Comes a story in the Deseret News warning that the Great Salt Lake is shrinking so much that portions of the lake bed are turning to a dust bed that could cause great particle pollution.
A comment online from one naming himself Prodicus warns, "One of the worst environmental disasters of human history was the drying of the Aral Sea." Prodicus notes a productive ecosystem turned into a bowl of toxic dust.
I google, and learn the lake is but 10 percent of its 1960 size. Much of what once was under water is now a desert, known now as the Aralkum Desert. The lake began to shrink when the Soviet Union began to divert water for irrigation projects. What has happened is recognized as easily one of the biggest environmental missteps in all of history.
While the toxic elements in the dust are the result of a history of weapons testing, industrial pollution, pesticides and fertilizer runoff, it is the dryness of the lake bed that results in so much dust being picked up and blown about by the winds.
Salt Lake will not be so toxic. Still, there could very possibly be somewhat of a disaster to answer for. Do we, as stewards of this lake, want to add our names to the list of those who have mismanaged the ecosystems they were given? God gave us much when he gave us the Great Salt Lake. Will we prove unwise and foolish in how we have cared for it?
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