Proposal for treated groundwater would affect Great Salt Lake

SALT LAKE CITY — Bolstered by a four-year, $2 million study and more than two decades of planning, a project that aims to pipe the byproduct of treated groundwater to a bay at the Great Salt Lake is inching forward.

The 60-day public comment period on a draft permit for the project begins Monday, and a meeting on the proposal is scheduled for May 5, when additional comments will be accepted.

Cleanup of contaminated shallow groundwater and a deeper aquifer in southwestern Salt Lake County is being undertaken by the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District, which is constructing a "reverse osmosis" treatment plant that will use permeable membranes to filter sulfate, selenium and other contaminants left from mining and other urban impacts.

Billed as one of the most extensive groundwater cleanup efforts in the country, the project will also produce an additional 4,735 acre-feet of municipal water a year for the valley.

But the byproduct of the treatment process is what is being proposed to be conveyed to Gilbert Bay in the Great Salt Lake via a 21-mile pipeline, the first phase of which is under construction. Plans call for 3 million gallons of treated water to be piped daily to the bay, which as part of the Great Salt Lake is a destination for millions of migratory water fowl.

Questions regarding co-existence of the byproduct and the birds is what led to the study. The presence of selenium, a mineral that in elevated levels would pose reproductive harm to the birds, is being discussed.

Although a selenium standard has been set by the EPA for acceptable limits in fresh water, no such standard exists for salt water. Water quality regulators working with a panel of scientists spent four years studying to determine a standard. It was submitted to the EPA, which neither approved nor disapproved of the standard.

Richard Bay, the district's general manager, called the study groundbreaking.

"It was the most comprehensive in the world," he said. "It was so extensive, so groundbreaking and critical. What the studies recommended and the (water quality) board approved is a standard based on selenium in bird eggs because it is the most early warning signal of impact to the ecosystem."

The standard, he added, is unique because it is not based on selenium levels in water but in bird tissue.

Bay and water quality regulators are keenly aware that the pumping of anything into the Great Salt Lake will raise concerns among advocacy groups, particularly if there is a potential risk to the Great Salt Lake ecosystem.