Today the Great Salt Lake takes up roughly 950 square miles, less than a third of its former size in 1987! Ecologists warn of a possible environmental and economic disaster should the Great Salt Lake dry up. The lake bed contains a relatively large amount of arsenic, mercury, and lead which could create poisonous dust clouds should the lake dry up completely.
“The prognosis isn’t good unless there’s massive action. But we have to start within one year, we have to take action now,” says Salt Lake City mayor Erin Mendenhall.
By switching to artificial turf and other forms of drought friendly water, Utah residents can virtually eliminate the need for residential landscape irrigation. “Nationwide, landscape irrigation is estimated to account for nearly one-third of all residential water use, totaling nearly 9 billion gallons per day,” says the US Environmental Protection Agency.
