#DROWNUT: (Drown Utah)
Make Lake Bonneville Great Again!! (MLBGA)
Thankfully this isn't real policy, but I always have a sense of humor about our politics. It seems like noone has a truly good sense of humor in today's society anymore.
This map shows if Lake Bonneville was reflooded what the effect would be, using monuments as a substitute for the cities that would be drowned.
Lake Bonneville was a giant inland saltwater sea that covered most of Utah and Nevada during the Ice Age. It is why the Intermountain West is also known as the "Great Basin". 75% of Utah's population lives in the region covered by Lake Bonneville. This is due to two reasons: First the Wasatch Fault cuts canyons and livable mountain valleys out of the otherwise impossible to live Rocky Mountains. The second has to do with the seafloor itself. The deposition of sediment led to fertile farmlands, which the original Mormon pioneers dearly needed to make it in the arid, salty desert lands that they had been forced onto by the mobs of Missouri and Illinois. (They did however pick the land because it was the middle of nowhere, instead of the hill country of Texas, California, Oregon, or Mexico, where they wouldn't run into conflicts with settlers until about ten or twenty years down the line). Much like how the Pannonian Sea in Serbia, Croatia, and Hungary left some of the most fertile soil in the world in the provinces of Slavonia, Pannonia, and southern Hungary, Lake Bonneville helped make settlement possible in the region.
Societal and Economic Effects: About 75% of people would have to leave in the state of Utah, along with some in Idaho, and Nevada. It also would also end some of the best performing economic hubs in the United States including the Provo-Orem area, Salt Lake City, and Logan, Utah. The Silicon Slopes would end. The University of Utah, Brigham Young University, Utah State University, Weber State University, Ensign College, Paul Mitchell the School, Snow College, Utah Valley University, Salt Lake Community College, and so many educational powerhouses would be drowned or relocated. The only remaining universities in the region would be Brigham Young University-Idaho, Southern Utah University, UNLV, and Dixie State University.
Restoring the Salt Flats: As Lake Bonneville dried up, as a saltwater sea it deposited salt. This led to the internationally recognized salt flats. The SaltFlats are some of the worlds best places to set and break land speed records such as the world's fastest cars. There is also mining for potassium deposits. However, the salt flats are lowering at a rapid rate. The drivers want to blame the miners, and the minors want to blame the drivers. It could be use, climate change, and a host of other factors. Why not recreate the salt flats using nature's time proven methods---by flooding the region and letting the salt flats recrystalize in 10,000 years?
https://wasatchmag.com/are-racers-to-blame-for-the-bonneville-speedways-death/
Recently, the State of Utah has been looking to build an inland port in the Great Salt Lake, which is a remnant of Lake Bonneville. The City and County of Salt Lake have vigorously protested the lack of process and listening to community concerns.
My question to people on all sides of this issue is:
Why do we need an Inland Port, when we can have an Inland Sea?
Endangered Species: The Bonneville Cutthroat is an endangered species of cutthroat trout. When the lake dried up into its constituent lakes, the trout was left high and dry from all of its other cousin populations. There is a lot of genetic drift which reduces the necessary genetic diversity to preserve the species. Perhaps by drowning Utah and refilling Lake Bonneville, we can save the Bonneville Cutthroat trout from becoming another one of the 99% of all time species that have become an evolutionary dead end.