"RINO Rampage," March 24 Cover Story
I could never forgive myself if I were to join the Utah Republican Party. The whole idea just demonstrates how strange the workings of a real democracy are to Utah. The tiger will never change its stripes. Why should it, considering the social structure of which it is part and parcel?
As Jesus says in the Gospels, you can't put new wine into an old wine skin without it bursting—in the faces of those who purport to change it.
STEVE IFSHIN
Salt Lake City
Don't Privatize Utah Lake
It seems clear that the proposed restructuring of Utah Lake to benefit private developers will have serious consequences for all of us on the Wasatch Front. For years, I worked as a guide in the Cottonwood canyons, and I had not realized that Salt Lake City does not have senior water rights there—our access to the canyons' pristine drinking water could be threatened if Utah Lake is unable to maintain required flows in the Jordan River.
We all need to stop listening to Lake Restoration Solutions' persuasive but unsubstantiated sales pitch: "Trust us, we know what we're doing, we have the best experts," at least until they can come up with evidence to support their position.
Their proposal would add water storage capacity in the dead zone by dredging the bottom of the lake. However, this has no impact on reliable yield.
On the other hand, reducing active storage by building islands undoubtedly will diminish reliable water supply, and no one is mentioning climate change, reduced snowpack and more extreme droughts.
Replacing the existing pumps so they can draw from a lower suction level would help—at a cost—but the elevation/yield curve becomes steeper as you go deeper. If the deep storage is ever used, the lake level will fall even faster, exposing more muddy shorelines—not what residents of high-end developments expect as a scenic view, or what is portrayed on billboards. Instead, it would be an ideal habitate for mosquitoes and phragmites.
Supplying these new pumps by means of a new canal dug into the lowered bottom of the lake suggests long-term maintenance costs for dredging and, given the toxic nature of much of the sludge in the lake, makes one wonder what cocktail of chemicals would in due course be exported to the Jordan River.
LRS president Jon Benson's response to every issue seems to be that questions are helping to inform the project's design. That's an odd attitude, years into the project development process. Surely, some of their experts should have thought about these problems earlier, especially as they would immediately occur to a very junior water resources engineer.
If this travesty is ever built, it will be difficult and expensive to reverse. It's time for the Utah Legislature to reconsider their ill-advised enthusiasm for this questionable project and focus instead on supporting the progress being made in the ongoing efforts to restore the lake's quality.
RICHARD MIDDLETON
Salt Lake City
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