Will Utah’s Great Salt Lake disappear?
Utah’s Great Salt Lake doesn’t look so “great” these days. This place where tourists once bobbed up and down like corks in water far saltier than the ocean is now quite literally turning to dust. … Climate change and the West’s historic megadrought certainly haven’t done the lake any favors, but it’s the diversion of water away from the lake that Romney says is less than divine: “The water in this area helped us bloom like a rose, as the Scripture says. And yeah, we’ve got trees and beautiful lawns. But some of that’s gonna have to change.” Most of the lake’s water is spoken for long before it gets there. It’s not just those green lawns for Utah’s exploding population; 70% of the water goes to agriculture. And then there’s the billion-dollar-a-year mineral extraction industry. It uses the lake’s water, too.