Cox orders Great Salt Lake causeway berm to be raised another 5 feet

This text is revealed by means of the Nice Salt Lake Collaborative, a options journalism initiative that companions information, training, and media organizations to assist inform folks concerning the plight of the Nice Salt Lake—and what could be performed to make a distinction earlier than it’s too late. Learn all of our tales at greatsaltlakenews.org

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a brand new govt order Friday, calling on the Utah Division of Forestry, Fireplace and State Lands to boost the Nice Salt Lake causeway berm by 5 ft, in an effort to enhance salinity situations which might be “threatening the Nice Salt Lake ecosystem.”

KSL.com reported that the order particularly calls on the division to boost the berm, which is situated by a 180-foot breach within the causeway — from 4,187 ft to 4,192 ft — in an effort to extend the general depth of the arm of the lake south of the causeway and reduce its rising salinity ranges.

The division raised the berm by 4 ft final yr due to the rising salinity ranges on the southern arm.

“The Nice Salt Lake is essential to the environment, ecology and financial system and we should do all the pieces we are able to to guard it,” Cox stated in an announcement Friday. “We’ve been blessed with important snowpack to date this winter, and this govt order will permit the state to maneuver rapidly to extend the lake degree within the south arm by capturing spring runoff. We don’t need to miss this chance to safeguard the lake.”

Latest storms improve the Nice Salt Lake’s water ranges

The order additionally calls on the Utah Division of Pure Sources and the Utah Division of Environmental High quality to organize a berm administration plan to information future changes to berm top. The order is about to run out as soon as the plan is adopted and carried out.

The Nice Salt Lake reached a brand new all-time low lake degree final yr, and specialists stated that the southern arm has gotten saltier because the lake shrinks.

The southern arm is often much less salty as a result of water from the Jordan, Bear, Ogden and Weber rivers stream into it. One attainable cause for the change is that the northern arm’s water is heavier and is pushing increased concentrations of salt into the southern arm, division officers stated final yr. Crews then raised the berm in an effort to revive the conventional stability of salinity between the 2 arms.

Nice Salt Lake set to fade in 5 years, specialists warn Utah lawmakers in dire report

The rising salinity ranges are an issue. Laura Vernon, Nice Salt Lake coordinator on the Division of Forestry, Fireplace and State Lands, defined that it will probably critically influence the lake’s ecosystem.

“The salinity of Nice Salt Lake performs an vital position in shaping the lake’s distinctive ecological, leisure and mineral useful resource use,” she stated on the time. “Sadly, the lower in freshwater inflows has led to a rise in salinity that’s detrimental to those sources.”