Man-made islands could change Utah Lake forever.

[RonPaulFan]

Man-made islands could change Utah Lake forever. Here are 6 things you need to know | KSL.com

Ronald   

[Therapist]

Thihs pops up every 8-10 years. There is only one problem. Utah Lake's bottom is unstable. American Fork purchased a dredge years ago with the intent of dredging the AF harbor. The problem they found was that the bottom of the lake is so fluid, they were sucking muck from the main lake as they tried to dredge the harbor. Why do you think that the State Park has to dredge the channel along the dyke every 6=8 years, the lake bottom flows into the harbor and fills in the channel. Building Islands would be great, if you can find a way to anchor them. Based on my understanding of the lake bottom, they would eventually sink into the ooze that makes up the lake bottom. While there are areas of the lake that are stable, the vast majority of the bottom is ooze and mud that have filled in the lake over time. Remember, Utah Lake a glacial bowl carved out during the ice age and then became part of Lake Bonneville. The ooze is composed of fine mud and silt washed into the lake over millennia and complemented by the deposition of diatoms over that same period ( diatoms are microscopic organisms that have a calcareous exoskeleton. When they die, their exoskeleton becomes part of the bottom ooze. If enough are deposited and compressed, you end up with deposits of calcium carbonate in the form of limestone or chalk[cliffs of Dover], In Utah Lake they mix with the mud and silt and form the bottom ooze !! Very fluid, very unstable).

Islands are a good idea, but impractical until you can stabilize the bottom !!

[RonPaulFan]

Therapist, Thanks for your historical, geological, technical, practical and sensible perspectives.

In these crazy times I didn't recognize it and took it seriously though I did post just the link here without comment because I was sure my friends here would know more about Utah Lake.

With that, I recategorize it as the new normal:

Perhaps it is lent credibility by the political bias of KSL.  It would be quite a project, but I'm sure Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with her college education of Modern Economic Theory would tell us only the government can do it and it would only cost a Trillion Dollars to drain the lake, clean out the muck, shuttle it to dump it into the Sun and build New Green Buildings out of paper mache and it won't cost us anything to create those trillions out of nothing because billionaires and corporations will pay for it.

Build Back Better! Yea!!!

Ronald   

[SkunkedAgain]

So I'm not sure how I feel about the island deal, initially I had the knee jerk reaction that it would never work. I also felt like it's a big land grab for the wealthy and the public would be shorted from the deal. But if this was truly done so the private folks really put up the money to do this, which these days you always doubt because they seem to make public pay for their failures and they keep all the success to themselves... But if this could be done in a fair way, I actually think it would be possible, I'm pretty sure they could figure out how to put barriers in the lake that will hold the water out, and after pumping the water out, they could get big equipment in and move the muck out. Now how they would ever be able to dry it so it would become solid enough to use for island fill, I'm sure that will take some study... and this all goes with the understanding that core samples are taken to verify that there is a solid bottom under the muck. If Utah county continues to maintain it's hot job and real-estate market I'm pretty sure the islands would be very hot spots for building. The concern of mosquito's is not an issue as long as the abatement folks use the right chemical and don't get influenced to buy the stuff that doesn't work because of kick backs to their own pocket books... Not that I'm saying that happened, but anyway that doesn't have anything to do with this issue. I can see a lot of plus and minus issues, but I think it's not as crazy of an idea as i initially thought it was... I do think it will have to have a lot of thought and controls to make sure it doesn't turn into a big scandle, but I think that is possible... Looking at the possibility of a deeper lake with carp under control and maybe wiper in there to become a trophy fishery sounds interesting.... But I don't have a vested interest in the lake, you guys that fish there do, so I shouldn't be making decisions for your pond... What are some of your thoughts after you think about it outside of the emotional response?.... Later J

---

You know if I was an existing shore line property owner, I'd want to make sure the islands were a long ways from my shore line, I'd hate to have the population increase coming into my back yard... Later J