ShareThisSALT LAKE CITY - The idea of a Great Salt Lake with too little water might seem hard to fathom.
But some of the iconic lake's biggest fans worry about signs it might be water-starved already and what the fallout might be if it shrinks more.
One solution? Giving the lake its own water share, through a dedicated water right or a conservation pool so that everyone who depends on the Great Salt Lake can count on it even in dry times.
Until a recent Friends of Great Salt Lake forum, said director Lynn deFreitas: "We haven't talked about this -- ever."
Water rights traditionally are owned by people, companies or governments. But some streams and reservoirs have them, supporters say, so why not the Great Salt Lake?
"We all have a stake in the lake," she said. "But this (status quo) puts all that in jeopardy."
Jack Ray, vice president of the Utah Waterfowl Association, said duck clubs are having trouble protecting the wetlands that millions of birds rely on for food and shelter. Shoreline development, weeds and pollution already have encroached on those critical habitats.
"The appeal of freshwater marshes declines with lake levels," Ray said.
While most states have consumption advisories for fish because of high mercury, Utah is the only one that warns against eating too much of certain kinds of ducks -- three species that feed in the Great Salt Lake wetlands.
"Our organizations have taken a position that enough is enough," he said, noting that they intend to fight further degradation of the wetlands.
Meanwhile, there already is a request by the Great Salt Lake Minerals Corp. to draw an additional 353,000 acre feet of water from the lake each year, enough to reduce lake levels by about 2 feet, according to state estimates. And Salt Lake City International Airport is talking about a fourth runway, which, depending on where it's built, could eat up wetlands with about the same area as 60 Salt Lake City blocks, said Ray.
Dave Shearer, harbor master at the Great Salt Lake Marina, noted that recreational boaters, industries that do business on the lake, and the pilots who fly over it also have a stake in declining lake levels.
The lake's marinas have become so shallow with silt and low water that some search and rescue boats can't use them anymore -- nor can many brine shrimpers and recreational boaters, he said. The low lake level -- it's at 4,196.5 elevation now -- also costs rescuers precious time when their boats get stuck on reefs on their way to accident scenes, he said.
"The game is changed," Shearer said. "We can't just go out and pluck people out of the water anymore."
The idea of reserving a portion of the Utah's already-tight water supply is new enough that no solutions have surfaced yet. But supporters said they will try to raise it, perhaps at the Great Salt Lake Advisory Council or at the in-depth review of the Great Salt Lake Comprehensive Management Plan, which comes up for review this summer.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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