Great Salt Lake sets record

Abstract

The level of the Great Salt Lake, Utah, broke its 1873 record on May 12, 1986, rising to 1283.7 m above mean sea level, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Heavy snowpack remains in the lake's drainage basin, and the lake is likely to continue rising into June. “It could well go up another foot [i.e., ∼0.3 m],” this season, according to Ted Arnow, USGS district chief in Utah.The Utah state legislature convened a special session on May 13 to discuss measures to control the flooding. Last year, the legislature began to consider funding a plan to pump water from the Great Salt Lake to form a large, shallow pond in the desert 48 km to the west. Because the lake's level was predicted to drop this year, however, the lawmakers postponed action on the issue (Eos, September 10, 1985, p. 641). The Rose Park area of Salt Lake City, which lies below the lake's current level, has been diked, but groundwater is backing up into Rose Park and has to be pumped out over the dikes, Arnow said. Also, trains that use the Southern Pacific railroad causeway, which crosses the lake, have had to be temporarily rerouted south of the lake during storms. The causeway has been progressively raised since 1983, but engineers now say that they can raise it no further because the added weight will make it sink into the lake, Arnow said. If the lake rises much higher, the interstate highway that runs by it might also have to shut down temporarily during storms, he added.