to LA’s need to export water. Advocates say “every drop matters.”
Keeping dust at bay on the Great Salt Lake’s exposed lakebed will take a mosaic of solutions. And it will be very, very expensive. Here are strategies being used at dry Owens Lake in California.
A team of Utah media visited California earlier this year to glean lessons from the decimated Owens Lake and its challenged sister Lake Mono. Here are some of the lessons we learned about the importance of saving the Great Salt Lake.