Paradise Lost: How Progress Poisoned Utah Lake
Last month, the Rising Tide Foundation held a trash cleanup on the shores of the dirtiest lake in the U.S., Utah Lake. Over 20 volunteers participated and were able to collect over 300 lbs. of trash from the surrounding wetlands, which translated into sponsors pledging to remove over a metric ton of ocean-bound plastic out of the rivers and wetlands of Guatemala.
While by all accounts the cleanup was a success, our involvement with this lake has prompted thought around how lakes can get that polluted, and what we might do to prevent similar environmental catastrophes from taking place in other areas. The history of Utah lake becomes instructive in this regard.
Utah Lake began as the prehistoric Lake Bonneville, which covered half of the state of Utah before drying up, and supported the Fremont people thereafter from 800 - 1600 A.D. and the Utes, Paiutes, and Shoshones more recently. Non-native discovery of the lake took place in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when the Dominguez and Escalante expeditions discovered it and fur trappers reported visiting it. When pioneers from the Church of Jesus Chris of Latter-day Saints (colloquially called “Mormons”) began settling the valley in 1849, they also began using the lake after a fishing expedition from the early Salt Lake settlement to the North established a town called Provo. As both the Salt Lake valley and Utah valley (where Utah lake is found) developed, farmers and settlers relied heavily on its tributaries for agriculture and on its fish for subsistence. The Jordan river, which flows out of Utah Lake and into the Salt Lake, gave the residents of Salt Lake county cause to also rely on Utah Lake’s waters.
When settlers began settling the Utah valley, the lake and its streams were teaming with thirteen species of fish, which heavily supported the surrounding populations. Today the lake is ranked as the dirtiest lake in America due to total dissolved solids and high phosphorus and calcium carbonate amounts with only the June sucker and Utah sucker species managing to retain meaningful presence in the lake’s waters (in addition to the non-native carp, which have become prolific after their introduction in 1883). Since their introduction, the carp have greatly disrupted the vegetation at the bottom of the lake, disrupted food chains, and contributed to its modern murkiness, with the lake now cloudy with suspended sediments and algae. So what happened exactly?
Utah Lake’s decline has been a result of industrial myopia and development within the surrounding valley, with raw sewage, agricultural runoff, and industrial pollution being fed directly into the lake for decades, leaving it full of chemicals and heavy metals. Furthermore, settlers introduced invasive species such as the aforementioned carp, algae-bloom-inducing cyanobacteria, and large reeds that have overwhelmed the lake’s shores, even while waterflow was reduced from diversion of the lake’s tributaries in order to service a growing population. Simply put, the decline of the lake has been the consequence of negligence of the surrounding stewards as its shores have been developed and waters tainted by industry. While restoration efforts are underway, even if a bit slow moving, the story of this once-pristine lake is a stark reminder of the need to balance civilization’s drive for development and progress with the moral imperative to minimize its impact on the natural world. It’s a valuable wake up call to think about the downstream consequences of progress.
The Rising Tide Foundation (along with its sponsors) were gratified to play a small role in eliminating 300+ lbs. of trash along a small strip of this beleaguered lake’s shores, but more needs to be done both at Utah Lake and around the world to ensure that our civilization’s progress doesn’t come at the expense of the natural world. This is what the fight against plastic pollution is all about, and we welcome any among our readership who, whether through volunteering or donations, would would like to throw their weight behind our cause to keep nature natural. We’d love to have you.
Sources: Water Online, Utah Education Network, June Sucker Recovery, Intermountain Histories, BYU Plant and Wildlife Sciences, Sale Lake Tribune
