Løb er i gang for at redde Great Salt Lake:Vil det være nok?

Den største naturlige sø vest for Mississippi skrumper forbi sine laveste niveauer i registreret historie, hvilket vækker frygt for giftigt støv, økologisk kollaps og økonomiske konsekvenser. Men Great Salt Lake kan have nogle nye allierede:konservative republikanske lovgivere.

Det nye energiudbrud fra den GOP-dominerede delstatsregering kommer efter, at søniveauer for nylig ramte et lavpunkt under en regional megatørke, der blev forværret af klimaændringer. Vand er dog blevet ledt væk fra søen i årevis for at forsyne hjem og afgrøder i Utah. Nationens hurtigst voksende stat er også en af ​​de tørreste med noget af det højeste forbrug af brugsvand.

I år kunne der ses store investeringer i søen, som længe har været en eftertanke, hvor guvernør Spencer Cox foreslår at bruge 46 millioner dollars, og den magtfulde hustaler, der kaster sin vægt bag problemet. Men nogle bekymrer sig om, at de ideer, der er kommet så langt i statens lovgivende forsamling, ikke går langt nok til at stoppe den økologiske katastrofe i slowmotion.

Et forslag ville tackle vandforbrug i boliger og virksomheder ved at måle udendørs vand, der anses for at være noget af landets billigste. En anden ville betale landmænd for at dele deres vand nedstrøms, og en tredje ville lede penge fra royalties til mineraludvinding til gavn for søen.

"Jeg har længe taget søen for givet. Den har altid været der, og jeg har gået ud fra, at den altid ville være der," sagde talsmand i Repræsentanternes Hus, Brad Wilson, ved et topmøde, han indkaldte til om spørgsmålet. Men at lære om søens usikre position denne sommer gjorde ham rædselsslagen. "Den Store Saltsø er i problemer ... Vi er nødt til at gøre noget."

Krympningen af ​​søen udgør alvorlige risici for millioner af trækfugle og en sø-baseret økonomi, der er værd at anslå $1,3 milliarder i mineraludvinding, artemia og rekreation. Sundhedsrisici eksisterer også:Den massive tørre søbund kan sende arsenholdigt støv i luften, som millioner indånder.

"The Great Salt Lake har brug for nogle spring for at blive reddet. Det kommer ikke til at gøre det med små skridt," sagde Zach Frankel, administrerende direktør for nonprofit Utah Rivers Council. "Dette er små små skridt, der skulle være taget for 20 år siden."

Søen tog et slag sidste år, med især ødelæggende virkninger på dens mikrobialiteter, Great Salt Lakes version af et koralrev. De svampelignende strukturer er dannet af lodne, dybgrønne måtter af mikrober, som er bunden af ​​søens fødekæde og hovednæring for artemia.

The shrimp both support a multimillion-dollar industry supplying food for fish farms and nourish millions of migrating birds whose massive flocks can show up on radar. The lake is also the nation's biggest source of magnesium and could soon provide lithium, a key mineral for renewable energy batteries.

But last year the lake matched a 170-year record low and kept dropping, hitting a new low of 4,190.2 feet (1,277.2 meters) in October. A significant portion of the microbialites were exposed to air, killing the vital microbes. The die-off will likely take years and years to repair even if they are fully submerged again, said Michael Vanden Berg, a state geologist.

And if the water levels continue to drop, the lake could get too salty for the edible microbes to survive, something that's already happened in the bright pink waters of the lake's north arm.

Still, Vanden Berg is cautiously optimistic for the south arm, where a portion of the green microbialites did survive last year's lake drop.

"It's bad but not catastrophic yet," he said. "There is still time to fix and mitigate the situation."

In some ways, the fix is simple:More water needs to flow into the lake.

But that's no small task in the state that grew by 18.4% over the past decade, to nearly 3.28 million people.

Utah has relatively inexpensive water overall. A 2015 state audit found Salt Lake City water prices were lower than almost every other city surveyed, including Phoenix, Las Vegas and Santa Fe.

But a subset of homes have access to especially low-price water—the cheapest in the nation, according to the Utah Rivers Council.

About 200,000 homes and businesses pay a flat fee for an entire season of irrigation water. It's called a secondary water system, made from converted agricultural supply in communities that are now largely suburban. Those account for a disproportionately large segment of the state's water use—and many of them are on the Great Salt Lake watershed, Frankel said.

"It's like an all-you-can-eat buffet," he said. While most people have a water meter on the side of their homes, usage isn't measured for secondary-water users.

But small-scale projects have shown that simply being aware of how much they're using makes people cut back by 20%, said GOP Utah Rep. Tim Hawkes.

There's been pushback to change the system before, and part of the reason is the per-meter cost of about $1,500, but the governor has backed spending about $250 million in federal pandemic relief money to install them.

The Utah Rivers Council would like to see people pay more for that water, but there's been little public discussion of that this year. Hawkes argues that even conserving 20% through awareness would dramatically increase the chances that the lake stays healthy.

This year is shaping up to be a wetter year than 2021, but that doesn't immediately translate to more water for the lake. First comes replenishing drinking water supplies. Then comes the lake.

And homes and businesses aren't the only ones that need moisture. About 65% of the water on the Great Salt Lake watershed goes to agriculture. Farmers have a right to that water, and under historic laws they could lose the water they don't use.

"Right now, there's actually a disincentive for agriculture to conserve, or optimize, the water they're using," said Republican Rep. Joel Ferry.

He's sponsoring legislation that would let farmers get paid for water they let flow to the Great Salt Lake and other bodies. Because each farm is so much larger than the average home, even slight adjustments can have a major impact.

Under his plan, which has advanced at the state Legislature, it would be up to each farm to decide whether to sell water in a given year. The fund would also likely start with some federal pandemic money, and backers would hope to get donations as it continues.

"This is going to be a slow start," said Ferry, who is a farmer himself. "We recognize there's a problem, and farmers want to be part of the solution. ... Ultimately the solutions to this are going to be expensive."

The costs of doing nothing may be even higher. The draining of California's Owens Lake as Los Angeles grew has cost billions. Overseas, the Aral Sea became as source of toxic dust after its water was diverted away by the former Soviet Union. Experts estimate a drying Great Salt Lake could cost Utah more than $2 billion every year.

"There's a real question about what happens next. Are we going to break through some critical thresholds here in the next little bit if we continue to go lower?" Hawkes said. "If we act now and we are thoughtful about it ... there's a good chance we can keep the lake healthy and happy—and us along with it."