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Low Levels Expose Mysterious Objects In Salt Lake
nilbog writes "KSL TV Reports that record setting low levels in the Great Salt Lake have revealed some mysterious objects (not to mention nearly 1,000 square miles of new 4 wheel drive terrain). One item is even described as a bomb, and many items are still unidentified. A lot of the waste is thought to be from a nearby airforce base and might even be dangerous. Hey, might be a good place to acquire materials for your next backyard project!"
here fix your link
link is here you had a space in "spring"
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golden plates you idiot
I work and live near the Great Salt Lake, though I am a recent transplant. My understanding is that its levels cycle like this naturally, so whatever lives there has had to adapt to that. It's not like this is some kind man-made disaster that will kill off the shrimp population. Utah has just had like 5 very dry years. When it starts raining more, whatever they build out there will become a scenery for the shrimp. I'm also hoping it starts to stink less, too. Sometimes it reeks with a vengeance.
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There are F-16s that have crashed in the lake. The military decided it was too expensive to recover them since they were destroyed anyway. So they let them sink in the mud (presumably they did). I imagine that there is other airplane junk in the lake too, being the flyover for a military base.
There are some interesting artifacts around the lake. Being a desert region seems to attract a number of artists that sees it as their canvas. It's where you see all the car commercials with the car zooming along in a vast desert expanse on white ground (the salt flats).
It's unfortunate, but we do not have an enviromentally conscious citzenry. All sorts of trash and junk. have been dumped out at the lake, just so they wouldn't have to pay a landfill fee or bother with it.
It's true that the lake does have an ecosystem, but not much of one, as it is very salty.
Also, the Salt Lake is not the swimmer's aquatic paradise. At one time it was considered to be. There was a large resort on the shore. Unfortunately it burned to the ground when some vagrants built a campfire on the wooden floor (smart, huh?).
The lake was so salty that you would indeed float like a cork. But because of a railway causeway across the lake, the south end (where everybody goes swimming) does not have enough salinity as the lake is fed by freshwater sources there.
The lake does not have any natural beaches, but rather mud flats for shoreline. Not like what you find at the ocean. There are some man made ones, and this is where you can go spend the day if you want.
But even if you do find a spot of sand to toss the blanket on, there are "brine flies", the other half of the lake's ecosystem. Imagine a hord of gnats that want to make you their business.
There is bacteria that thrive in this anaeoribic enviroment around the shoreline. The resulting byproduct of their efforts is hydrogen sulfide, or as we like to call it "lake stink". If the wind is just right, there is not a place in the valley that you can go to escape it. But that only happens occasionally, like before a rainstorm. I think the natives like myself have a fondness for it (since it only happens a couple times a year) as it reminds us that we live in a unique place. However, if you are down on the shore, there are days it is very bad.
After years of drought, the lake is at a low point right now. However in the mid-eighties, it was at the highest point ever. An interesting engineering feat (or more likely boondoggle) was the installation of massive pumps that are capable of pumping the lake in order to lower the level.
There are a number of mineral companies that remove salt, rare metals (magnesium), and other minerals from the lake.
However, until recently (last 15-20 years), there was not that much concern for the lake ecology. The thing that people did/do not realize is that like other resources, it is finite.
There was a time that nobody harvested brine shrimp eggs. Now there are a number of companies that have to be regulated so they do not remove the entire next generation of brine shrimp from the lake. Indications are that decades of removing minerals from the lake have depleted the salt flats. So much so, that the world famous Bonneville Speedway does not have enough rock hard salt to break speed records on anymore.
My favorite thing about the lake? Without a doubt it is Pink Floyd, an escapee from a local aviary. He's more predictable than the swallows at Capistrano. Every year he makes
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