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SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 28 (AP) — Scientists will get $25 million to study the salt lake ecosystem in the drought-stricken U.S. West, and President Joe Biden signed legislation Tuesday to deal with severe water shortages. posed an unprecedented existential threat. water.
The funding enables the USGS to study the hydrology of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, California’s Mono Lake, Oregon’s Albert Lake and other salt lakes and their surrounding ecosystems.
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During the decades-long drought, the rivers that flow into the lake have seen less snowmelt, causing shorelines to recede and lake levels to plummet.
Declining lake levels endanger the people, animals and businesses that depend on sustaining ecosystems.
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These lakes are often important habitats for migratory birds. Dust exposed by falling water levels can be blown into the air, with dangerous health effects for surrounding communities. Further depletion threatens the canals and infrastructure needed by the multimillion-dollar mining industry to extract salt from the lake.
In Utah, the Great Salt Lake has shrunk to an all-time low, threatening economic output, snowpack, public health and wildlife. Ski resorts worry about a future without lake-effect snow. State lawmakers and local water district officials have pledged to fund and incentivize conservation efforts, but development, population growth and persistent agricultural demands continue to strain the water supplies needed to maintain the lake.
In eastern California, state officials have sharply reduced the amount of water Los Angeles can divert from the creeks and tributaries that feed Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra. Over the years, falling lake levels have made the water saltier, endangering the habitat of birds, fish and brine shrimp.
The legislation signed Tuesday establishes what it calls the “Saline Lake Ecosystem in the Great Basin National Assessment and Monitoring Program” to examine variables such as water use and demand, as well as “climate stressors.”
The funding will complement existing conservation efforts, Marcelle Shoop, director of the Audubon Society’s Salt Lake Program, said in a statement. “The Great Salt Lake and the Salt Lake ecosystem network in the arid west face very serious challenges, with water levels getting lower and lower, putting local communities and millions of migratory birds at risk,” she said.
While the legislation’s sponsors — senators and members of Congress from across the West — praised the effort and said they hope the studies will inform solutions, the plan does not enforce any protections or create New Water Management Guidelines.
“These ecosystems must be protected, but we can’t do that without enough data,” Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement.
The bill adds to the $40 million that Utah lawmakers allocated to the Great Salt Lake this year for a watershed improvement program and complements $10 million in funding for the Salt Lake from the Army Corps of Engineers as part of the defense spending bill. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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