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Weber State University professor says the Great Salt Lake could be dying

Posted by: Maven on November 3, 2009 at 12:04 pm

great salt lakeFrom Deseret News:

“Is America’s “Dead Sea” — The Great Salt Lake — dying?

Although the Great Salt Lake hasn’t dried up — yet, a Weber State University geography professor has concluded it is in real danger if something doesn’t change.

In an article titled “The Great Salt Lake: America’s Aral Sea?” in the September/October issue of Environment Magazine, Daniel Bedford wonders if the Great Salt Lake could become “an icon of 21st century American water problems in the same way that the Aral Sea became an icon of global water problems in the twentieth century.”

The Aral Sea in central Asia — another saline lake — lost 90 percent of its volume between 1960 and 2006 due to mismanagement and diversion, Bedford wrote.

“The shrinking sea and drying wetlands devastated the local economy and ecology, and loose sediments from the exposed Aral Sea bed were blown into pesticide-laced salt and dust storms that damaged crops, plants and the health of humans and animals to distances of some 300 miles downwind,” Bedford wrote in his article. …”

Read more from Deseret News by clicking here.

November 3, 2009 · Filed Under Colorado River & the Southwest

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