Letter: Building more homes in Utah and raising the level of the Great Salt Lake are incompatible goals

I don’t get it.

Utah’s governor wants to raise the level of the Great Salt Lake to around 4,200 feet elevation by 2034.

David Tarboton, a Utah State University professor of water resources engineering, says to achieve that goal in about nine or 10 years will take about 800,000 acre feet of water per year (85,000,000 gallons).

The governor also wants to build 30,000 more homes in Utah in the next few years. I’m guessing at least half of them would be in the Great Salt Lake drainage, i.e. the Wasatch Front. 15,000 more would probably mean at least 35,000 more people.

The Utah Department of Natural Resources says the current gallons per capita per day (the average per person usage per day) is about 365 gallons. If there were only 35,000 new people, they would use almost 13,000,000 gallons of water per year.

Do they bring that water with them or is it diverted from the lake?

Am I missing something here?

Andy White, Holladay

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