THE GREAT SALT LAKE

With the exception of the Dead Sea, the Great Salt Lake is the saltiest body of water on Earth, being 7 times saltier than the ocean. The lake was first seen by Jim Bridger and Etienne Provost in 1824. They thought that it was an arm of the Pacific Ocean.

Thousands of years ago the freshwater lake, Lake Bonneville, stretched from east of Salt Lake City across and into Nevada and north into Idaho. (It was about 10 times larger than the present lake.) The ancient lake stood 1000 feet above its present level, held 500 times as much water and covered about 20,000 square miles. It was formed by the melting snow in the successive ice ages, and was at one time, comparable in size to Lake Michigan.

Today's lake has 8 billion tons of salt worth about $50 billion. There is also magnesium, lithium, gypsum, potash, boron, and sulphur and chloride compounds present. they have come from the rivers that fed the ancient Lake Bonneville and then concentrated in this depression as the lake evaporated over the centuries.

In the 5 years, from 1982 to 1987, the lake rose 12 feet to record-setting elevations. The spreading waters threatened to inundated parts of Salt Lake City, nearby towns and farms, the airport, rail lines, and I-80. High levels also upset the lake's ecology and ruined much of the surrounding marshlands. Seven of the state's 9 bird refuges flooded, including world-famous Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. An emergency session of the Utah Legislature in May 1986 authorized a pumping project with an initial price tag of $60 million to transfer water to the West Pond site, located in the Great Salt Lake Desert.