Bird Health Used To Monitor Wastewater Project

Scientists are monitoring the health of birds at the Great Salt Lake in Utah to gauge pollution from a $74 million water-reclamation project.

“Soon, mallards — and more specifically their eggs — may be the gatekeepers” of this effort, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

“Private scientists will monitor the ducks' nests every year to determine the impact of a pipeline dumping 1.5 million gallons a day of wastewater — the byproduct of a public-private partnership between Kennecott Utah Copper and the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District — on the lakebed,” the report continued.

The project represents the final stages in a 10-year effort to clean up underground water contamination caused by a century of minerals and heavy metal dumping by the mining industry, according to the Associated Press.

“The water will be cleansed in two reverse osmosis plants, with the clean water going into the culinary water supply and the removed minerals going into wastewater that will be pumped into the Great Salt Lake. The 1.5 million gallons of water a day isn't much for Utah's inland sea and Environmental Protection Agency regulators decided in March the discharges won't cause significant impacts,” the report said.

Concern for the health of the Great Salt Lake and its wildlife has grown as water has become increasingly scarce.

“The Great Salt Lake in Utah is near its lowest recorded levels,” The Washington Post reported. “As a devastating drought parches California and other Western states, lawmakers are confronting a century of conflicting interests and political mismanagement. In the West, nothing sets politics aflame as quickly as water.”