"The Great Salt Lake needs some leaps to be saved. Health risks exist too: The massive dry lakebed could send arsenic-laced dust into the air that millions breathe. The shrinking of the lake poses serious risks to millions of migrating birds and a lake-based economy that's worth an estimated $1.3 billion in mineral extraction, brine shrimp and recreation. But the Great Salt Lake may have some new allies: conservative Republican lawmakers. The largest natural lake west of the Mississippi is shrinking past its lowest levels in recorded history, raising fears about toxic dust, ecological collapse and economic consequences. We have to do something."Īntelope Island State Park visitors view the the receding edge of the Great Salt Lake Friday, Jan. But learning about the lake's precarious position this summer left him terrified. It's always been there, and I've assumed it always would be there," said House speaker Brad Wilson at a summit he convened on the issue. Another would pay farmers for sharing their water downstream, and a third would direct money from mineral-extraction royalties to benefit the lake. One proposal would tackle water use in homes and businesses, by measuring outdoor water that's considered some of the country's cheapest. But some worry that the ideas advancing so far at the state Legislature don't go far enough to halt the slow-motion ecological disaster. Spencer Cox proposing spending $46 million and the powerful House speaker throwing his weight behind the issue. This year could see big investment in the lake that's long been an afterthought, with Gov. The nation's fastest-growing state is also one of the driest, with some of the highest domestic water use. Water has been diverted away from the lake for years, though, to supply homes and crops in Utah. The new burst of energy from the GOP-dominated state government comes after lake levels recently hit a low point during a regional megadrought worsened by climate change.
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