The far horizon

A lively recreational jewel

A flood of trivia

Great tales surrounding the lake

TODAY

Ecosystem under threat

Lake has impact on weather

Small island is a refuge for birds

Islands in the salt

Lake defines geology of northern Utah

Great Salt Lake timeline

THE FUTURE

Looking ahead

Lake pumps still waiting for flood

Myriad firms thrive off lake

Dike it, dye it, blow a hole in it

Is plan for lake great?

By Jose Luis Sanchez Jr.
Deseret News staff writer

      No maharajah's turban ever had a ruby so lustrous and deep as the eye of a grebe.

The snow-capped Wasatch Mountains are reflected on Ogden Bay of the Great Salt Lake, along whose long, rugged shoreline are some of the most important avian habitats anywhere in the world. Scott G. Winterton, Deseret News

      Held in the gentle grip of a Utah Department of Wildlife Resources biological aide, the little feathered Great Salt Lake resident seemed scared but defiant as it pecked about with its sharp, inch-long beak.
      Half-masked by glittering golden feathers on both sides of its head, its body a gleaming black, the grebe was one of three netted, weighed and tagged on a recent afternoon by DWR's Don Paul, a wildlife biologist, and Ann Ellison, his aide.
      They come to the Ogden Bay Wildlife Management Area every 10 days to check on the grebes, one of the most numerous species, and the hundreds of other species that make the Great Salt Lake their home.
      Riding on an airboat on less than 1 foot of water as much as two miles from shore, Paul and Ellison are also here to do a bird count. It is now the third year of a comprehensive Great Salt Lake Water Bird Survey being conducted by dozens of DWR employees with the help of some 50 volunteers from the Audubon Society and other conservation groups.
      "This bird is at 247 (grams). That's a good sign. The heaviest last week was 204," said Paul, a wildlife biologist. All three birds appeared healthy, he said. Released at the shore, the grebe quickly went under, the pumping of its big, webbed feet visible under the water. A few feet away, it popped out of the water with a flutter of wings and went on its way.

A kaleidoscope
      The purpose of the Bird Survey is to establish a base level that will allow biologists to better assess future environmental impacts on bird populations, Paul said.

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      "It's difficult to determine all effects on birds, but we can determine what happens to them while they are here and what habitats are important to them," he said.
      From August through the middle of November, first shore birds and then waterfowl — more than 250 species — crowd the lake by the millions, making it one of a chain of internationally important breeding grounds and wintering places for migrating birds stretching from the Arctic to the the tip of South America.
      "Looking down from a plane, you see a kaleidoscope in slow motion, a kaleidoscope of patterns, shapes, behaviors. . . . Hey, that's not a bad image," Paul said smiling, perhaps feeling a little self-conscious about his passion for the lake, on which he has worked for almost 20 years.
      The millions of birds that live on or visit the 1,500-square-mile Great Salt Lake and the 400,000 acres of wetlands along its shores include seven species of waterfowl totaling 470,000 birds that breed on the lake. During migration periods, they are joined by 2.69 million waterfowl belonging to 10 different species.
      The lake is also home to the world's largest nesting population of California gulls and white-face ibis as well as North America's largest staging concentrations of American avocets, blackneck stilts and Tundra swans. Endangered or sensitive species include peregrine falcons, bald eagles, American pelicans and snowy plovers.
      Though most of the lake is too salty for fish, 23 species or subspecies of fish make their home in river estuaries and impounded areas around its shores that capture fresh water from rivers and streams. Sixty-four species or subspecies of mammals and eight types of amphibians also live on the lake's shores.Among the mammals are buffalo and antelope, which live on a preserve on Antelope Island.

The pollution threat
      For the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the greatest long-term threat to the lake is water pollution.

Brine shrimp (Artemia franciscana)

      "Overall, there is a lot of water going into the lake that is pretty good quality, but there is a threat. There are some areas that are in pretty poor shape," said Reed E. Harris, Utah field supervisor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "There are lots of things going down the Jordan River into the lake we'd like to see cleaned up."
      Whatever is put into the lake stays there, Harris pointed out.
      Pollutants released by various industries and non-point source pollution caused by agricultural drainage and urban runoff could be building up in the wetlands and pose a potential threat to the ecosystem, he said. The Wildlife Service is currently conducting a comprehensive study of those contaminants.
      In August 1998, the agency found bird embryo deformities in the wetlands adjacent to the Salt Lake City treatment plant. There and in the nearby Oil Drain Canal, cyanide, copper and lead exceeded numeric water-quality standards for aquatic wildlife. In 1997, phenol 1,000 times over the numeric criteria was found. Another contaminant of particular concern is selenium, a byproduct of copper production, Harris said.
      The narrative water quality standards currently being applied to industries holding discharge permits on the lake are toothless, Harris said. "It's like a motherhood statement. It means we are not going to do anything bad."
      Harris and others such as Lynn de Freitas, president of Friends of Great Salt Lake, advocate the adoption of numeric water-quality standards, which would clearly establish the amount of contaminants that could be discharged.

Big question marks
      "We need to make some definitive determinations about what is good and not good for the biological mechanism that makes the lake happen," de Freitas said. "We don't know how much selenium is too much for brine shrimp and brine flies. Those are big question marks."
      However, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality's Division of Water Quality "does not see any water-quality problems in GSL. In addition, financial resources to establish numerical water quality standards are very limited," states a DNR draft of comments and responses to its Great Salt Lake Management Alternatives Matrix released last April.
      The state should not reissue discharge permits until the impact of contaminants on wildlife is better understood, argues de Freitas.
      One of the policy options under consideration by the Department of Natural Resources as it prepares a draft of the Great Salt Lake Comprehensive Management Plan is to adopt numerical water quality standards. However, no moratorium on discharge permits is being contemplated.

The most important issue
      In recent years, the shrimping industry has been clamoring for the state to do something about the reduction in the amount of salt in the southern part of the lake, which they say is the cause of a decline in the number of shrimp.

DWR aide Ann Ellison assists in measuring a grebe's bill. Scott G. Winterton, Deseret News

      "Salinity is the most important issue we're facing," said Art DuFault, who heads the Great Salt Lake Planning Team within the Utah Department of Natural Resources. "It's serious because industry is being impacted."
      The Southern Pacific Railroad causeway, which divided the lake into northern and southern halves in 1959, as well as other causeways and diking systems built in the past 150 years, have increasingly interfered with the even distribution of salt within the lake.
      As a result, salinity now varies greatly in various parts of the vast lake. It ranges from a low of 3 to 6 percent in Farmington and Bear River bays to 20 to 28 percent (near saturation) in Gunnison Bay in the lake's northern area. Salinity in Gilbert Bay, the southern area, currently ranges from 7 to 17 percent. Artermia shrimp production is best when salinity is 12 to 18 percent. In the world's oceans, salinity averages 3 percent.
      The desalinization of Gilbert Bay is aggravated by the fact that most of the fresh water from rivers and streams enters the lake at its southern end.
      Salinity is also affected by the lake's level. During the flood years of the 1980s, salinity in the southern area of the lake fell to 5 percent and most of the shrimp lived in the now "dead" northern area, where salinity was around 16 percent at the time.
      Economically, the most important life form in the lake is artemia franciscana, more commonly known as brine shrimp. Brine shrimp eggs, which account for most of the harvest today, are used in the culture of prawns and specialized fish like the grouper. The shrimp are also one of the principal sources of food for the lake's birds.
      In 1997-1998, the low numbers of shrimp forced officials to shorten the harvesting season by eight weeks, cutting the total catch by more than half and reducing the harvest to 3.6 million pounds of processed shrimp and shrimp eggs worth $25 million to $44 million.
      A possible solution under consideration by the Department of Natural Resources is to create additional breaches in the causeway to allow more southward circulation of the saltier northern water. The U.S. Geological Survey is working on a computer model to predict how salinity would be affected by breaches of different sizes.

A tall order
      Finding a solution that will satisfy both the shrimpers and the north shore mineral extractors, who don't want to lose the concentration of mineral-laden water they currently enjoy, may be a tall order for the Department of Natural Resources.
      "Without further study, we would be opposed to any further breaches in the causeway," said Kenneth L. Warnick, vice president of IMC Kalium Ogden Corp., which extracted 448,000 tons of sulphate of potash from the lake in 1998. Warnick's preferred solution to the salinity problem is to start pumping the lake when it reaches 4,205 feet, six inches from where it is now. However, environmentalists believe the lake should be allowed to rise and fall without interference.
      For Harris, the goal should be to get "the best water quality we can so the migratory birds, the shrimp industry and the recreational uses are able to persist for a long period of time."

More information on the Great Salt Lake managment plan is available at the Utah Department of Natural Resources Web site at www.nr.state.ut.us/dwr/gslplan.htm.