With all due respect to the many various Tribune contributors on the many variables that must be considered in restoring water resources to the Great Salt Lake, please accept this footnote: Water quality, in addition to water quantity, must be considered at all times.
Chemical elements and compounds from this vastly polluting urban basin, in addition to the monstrous industrial context and network in the Great Salt Lake Basin, must be accounted for in any and all analyses. Mercury, selenium, asphalt, and countless other pollutants are everything from deadly to humans to toxic to bird life (the lake being the destination for millions of migratory shorebirds and waterfowl each year).
“Legacy” contributors must also be fully considered, such as the Bingham Mine’s enormous tailings pond. Rio Tinto doesn’t get to crow about its 120 years of the world’s largest copper mine within this watershed without accounting for selenium and other copper sulfide ore mineral emissions. Nor should MagCorp be exempt from accounting for mercury. Nor should state and federal highways and city street networks be excused from their extensive effects on the health of all living beings, past, present and future, as the basin becomes more and more of a desert.
Ivan Weber, Salt Lake City
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