Water in the West- Salt Lake City, Utah

At Antelope Island, the morning of June 13 on our way to Bryce Canyon – the South end of Salt Lake.

The Great Salt Lake in all her glory.

The Great Salt Lake is the largest U.S. lake located west of the Mississippi River. It was once called Bonneville Lake -14,000-30,000 years ago. The lake was 131 miles by 131 miles. Yearly, 2.9 million acre feet evaporate from Salt Lake and 2.2 million metric tons of minerals enter. The salinity of the Lake varies from 5%-30%. The salinity of the Dead Sea is close to 30%.

           

 In the 1800s, a railroad divided Salt Lake into a North and South end- it did not allow water flow between the two ends and we see the effects of that now. The South side has a higher level of water and a lower salinity because fresh water enters the Lake. The North end which does not have water entering from another body of water it has a higher salinity.

The Lake has many uses:

The salt in the Lake is used to make salt licks for cattle and other livestock. The salt is also used in hydrochloric acid, fertilizers and chlorine gas. There is an industry in the collecting the shrimp to feed fish. Millions of birds feed on the shrimp. It is too expensive to make table salt out of the Lake and recently there has been oil discovered under the Lake- but that would disrupt the ecosystem of the Lake and cause pollution as well so the oil has not been excavated yet.