Here is the latest word on Dredging and Breaching
BREACH – the Breach is on. It WILL begin on December 1st. The breach will not be removed in one day but over a few days. To best explain the impact that this will have on lake levels it may be best to explain why the breach is happening.
Union Pacific built a solid railroad causeway across the Great Salt Lake back in the 1950’s. this was to replace the failing trestle that was built in 1902-1903. The causeway runs from Ogden to Promontory Point. Then from Promontory Point to the Lakeside over at the north tip of the Lakeside Mountains. The causeway originally had two small culverts large enough for a small motor boat to pass through. This was to allow the exchange of water and brine between the (now) two halves of Great Salt Lake. Almost all the fresh water comes into the south half of Great Salt Lake through three main tributaries; Bear River, Weber/Ogden River, and the Jordan River. During the floods of the 1980’s the culverts were partially clogged with rock and other debris. Union Pacific built a 300’ breach near Lakeside to allow a better exchange of fresh water north and brine south between the two halves of the lake in order to keep the lake in a healthy balance.
A few years back Union Pacific applied for a permit to clog the two original culverts with the reason that they were in imminent danger of collapsing. The causeway is built on a soft lakebed and the causeway is slowly sinking. Army Corp of Engineers approved the clogging of the culverts with the understanding that a new breach, equaling the exchange of water of the original culverts, be built to maintain the exchange of water. Since then the lake has continued to drop and water is no longer flowing through the western breach over at Lakeside. This means that, while the southern half of the lake continues to receive spring runoff from the three main tributaries, the north half is getting almost no runoff but is suffering from evaporation.
On a normal year there will be about six inches of difference in lake level between the south half of Great Salt Lake and the north half during the winter and about 1 foot during the summer. But with no water flowing into the north half of the lake and the effects of several years of drought the lake level disparity has now become much greater with the north half being 3.5 feet low than the south half. The breach is now built and Union Pacific WILL be tearing out the coffer dam separating the two halves on December 1st. USGS has estimated that the south half could drop 1 to 1.3 feet in elevation in three to five weeks. In reality no one quite knows how fast the exchange will be or how much the south half will really drop. It COULD be as much as 1.6 feet.
The lake level bottomed out mid-October and has slowly begun to rise. We have come up 2/10ths of a foot since then are likely to come up 1/10th of a foot more before the breach starts draining the south half. It is likely we will reach a lake level near 4191.0’ above sea level by the end of December. This does not leave much water left in the Great Salt Lake Marina.
DREDGING – Dredging is on. The company awarded the contract will begin mobilizing equipment within the next few weeks but actual dredging is still some time off. There is a lot of work that needs to be done before the actual dredging process begins sometime mid-Winter. Before I go on I must explain that there is not enough money to dredge nearly as far as we need to in order to get the bulk of the boats back into the lake this late spring-early summer without a really good (above average) snowpack. Since the dredging process began a few years back we have had three lousy winter snowpacks with two of them being catastrophic for lake levels. And there is not enough money to dredge the whole marina. WE MUST HAVE A VERY GOOD SNOWPACK THIS YEAR to begin getting the bulk of the boats back in the water.
The dredging company is still in the design phase but, AT THIS TIME, they think there is an 80% chance that they will not coffer dam the marina. This could still change and a coffer dam may be constructed. I will keep you posted.
CRANE DAY – Crane Day is still scheduled for December 2nd. This is one day after the breaching of causeway. Time is of the essence to begin getting boats out before they are at substantial risk of being stuck in the mud. We have had quite a bit of interest in the crane day and we may need to crane boats over a two day period. This may mean starting crane work on December 1st or running into Saturday and paying overtime on the crane. We will do the best we can to accommodate those that want to come out. PLEASE RSVP NOW if you want to utilize the crane. There is a great deal of planning that needs to be done in order to have a safe and efficient crane day.
I will keep you posted on any other developments as they come along.
Thanks
Dave
Dave Shearer
Harbor Master
Great Salt Lake State Marina
Antelope Island State Marina
801-209-9142
