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I am thankful that the president has talked about the crisis
we are in with the Great Salt Lake. I hope that will
raise public awareness of just how bad things really are here. I took
the above
photo on January 7, 2026 while climbing a hillside on Antelope
Island. In the center of the photo, at the base of the mountains
you can just barely make out the skyscrapers of downtown Salt
Lake City. Notice how much dry ground there is between Antelope
Island and the downtown area as the lake seems to be drying up
and disappearing.
Let's not allow history to repeat itself. The Aral Sea in
central Asia was once
the 4th largest fresh water lake in the world. The Soviets saw
cotton as "white gold" and robbed the sea of its river water so
that they could grow cotton in the desert. I will post before
and after pictures of the Aral Sea. Our lake is now quickly
heading toward that same calamity.
The Great Salt Lake has a tremendous impact on the entire
ecosystem of this area. Most of the moisture that hits Salt Lake City rides in
on the jet streams from the Pacific northwest, and as the storms
pass over the Great Salt Lake they are frequently intensified by
the "lake effect" causing them to release more than a normal
amount of rain and snow when they hit the Wasatch Mountains.
Having traveled and photographed extensively throughout the
west, I believe that the canyons southeast of Salt Lake City are
the richest, greenest canyons anywhere in the intermountain
area. But the more the lake shrinks the more that lake effect
weakens and we stand to see smaller snowpacks and drier canyons,
accelerating both our water shortage and the disappearance of
the Great Salt Lake.
Already the massively exposed dry beds of the lake are creating
a serious health hazard. As our water comes out of the mountains it is
full of minerals, which in their natural
proportions are quite safe, even to drink, but for thousands of years that water
has been evaporating and depositing those minerals at the bottom
of the Great Salt Lake. Now everytime winds
blow in from the northwest across the exposed dry beds that you see in the
photo above, they pick up unsafe levels of arsenic and other
dangerous minerals, fanning them into the city and surrounding
areas. I have had constant sinus irritations since I arrived back in Utah. I do
have allergies, but why during seasons of low pollen count do my sinuses
sometimes get much worse?
With these kinds of hazards already developing, why are we bringing AI data centers to Utah? It seems
to me that
history is repeating itself. The Soviets saw cotton as the
"white gold" but the devastation was that it takes over 700 gallons of water to produce
one cotton T-shirt. It seems to me they should have grown that
cotton in enviroments that had more water to give rather than in the
dry ecosystem around the Aral Sea. In like fashion, researchers
estimate that each 100 word e-mail generated by an AI chatbot
requires more than a full bottle of water to cool the computers.
Does Utah have that much water to spare? It seems to me that an
industry that uses that much water would be much more appropriate in
a wetter enviroment. Utah
needs to find its cash cow from other more appropriate sources.
We now have over 3 million people in the state of Utah. Most of
those people live along the Wasatch Front where they use the
water coming out of the mountains before it reaches the Great
Salt Lake. Water used for showers and dishes at least goes down
the drain and some of it may eventually reach the lake, but most
of the water that we use goes into our lawns and strongly
contributes to the strangulation of the lake. I have read
comments where people claim that grass puts moisture in the air
and creates rain, and that if their lawns weren't there the
problem would be much worse. To me that sounds like an
exaggerated rationalization. Much more water is being diverted
to grow that grass than what it is giving back, and the Great
Salt Lake has survived for 8,000 years without the help of our
lawns. I am told that one guy who replaced his grass with
alternative landscaping was fined by his city for breaking
zoning ordinances. The good news is that at least some of the cities
along the Wasatch Front are encouraging alternative landscaping,
and in some cases are even paying people to replace their lawns with
more water conservative landscapes.
We all need to do what we can to save this marvelous lake and an enviroment
around it that we can safely live in. Let's stop
bringing AI centers into Utah. House Bill 76 requires that AI
centers report their water usage, but the bill also includes a
clause that does not allow the public access to that
information. At a bottle of water for every 100 words, I can see
why. The public outcry would be so loud that every data center
in Utah would be stopped dead in its tracks. Let's also do what
we can to conserve water in and outside of our homes. Make sure
your city has laws that are favorable to alternative landscaping
rather than zoning penalties that prevent water conservation.
Below are the before and after photos of the Aral Sea. Let's
prevent an after picture of the Great Salt Lake that looks like
the one below. Over the years I have written three other
articles about the lake in crisis, each with a beautiful photo, so I will
include those links here:
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