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This story was originally posted by News from the High Country.
Last summer, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration observed dust blowing 85 miles from its source: Lake Abert and Lake Summer, two dry saline lakes in southern Oregon. This had happened before: the beds of saline lakes are among the most important sources of dust in the West. Owens Lake, Calif., was once the nation’s largest source of PM10, the tiny pollutants in dust and smoke, and plumes blowing across the 800 square miles of exposed bed of the Great Salt Lake have caused dust storms filled with toxins in Salt Lake City.
The saline lakes are rapidly losing water to climate change and agricultural and urban uses, becoming one of the most threatened ecosystems in the West. Now, new legislation offers some support. On Dec. 27, President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan Salt Lake Ecosystems Act into the Great Basin States Program Act, which allocates $25 million in funding for research and monitoring of salt lakes in the United States. Big pool. While this funding is an important step, it cannot give the lakes what they really need: more water.
The western interior is full of salt lakes, created when the snow melts in the valley bottoms of the Basin and Range region. The valleys have no outlet, so the water remains until it evaporates, leaving behind the particles that were suspended there. These build up over time, giving the lakes high salinity.
“This creates a unique system that supports brine shrimp and alkali flies that can feed incredible populations of migratory birds,” says Ryan Houston, executive director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association, which seeks to conserve the top Oregon desert, including Summer Lake and Lake Abert.
Yet this balance between runoff, salts and evaporation also makes salt lakes highly susceptible to climate change. Less snow accumulation and increased evaporation due to higher temperatures means there is less water in the lakes and a greater concentration of salt. This stresses shrimp and flies, which have adapted over time to specific salinities, and also exposes dry lake beds, creating dangerous dust storms.
Decades of diversions for agricultural and municipal purposes have also taken water from the lakes. Owens Lake, for example, has been almost completely dry for almost a century since its water was diverted to Los Angeles. A report released earlier this month by Utah scientists and conservation organizations warned that the combination of water diversions and climate change has put the Great Salt Lake on the verge of disappearing within five years.
Many consider poor air quality to be the main reason to save the lakes. But the dust is a sign that the whole ecosystem is drying up. The saline lakes are key stops on the Pacific Flyway, the bird migration route that stretches from Alaska to Chile. “The fact that we’re concerned about dust tells me we’ve already passed the point of loss of Lake Abert as part of the Pacific Flyway, its most important ecological value,” Houston says. More than 80 species of birds inhabit or migrate through Lake Abert, and 338 species depend on the Grand Lac Salé.
The new legislation will create a research and monitoring program aimed at conserving salt lakes, including Lake Abert, Summer Lake, Great Salt Lake, Owens and Mono lakes in California, and Ruby and Walker lakes in Nevada. According to David Herbst, a biologist who began conducting research at Mono Lake in the 1970s, only a “small core of scientists” conduct research on the saline lakes, so there is a strong need for more monitoring by scientists. federal and state agencies.
Geoffrey McQuilkin, executive director of the Mono Lake Committee, told me by email that the law is important “because it funds scientific research that will indicate how to successfully manage valuable habitats to preserve their many benefits in an age of climate change”. Clayton Dumont, the tribal chairman of the Klamath tribes, whose traditional territory borders Lake Abert, says, “We are happy to see anything that will help restore this unique ecosystem.”
This is not the first federal program dedicated to lakes. The 2002 Desert Terminal Lakes Program provided more than $200 million to purchase water rights and support the conservation of Nevada’s saline lakes through scientific research. The $858 billion defense spending bill passed just two weeks ago included $10 million for saline lakes projects to be undertaken by the Army Corps of Engineers. And at the state level, Utah’s Great Salt Lake Watershed Improvement Act of 2022 created a $40 million trust for the conservation of the lake.
But some advocates say surveillance and research are not enough. “Good! But it does not bring water to the Great Salt Lake,” the Save Our Great Salt Lake organization posted on its Instagram account after the bill passed the Senate.
The issue of lake recharge is more delicate. Water rights are generally regulated by the states, which makes it more difficult for the federal government to intervene. provide a huge amount of support and information that defenders can use,” Houston says.
Still, most people are optimistic now that more attention is being paid to lakes. “Unfortunately, it’s an exciting time, because there’s a crisis,” Houston said. “But it’s an exciting time because a lot of people are talking about it.”
