The Great Salt Lake Crisis

I've often referred to Utah as America's Israel, and not just because it is a religious homeland for an historically persecuted sect.   The landscape of Utah very much resembles that of Israel, with its vast expanses of desert and also the fertile valleys that sustain human settlement  and agriculture, and it even has a river emanating from freshwater lake.  That river, like its biblical counterpart, is also called the Jordan, though it flows north from Utah Lake rather than south, as the biblical Jordan River flows from the Sea of Galilee. Mormon pioneers who arrived in the Wasatch Valley noted the incredible similarity to the river that flowed from Utah Lake into the an oversalinated lake just as the the Jordan River in Israel flowed from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. It only convinced them more that they had found their own promised land and influenced their decision to name the river after its biblical counterpart.    

The body of water the Jordan River of Utah flows into, of course, is the Great Salt Lake, which has come to symbolize Utah and its proto-Zionist culture.  However, water levels in the lake have been declining thanks to an ongoing, climate-change-induced drought in the West and Utahns' overreliance on water not just from the Jordan but from other rivers that feed the lake.  

The Great Salt Lake, ironically a shrunken remnant of a larger ancient lake, has supported numerous waterfowl, brine shrimp, and shorebirds like the California gull, the state bird and, according to Mormon legend, the savior of the Mormon settlement (it was said that a large flock of gulls that descended upon and ate a swarm of crickets that threatened the settlers' corn crop in 1848).  But not only could the wildlife be in danger of the lake continues to dry up, so could the people of Salt Lake City and its environs.  Much of the sediment of the lake built up over time is toxic, coming mainly from mining runoff but also from minerals from rivers that feed it.  If the Great Salt Lake disappears entirely - which some scientists say could happen as early as 2028 - the dust from the toxic sediment could blow in the wind toward the Salt Lake City metropolitan area.

Efforts are now being made to regulate water usage, allow more water to flow into the lake, and stress conservation.  Utahns are well aware of the consequences - albeit rather late - of this lake running dry.  It hasn't been this low since 1963, but a more reliable climate and less water usage back then restored it.  Now it's up to humans to restore the lake, for if they don't, the chosen people of Jesus who founded their Zion in the American West may, like the Jews before them, wander once again to look for a new homeland.