Climate change and a population boom could dry up the Great Salt Lake in 5 years
Trekking along the shoreline of the Great Salt Lake — the largest remaining saltwater lake in the western hemisphere — can feel eerie and lonely. … [Carly Biedul, a biologist with the Great Salt Lake Institute], is bundled up in an orange puffy jacket, gloves and hat. Most important she’s wearing, thick, sturdy, rubber boots. The mud with a frozen, slick layer of ice on top gets treacherous. One thing that’s hard to prepare for though, is the stench: A pungent odor like sulfur and dead fish. But it’s actually a good thing, a sign of a biologically healthy saline lake. “People have been saying that they miss the lake stink because it just makes them feel like home,” Biedul says. “It’s just not here [much] anymore, so you’re lucky that it gets to smell so bad.” 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.