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

      Tall as houses, with gear boxes the size of Volkswagens, the three 72.6-ton engines of the West Desert Pumping Project have sat mothballed and silent inside a darkened pump station for 10 years now.

Technicians servicing the Great Salt Lake pumps. Paul Barker, Deseret News

      They wait for the day a rampaging Great Salt Lake again threatens to engulf millions of dollars worth of farmland, roads, railroads, industries and subdivisions, as it did from 1983 to 1987 when its waters rose to nearly 4,212 feet above sea level.
      If and when the state decides to use the $60 million pumping system again, it will take six to eight weeks to get the machinery ready. Then a gas pipeline will be turned on 37 miles away, and the pump station on the west shore of the lake will roar with the noise of 11,500 horsepower.
      As they did from April 10, 1987, to June 30, 1989, the three V-16, turbocharged, slow-speed Ingersoll-Rand engines will power the blades inside three 50-foot-long, 10- to 12-foot-wide pumps made of aluminum-bronze. (In 1986, it took nearly all of the world's supply of the alloy to build them.)
      The pumps will lift the lake's water more than 20 feet from a canal at a rate of 1.5 million gallons per minute and send it through another canal to a 500-square-mile evaporation basin four miles away in the West Desert.
      In a month, the pumps can take an inch off the lake. In a year, they can take a foot. First-year operating cost: $3 million.
      Will the pumps be able to prevent a future disastrous flood?
      Maybe. Maybe not.
      "The pumps are an insurance policy," said Jim Palmer, chief engineer for the West Desert Pumping Project.
      But, as with any insurance policy, there are caveats and exclusions.
      In its 1995 version of the Great Salt Lake Comprehensive Management Plan, the Department of Natural Resources warned that even if the pumps are started when the lake is expected to reach 4,205 feet, they may not be able to stay ahead of the rising waters in wet years. "Uniform zoning restrictions and provisions for dikes, where needed, are critical in order to avoid flood damage in the future," the plan states.
      "The pumps could mitigate but may not totally control the level if you get several wet years in a row," said Jim Kolva, chief of the Hydrologic Surveillance Section of the U.S. Geological Survey in Salt Lake City.
      If the lake were to rise 9 feet in two consecutive annual cycles, as it did in 1982-1983 and 1983-1984, the pumps would be able to take off only 2 feet.
      "The lake is so big, there's no man-made solution that can probably control it," Kolva said.
      Lynn de Freitas, president of Friends of Great Salt Lake, goes further. "The lake is like a 900-pound gorilla. It's going to go where it's going to go. We're sensitive to the fact that there is all this development around the lake, but it's unfortunate we have developed so much we can't allow the lake to do as it needs to do."
      The lake has been above 4,211 feet only three times in recorded history, in 1873, 1986 and 1987. With its level expected to peak at a little over 4,204 feet this year, there is little chance of seeing 1986-1987's disastrous level of 4,211.85 feet in the next three or four years, said Brian McInerney, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City.
      Still, wetter-than-usual weather has caused a progressive rise in the lake's level during the past few years. That trend could continue. And the lake can always pull a surprise, as it did between 1982 and 1984.
      One who doesn't want to take any chances is Kenneth L. Warnick, vice president of IMC Kalium Ogden Corp., one of the major mineral extractors on the lake. If the lake reaches 4,211 feet, his company will have to spend millions on diking, Warnick said.
      The pumps can start operating when the lake reaches 4,208 feet. However, they could be re-engineered to work at 4,204 feet.
      The Department of Natural Resources is working on a revised Great Salt Lake Comprehensive Management Plan and is considering four policy choices on pumping:

• Pumping at 4,208 feet from the northern area of the lake only.

• Replumbing the system to allow pumping at 4,206 feet from both north and south.

• Replumbing to pump at 4,205 feet.

• No pumping at all.

      Replumbing the system to pump from the southern arm as well as the northern arm would reduce the amount of dissolved solids taken from the lake, thereby reducing damage to its ecosystem.
      A decision to pump would have to be approved by the U.S. Air Force, which owns a big chunk of the land covered by the evaporation basin. The Air Force has told the state it will require an environmental baseline study and possibly an update of the project's original environmental impact statement before it again grants permission to flood part of the Utah Test and Training Range.
      The Air Force has also said any proposal to pump for purposes other than flood control would receive heightened scrutiny.
      The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has the authority to issue or deny permits for construction and operation of the pumping project, has raised concerns over the ecological impact of the 1986-1987 pumping, including the removal of an estimated 10 percent of the lake's dissolved minerals.
      Environmental concerns will have to be weighed against potential damage to lakeside facilities and infrastructure.
      To make sure the pumps will work when needed, Palmer and one of his colleagues make a four-hour round trip to the pump station every month to inspect and maintain its equipment.
      Sitting at the end of a 30-mile-long dirt road on a rocky outcrop north of the ghost town of Lakeside on the desolate western shore, the station is in such an isolated spot it has no phone lines or permanent power. To turn on the lights, Palmer has to use a portable generator.
      Despite the lights, the gray concrete station is gloomy and cold inside, even on a mild day.
      "Sometimes, when the wind is blowing, it's scary in here," Palmer said.
      The huge machines and pipes add to an atmosphere of science fiction dread, something not lost on producers of the film Independence Day, who considered using the pump station as a stand-in for the legendary Area 51 alien holding facility.
      The maintenance program, which costs $15,000 to $20,000 a year, includes injecting hydrogen into the fuel lines to displace water vapor inside the engines and protect them from internal corrosion. Palmer and colleague John Holman also turn the enormous clutch wheels and pump blades a few times to keep them loose.