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In the face of objections from environmental groups, a company that produces fertilizer from an array of giant evaporation ponds on the Great Salt Lake's north end wants to more than double its existing footprint to meet growing agricultural needs over the next four decades.
"As per-acre yield becomes more important, the demand for potassium sulfate [fertilizer] has gone up," said Dave Hyams, spokesman for Great Salt Lake Minerals, which has been harvesting the mineral along the lake's shores since 1970.
But the company's proposal to add 91,000 acres to its operation, which is in the midst of environmental studies under the supervision of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is drawing the ire of environmental groups worried
It's "unconscionable," Lynn de Freitas, director of the Friends of the Great Salt Lake, said of the proposal.
"It's clear that Great Salt Lake Minerals is looking out for their own future up to 2050, and not considering what their future can mean to the future of the Great Salt Lake ecosystem."
She said her group -- part of a coalition that includes various Audubon Society chapters, the Utah Waterfowl Association, the Utah Airboat Association and two chapters of the League of Women Voters -- will fight the proposal as it wends its way through the Corps' environmental-impact process.
"We're in for the long haul," she vowed.
De Frietas emphasized that she doesn't want to stop the company from contributing to the state's economy, but "they are forgetting about looking at other aspects of 'What does operating as a sustainable business in this day and age mean.' "
Said Hyams: "We've been here for 40 years. Birds have been adjacent to our ponds for decades. Co-existing with birds is something we know how to do."
Corps official Jason Gipson said that depending on the outcome of the review process, his agency could issue its decision by early 2011.
The public has until Thursday to make written comments to the Corps in this first phase of the process; additional hearings and comment opportunities will be scheduled throughout the 18-month process.
Hyams said the company has turned over to the Corps 1,200 letters of support for the project -- 200 from company employees and 1,000 "from the community." The Corps says it has received "probably a handful" of letters opposing the plan.
"It's not a popularity contest. It's not who gets the most votes," Gipson said. "It's the substantive comments that we focus on."
The company announced in May that it wanted to lease an additional 70,000 acres to supplement its existing lease of 43,000 acres of evaporation ponds. The Army Corps conducted public hearings in early June. Additional hearings later in the month were called to deal with an 11th-hour company request for even more acreage, to 91,000.
The new ponds, proposed to be phased in gradually as national demand for fertilizer increases over the next four decades, would impact 80,000 acres of lake water, including wetlands.
In addition, the company has asked the state engineer for rights to 350,000 additional acre feet of water to supplement its current allotment of 150,000 acre feet.
An acre foot of water is the volume of water sufficient to cover an acre of land to a depth of one foot.
The financial advantage to the state of the company's lake presence and its request for additional acreage comes in the form of royalty payments. Great Salt Lake Minerals kicked $4.5 million into state coffers in 2008 on the production of 440,000 tons of potassium sulfate.
Its four-decade goal is to produce more than 1 million tons. A 20-year target for royalty payments to Utah is $100 million, said Hyams.
Dave Grierson, sovereign lands coordinator for the state Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, believes the lease agreement for the acreage being hammered out by his office and the company is a fair one. Late last year, he said it helps reduce some existing conflicts between commercial use of the lake and conservation of wildlife.
Last week, he said he expects the state's decision will come sometime in July, followed by the signing of the lease agreement.
The company, as part of the agreement, will turn back its claim on leases of wildlife-sensitive lands around the southern tip of Promontory Point, which plunges like a knife blade down into the lake's northern end, dividing it into northwestern and northeastern arms.
All this is then subject to the Army Corps' environmental reviews and whether the Corps issues its own decision in favor of the company.
The fact that the state has climbed on board with Great Salt Lake Minerals' proposal bothers environmentalist De Frietas.
"It's disappointing that the state division ... that has responsibility for protecting the public trust, [sees this] as rational and doable. It makes no sense to me whatsoever," she said.
The state and Great Salt Lake Minerals are expected to sign new lease agreements sometime this month.
Initial public comments for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers review process will be accepted until Thursday. They can be mailed to Jason Gipson, Nevada-Utah Regulatory Branch, 533 W. 2600 South, Suite 150, Bountiful, UT 84010, or e-mailed to jason.a.gipson@usace.army.mil.
Environmental studies have begun; a draft environmental-impact statement is expected by February. After another series of public meetings and a comment period, the final EIS could be issued by October. More public hearings and document reviews could produce a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision by early 2011.
The state engineer is reviewing the company's request for rights to an additional 350,000 acre feet of lake water for use in new ponds. This process, depending on the level of opposition and other concerns, could take more than a year.
Ponds, each at 100-plus acres and a few inches deep, are created using lake water naturally infused with a heavy concentration of minerals. Ponds in the northwest arm are especially minerals-rich because they are nearly isolated from the rest of the lake by a railroad causeway.
The sun evaporates much of the water, and the remaining brine flows west-to-east along the so-called Behrens Trench carved along the lake bed. It takes brine five days to go 21 miles into a canal that transports it around the tip of Promontory Point. The brine goes into east-arm ponds for further evaporation, then the minerals are gathered for processing.
Salt is removed for industrial use; the potassium sulfate and magnesium chloride are harvested. Excess salt and water are returned to the lake.
Ponds, each at 100-plus acres and a few inches deep, are created using lake water naturally infused with a heavy concentration of minerals. Ponds in the northwest arm are especially mineral-rich because they are nearly isolated from the rest of the lake by a railroad causeway.
The sun evaporates much of the water, and the remaining brine flows west-to-east along the so-called Behrens Trench carved along the lake bed. It takes brine five days to go 21 miles into a canal that transports it around the tip of Promontory Point. The brine goes into east-arm ponds for further evaporation, then the minerals are gathered for processing.
Salt is removed for industrial use; the potassium sulfate and magnesium chloride are harvested. Excess salt and water are returned to the lake.
Has been operating near Ogden on the shores of the Great Salt Lake since 1970.
Employs 350 people and expects to hire another 70 over time.
Uses solar evaporation to produce magnesium chloride used for dust control, salt for use on roads and in water softeners, and potassium sulfate, a nonchemically enhanced fertilizer most effective for fruit and vegetable production.
The company says it is the only potassium sulfate producer in the United States.
Predicts the demand for potassium sulfate will go up 2 to 3 percent annually.
