Resource Extraction Activity

Among the most visible impacts in the region are the traces left by miners and prospectors. See this cross-sectional topographic map of the Tooele / Oquirrh Mountains area as well as the photos of nearby Bingham Copper Mine--the largest open-pit copper mine in the world. 

Nearby is the Magna Kennecott Smelter with its huge tailings pond visible easily in this satellite image. Look also at this topographic map of the Saltair / Magna area west of Salt Lake City.

In the surrounding mountains there are also many active and abandoned mines including famous Ghost Towns that trace man's history of minerals extraction in the region. See for instance: 

Ophir Ghost Town

Mercur

Mining companies have also extracted important evaporite resources from the lake. Pictured here is the pump and pipeline of the Great Salt Lake Minerals Corporation which brings saline water over the Behrens Trench to its evaporation ponds. You can also study more about salt production at the Salt Industry page.

The MagCorp facility in the West Desert also extracts important minerals such as magnesium.  It has also been a focus of some controversy between environmental activitists and mining interests due to emissions of toxic chemicals.  The amount of emmissions by some measures is among the highest for a single facility of its type.

Brine-shrimp fishing has also become a major extractive economic activity that is generating controversy and concern. In fact, the industry has gone through a recent boom that resembles a type of resource rush.  This activity is of concern to biologist who wonder whether the carrying capacity of the Great Salt Lake is being threatened. Most of the shrimp ends up as an export to Japan where it is used for commercial purposes. 

Learn more from the Great Salt Lake Project at Westminster College of Salt Lake City. See some of th materials by Ty Harrison a biological ecologist and his students such as the Great Salt Lake Playa Foodweb Project. Read also about brine-shrimp ecology at the USGS site as well as Planktonic and Benthic Ecology of the Great Salt Lake. 

Modern industrial and military activities of several types have come to impact the region besides the traditional salt extraction and mining. Recent economic  activities such as power generation, brine shrimp fishing, and military weapons testing including the Toole / Dugway Chemical Weapons Incinerator has generated considerable local debate and even protest.

North of Promontory Point is the site for testing of shuttle booster rocket engines by the Thiokol Company.

Another industry that has sought the open space of the West Desert are large electrical generation stations such as the Inter-Mountain Power Project near Delta, Utah. It uses coal mined in nearby eastern Utah and transports the electricity on high powered lines to other states.

Its siting has caused some concern.  It is located within a zone that is the last region in the lower 48 states with almost perfect visibility--often over a 100 miles. Unfortunately, this powerplant and others projected to come will decrease that pristine visibility.

Nearby is a small park that in my opinion best epitomizes the solitude and rugged beauty of the Great Basin--Little Sahara State Park and its desolate sand dunes. The sands were deposited by wind that moved around alluvial deposits once buried below ancient Lake Bonneville. Part of the State Park is kept semi-wild but another part has become heavily used by off-road vehicles--therein is another debate. Unfortunately, this park with its pristine high visibility is also within sight of the large power-generation plant noted above.  In fact the smokestack is visible on the skyline from certain places.

There are other issues--right on the boundary of a wilderness study site adjacent to the park large areas are being denuded.  The technique used is called  chaining.  his is a process of dragging a heavy chain between two bulldozers which then rips up the pinyon-juniper trees, scrub and other vegetation to replace it with exotic pasture grasses.

This site along with many others across southern Utah have become heavily embroiled in the much larger national and statewide debate about how much land in Utah should be declared as wilderness.  See some of the websites listed below which explore the pro's and con's of this major land debate focused on the value of open space and wilderness. In summary, the Greater Salt Lake Ecosystem Region, which many assume to be barren, desolate and even dead ,is being threatened in several ways and is increasingly the focus of controversy.  This type of debate is growing around the Inter-American West.

Recreation and Tourism - SALTAIR

Quite early the Great Salt Lake became an oddity to be visited by tourists.  One of the favorite places to visit was around famous Saltair Pavilion (see below):

Modern tourists and local joyseekers near Saltair on the beach for a sand castle-building contest.

The famous Saltair Pavilion and surrounding tourist facilities was flooded (1983-84) by the rising waters of the Great Salt Lake. During the Roaring 20's (see historical images) and in the early post-World War II era Saltair's large dance floor hosted some of the era's greatest Big Bands.  Today it often hosts major Rock-Concerts.

The Pavilion during reconstruction after the lake receeded (1993).

Modern recreational boaters also use the lake extensively--see the Great Salt Lake Yacht Club site.  As the yacht club declares--it is home to the world's saltiest sailors!

The Bonneville Salt Flats are world-famous as the site where the land-speed record has been broken several times!

Unfortunately, there is concern that the amount of salt being deposited is decreasing dramatically. This has affected the racing surface and actually slowed down racers.  Eventually it may even require abandonment of the site as a speedway. Some suggest human intereference has been a prime cause--diversion of saline waers for mineral extraction.

Some of the most recent land-speed record events, in fact, chose to do attempt their  feat in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada partially because of this growing problem.

In sum, many types of people have come to the Great Salt Lake in search of fun, adventure and profit--some even to break the world land speed-record. The debates, public and private, about the lakes importance or uniquesness and how to manage and preserve it continue unabated.  See some of the issues as described by the Friends of the Great Salt Lake group.

Many individuals and groups who came to the Great Salt Lake Basin were attempting to build or find transportation arteries across and around the barrier which was the Great Salt Lake and the West Desert / Great Basin.

The first published reports on the Great Salt Lake came from the Dominguez-Escalante expedition of 1776. During the 1800s the lake and vicinity were visited by a number of mountain men and government explorers, including Jim Bridger who reported in 1825 that he had reached an arm of the Pacific Ocean. It was explorers and mapmakers such as B.L.E. Bonneville (whose map of 1837 first showed the Great Basin and Great Salt Lake as an area of interior drainage) and others such as John C. Fremont, John W. Gunnison, and Howard Stansbury who named and explored its islands and lakeshores. The following map of the Great Salt Lake shows many of the features still bearing the names of these early explorers. 

The lake remained a formidable barrier to western expansion for a long time.  The most famous group to be literally stuck in the mud flats and thus delayed in getting across the Sierra Nevada mountains was the tragic Donner party of 1846.

The Bonneville Salt Flats and the Great Salt Lake were also a significant barrier for the Pony Express (History). Part of that famous route still exists and crosses some of the most desolate parts of the West Desert (see Utah Pony Express Trail).

The first transcontinental railroad bypassed the lake to the north. The Union Pacific, from the east, and the Central Pacific, from the west, met in Promontory Point in 1869 . Go to the Golden Spike National Monument web-site which commemorates the famous mid-1800s event that first linked the east and west coasts of the US by railroad. 

In 1902 the Southern Pacific Railroad built its Lucin Cutoff across the lake from Ogden to Lucin.  Tis shaved-off over seven hours of travel time. Building this required over 28,000 wooden piles to be driven into the soft lake bottom to support the trestle.  Huge amounts of gravel and rock fill were also used eventually creating a permanent dike that has blocked off much of the northeast arm of the lake.

Railroad-builders from the past and even today have labored intensely to build causeways across this formidable barrier.  The photo above shows the newest causeway across the southern end of the lake near Magna.

What remains of the old wooden trestle that once crossed the lake from north of Ogden to Promontory Point?

A view of the old causeway which also became a dike--built across the northern end of the lake.

Current Growth and Future Prospects

In the last few years the Great Salt Lake region has experienced very rapid economic and population growth.  In fact reconstruction of the I-15 Interstate freeway system through Salt Lake City was one of the largest public works projects ever in the state.  Most of this construction was in preparation for  the 2002 Winter Olympics.  It caused considerable debate over potential pressure on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems of the Great Salt Lake region. 

As mentioned earlier, Antelope Island (see State Parks page) has become the focus of a land use controversy regarding plans to build a causeway direct from Salt Lake City to the southern tip of the island (see the Antelope Island Draft Access Management Plan - 2004 (PDF) ). That is but one evidence of growing pressure on open land resources that continues--even in this supposedly protected state park. How the resources are managed--in this case for tourism--will also impact the island significantly. Debates are also increasing over management of the adjacent canyons, e.g. Little and Big Cottonwood Canyons. 

The most recent controversy is just developing over the adviseability--or not--of building a new freeway system called the Legacy Highway. This major transportation corridor would cut through many of the most fragile wetlands along the lake's east side.  Some of the issues involved are discussed by the Friends of the Great Salt Lake.

In addition, plans for a major expansion of the Salt Lake International Airport--now one of the nation's busiest--is also causing serious debate. The airport would also have to expand into sensitive wetlands near the mouth of the Jordan River.

Learn More about Current Debates

See the following sites related to environmental issues, wilderness, open-space planning, recreation and other issues in the state of Utah.
• Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in northern Utah, Box-Elder County - see also Northern Utah Wildlife or Utah.com or USFWS site.
• Department of Natural Resources - home
• Department of Parks and Recreation
• Envision Utah - a longterm growth planning project.
• Friends of the Great Salt Lake - and environmental organization with many useful resources and links.
• Geological Survey of Utah
• Great Basin National Park,  Teachers's Guide (NPS) and Geology Fieldtrips of Great Basin National Park.
• Great Salt Lake - Haven for Birds - Stop Legacy Highway group
• Great Salt Lake Hemispheric Reserve of the U.S. National Wildlife Service - National Refuge System (Region 6) - see also the National Geographic site on wildlife refuges in general.
• Great Salt Lake Project at Westminster College of Salt Lake City. See some of the materials by Ty Harrison a biological ecologist and his students such as the Great Salt Lake Playa Foodweb Project.
• Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve - Nature Conservancy
• GSL as a terminal lake--part of the Water Atlas of Utah.
• GREEN Environmental Club - University of Utah
• Legacy Highway - home
• Mono Lake Committee - sample of what other lake groups are doing
• Northern Utah Wetlands Partnership - home
• Rocky Mountain Environmental Directory - EELink
• Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce
• Salt Lake Olympics - 2002
• Salt Lake Tribune online
• Save Our Canyons group
• State of Utah, Department of Natural Resources, Utah Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Division of Parks and Recreation: See the booklet: Geology & Antelope Island State Park, Utah, 1988. See particularly the DNR Bookstore and Map source page.
• SUWA - Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
• UDOT - Utah Department of Transportation
• University of Nevada-Reno, Seismological Laboratory, Plate Tectonics and other Modules, by John N. Louie, Ph.D, Associate Professor.
• University of Utah, Department of Geography
• USGS - Ground Water Atlas of the United States--California and Nevada as well as its regional office in Utah and the USGS - Great Salt Lake page and resources
• UUSS - University of Utah Seismological Stations
• Utah Audubon - home
• Utah FishFinder
• Utah Geography from Space - USU, Utah State University, College of Natural Resources, Geography and Earth Resources, College of Natural Resources.
• Utah Mesonet - online Realtime weather data for the Utah/Northern Rockies region - University of Utah and the NWS - see HAT (Hat Island), GNI (Gunnison Island) for specific Weather Stations on the Great Salt Lake.  Courtesy, John Horel, Professor
• Utah Nature Conservancy
• Utah State University, College of Natural Resources, Geography and Earth Resources, College of Natural Resources
• Utah Wild - resources of many types
• Utah Wilderness Coalition
• Utah Wilderness Surfsite - by Ecofuture
• Wasatch Audubon Society (Ogden)
• Wetlands and Riparian Center of Utah

Farewell

I hope you have enjoyed your tour! Keep tuned to this site.  Our goal is to continually add information and photos that update trends on Antelope Island as well as in the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem region at large. Thanks for coming and do give us your evaluation of this virtual tour and suggestions on improvement. 

Contact:Robert E. Ford Email: rford@univ.llu.edu