#great salt lake

[coolthingsguyslike]

#Southern Pacific #2-8-2 #Pacific Limited #wooden trestle #Great Salt Lake #Utah #railroad #trains #1950

[elinerlina2]

Pink Lakes, Utah

#pink lake #lakes #spiral jetty #utah #great salt lake #travel photography #amazing nature #nature #travel #travel destinations #landscape #landscape photography #sea

[johbeil]

Reflections 

Great Salt Lake, Utah, 1978.  Rolleiflex SL35 E with 50 mm Zeiss lens on Fuji film.

#lake #reflection #water reflection #great salt lake #photographers on tumblr #utah #american southwest #horizon #rocky mountains #analog photography #birds #film photography #35 mm photography #i still shoot film #film is alive #staybrokeshootfilm #original photographers #rollei #SLR

[grundoonmgnx]

Ben Steele, The Grape Spiral Jelly, 2020 

Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 in

Learn more about Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, the inspiration for this painting here.

#ben steele #smuckers #great salt lake #spiral jetty

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

To complete a nonstop 4,000-mile flight, Wilson’s phalarope needs fuel.

The tiny inland shorebird famed for its reversed gender roles often finds that food in the Great Salt Lake. Upwards of 250,000 of the birds, a third of the species’ total population, will find their way to the country’s largest saline lake in the coming months to fill up on an almost endless supply of alkali flies, brine flies and brine shrimp. During that period, Wilson’s phalaropes will double their size and molt their feathers for a new coat, preparing them to travel south to Argentina for the winter. 

But the pit stop needed to complete that journey is on the verge of collapse. For decades, the lake has received too little fresh water from the three rivers that feed it, largely due to agricultural operations diverting too much of their flow. That’s resulted in half of the lake’s surface area drying up, while the actual volume of water has dropped by around 70 percent. Less fresh water entering the lake means the salinity levels are rising, threatening the reproductivity of the invertebrates that feed Wilson’s phalarope and the millions of birds that come to the lake. Already, some sections of the lake are functionally dead after being cut off from the main body of water.

As part of an effort to save the lake and all that depends on it, a coalition of environmentalists and scientists filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last month to have Wilson’s phalarope listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. It’s a move that kicks off a years-long process that could force federal intervention to save the bird. Or it could force Utah and its neighboring states to devise their own conservation plan for the lake and Wilson’s phalarope to avoid federal involvement to protect the species.

“Our point is not to get a species on a list,” said Patrick Donnelly, the Great Basin director for the Center for Biological Diversity, which led the push for the petition. “Our point is to prevent extinction.”

#Great Salt Lake #Wilson’s phalarope #Endangered Species Act

[jonthefro]

Sunfall at the Great Salt Lake

X-H2 + Laowa Argus 33mm f/0.95

#fujifilm xh2 #fujifilm #fujigang #great salt lake #salt lake city #sunset #blue hour #golden hour #landscape photography

[tomorrowusa]

The Great Salt Lake is drying up and the Republican government of Utah is doing little to save it. They constantly cave to the usual groups: agricultural interests, mining, homeowners who like spacious lawns in an arid region, and big industry.

The largest saltwater lake in the western hemisphere has been steadily shrinking, as more and more water has been diverted away from the lake to irrigate farmland, feed industry and water lawns. A megadrought across the US south-west, accelerated by global heating, has hastened the lake’s demise. Unless dire action is taken, the lake could decline beyond recognition within five years, a report published early this year warned, exposing a dusty lakebed laced with arsenic, mercury, lead and other toxic substances.The resulting toxic dustbowl would be “one of the worst environmental disasters in modern US history”, the ecologist Ben Abbott of Brigham Young University told the Guardian earlier this year. Despite such warnings, officials have failed to take serious action, local groups said in their lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday. “We are trying to avert disaster. We are trying to force the hand of state government to take serious action,” said Brian Moench of the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, one of the groups suing state agencies. “Plaintiffs pray that this Court declare that the State of Utah has breached its trust duty to ensure water flows into the Great Salt Lake sufficient to maintain the Lake,” reads the lawsuit, which was brought by coalition that includes Earthjustice, the Utah Rivers Council, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, among others.

Political pressure has not been very effective in a state dominated by Republicans. The state's response is lukewarm at best. That's in addition to bizarre proposals.

The state’s Republican governor, Spencer Cox, has suspended new claims to water in the Great Salt Lake basin and appointed a commissioner to oversee response to the lake crisis. Last year, Utah’s legislature passed several conservation measures, including a $40m trust to support lake preservation projects. But Abbott and his colleagues, who authored a sobering report on the lake in January, found that those measures increased flows to the lake by just 100,000 acre feet in 2022. About 2.5m acre-feet a year of water will need to flow into the lake to bring it to a healthy level, the researchers estimated. That water will likely have to come at the expense of agriculture, which takes in about three-quarters of the water diverted away from the lake to grow mostly alfalfa and hay. Cities and mineral extraction operations each take up another 9% of diverted water. But wresting water away from agriculture is politically complicated. Officials have explored propositions to pay farmers to fallow land and use less water, though such proposals have yet to gain much tractions. Lawmakers have also offered up a series of out-of-the-box solutions – including cloud seeding, which uses chemicals to prompt more precipitation – or building a giant pipeline from the Pacific Ocean.

Seriously, a pipeline from the Pacific Ocean? This is a classic idiotic GOP way to deal with an environmental catastrophe which doesn't get to the root of the problem.

Already, the lake has lost 73% of its water and 60% of its surface area, and is becoming saltier, threatening native flies and brine shrimp. A diminished lake may be unable to support the more than 10 million migratory birds that stop over in the region. A white pelican colony recently abandoned a nesting site on the lake, potentially due to declining water levels. “In addition to the millions of people who live here, so many plants and animals depend on the lake,” said Deeda Seed, Utah campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The health of northern Utah’s entire population depends on the Great Salt Lake’s survival and I hope this lawsuit can help save it.”

^^^ emphasis added

Yep, take their asses to court to save the body of water which gave the state's largest city its name.

#utah #great salt lake #water levels #diversion of water #the environment #migratory birds #white pelicans #brine shrimp #republicans #utah state government #spencer cox #deeda seed #brian moench #ben abbott #earthjustice #utah rivers council #the sierra club #center for biological diversity #utah physicians for a healthy environment

[20th-century-railroading]

F-4 class 2-10-2 No. 3712 leads a freight across the Great Salt Lake on the Lucin Cutoff west of Ogden, Utah, in the 1940s. The line was part of the famed Overland Route where through Southern Pacific freight trains operated in conjunction with Union Pacific. Richard Haughton photo

#sp #southern pacific #1940s #trains #freight train #history #great salt lake #ogden #utah

[lostinmirkwood]

#sunset #spiral jetty #great salt lake

[coaz-photography]

Sometimes I find the weirdest shit out on the beach. 

November, 2021

#salt lake city #slc #great salt lake #Utah #landscape #landscape photography #mcdonalds #flowers #monster #burger king

[johbeil]

Tiny little water creature 

Great Salt Lake, Utah, 1978. Rolleiflex SL35 E with 50 mm Zeiss lens on Fuji film.

#water creature #hand #great salt lake #utah #photographers on tumblr #palm #water #close-up #film photography #35 mm #analog photography #i still shoot film #film is alive #staybrokeshootfilm #original photographers #Rachel #tiny creature #life

[oogleboogleoogle]

The Great Salt Lake. She STINKS. At no point in my life do I recall anyone ever warning me about the stench of the Great Salt Lake.

The smelter on the other side of the highway was more interesting than the lake itself.

#Great Salt Lake #Salt Lake #Stinky Lake #Utah #smelter #mountain #moody clouds

[dopescissorscashwagon]

By KenJames: On the great salt lake, there's a portion of it that has turned a beautiful dark magenta from the algae. It's even more gorgeous when it reflects the clouds on a blue backdrop. This was one of those scenarios where the drone came in handy cause I wanted to get the dolphin like reflection into the shot, so I had to send it up around 200ft to get it.

📸 @Openshutter21_photography

#@Openshutter21_photography #Ken James #Pink #Drone #Blue #Photography #Great Salt Lake #Nature #Travel

[pprairie]

Sunset over the Wasatch Range from Antelope Island, Utah

#im going to start occasionally posting some of my photos here because i dont want them to sit on my camera forever! #landscape #utah #antelope island #mountains #sunset #great salt lake #photography #my pics #american west

[seanssaenz]

1-6-24 Antelope Island State Park, Utah

-Sean S. 勝雲

#antelope island #utah #winter #snow #my photography #original photography #photography #landscape #great salt lake

[jonthefro]

You know the sunset is good if your black and white rolls still hit.

First two are Acros-II (probably my new favorite black and white stock, honestly), last one is HP5 pushed two stops.

I'm planning on shooting Across a lot more this coming year. It's just stupid sharp for a film stock.

#film is not dead #film photography #medium format #shot on film #analog #film #fujica #fujiacros100 #acros100 #black and white landscapes #black and white photography #black and white #great salt lake #salt lake city #salt lake #film is forever #travel photography